Well done! Good to see you were worrying over nothing :P

That sounds like they will contact you either way. But I wouldn't put too much on the dates they give. Academics are notorious for not sticking to deadlines. It took me two months after the closing date to hear back from some posts I have applied for. You've just got to wait it out and keep applying for other stuff in the meantime.

Hi, yes the titles vary across countries. The US uses totally different titles for example e.g. anyone who teaches is a professor (assistant prof., associate prof.), whereas in the UK these are the lecturer/senior lecturer roles.

The titles can also vary within the UK. Also role responsibilities and staff benefits and pay will vary across institutions e.g. I note in the link you posted it said post doc fellows are staff, well so are all those positions under it in my institution.

I don't know of any specific links, I've just seen this stuff on individual university websites when looking for information when applying for jobs. Basically, you need to check each one when applying as a research associate in one isn't a research associate in another and the pay and grade can vary. And then of course regardless of what a job advert or university guidelines say, the PI can just make up their own rules when you start the job - there may be no official working hours, but they try to stipulate them, or you find out that no one follows the HR guidelines anyway etc.

Thanks for the additional insight Trilla. Has anyone seen any communication from the author about this paper since? Are they a respected academic or just a random person with an academic job?

You can apply for postdocs whilst waiting for your viva. Looking for postdocs is what most people are doing in between thesis submission and viva... that and writing papers.

1) Yes, I don't see why not, unless there's funding restrictions. There shouldn't be visa or uni restrictions on this.

2) Zero? I don't think you pay until just before you start

If that person is an editorial member of most relevant publications then you are going to have the same issue wherever you publish. Just write to the editor and say that that person has a potential conflict of interest (nothing else) and request that someone else is the associate editor and chooses the reviewers. This is probably a question you will be asked upon submission to the journal anyway.

According to universities, anyone doing a BSc, MSc or PhD is a student in the UK. These people do not have contracts of employment, so they are not employees. We are all called students at my uni - usually "undergrads" and "postgrads". Postdocs on the other hand, are not students, they are employees. They may be trainees, but they are not students.

The hierarchy of knowledge is obvious once you make the transition - of course I know more than undergrads and MSc/PhD students about my particular field now, so it's easy to think of them as students with a lot to learn, after all, I spend a lot of time training and advising them. I'm sure my former PhD supervisors think the same about me and about their postdocs and junior colleagues. When I think back to how little I knew in the first year of my PhD compared to now...

This is a useful infographic:
http://www.labspaces.net/blog/1444/How_people_in_science_see_each_other_

I only have a layperson's grasp of this subject matter, but I do believe in academic freedom of thought and writing. I see nothing wrong with this publication as one academic's take on the matter. Others are free to rebut it.

It's possible, but of course harder. I don't know specifically about creative industries. I would suggest networking to find a way in if possible, as it will be easier to overlook a 3rd on paper than if someone knows you.

This might differ in different countries. In the UK, a research assistant post is usually for someone without a PhD. It's like a technician. Then research associate is for someone with a PhD - it's a first postdoc. Sometimes people work full or pt as a research assistant and do a PhD full or pt but this is fairly rare.

Most people on here are either studying in the UK or from the UK so you might not get many responses.

I'd say start with the rest of your cohort - it's always easier.