How to write an academic CV

By Basile Chrétien · PharmD, MSc, MPH · June 10, 2026 · 6 min read

A practical guide to writing an academic CV: what to include, how to order and format each section, how long it should be, how to list publications, and how conventions differ by career stage and country.

An academic CV (curriculum vitae) is the standard document for applying to research and teaching posts, graduate programmes, fellowships, and grants. Unlike a one- or two-page résumé, it is a complete, evolving record of your scholarly life — your education, publications, funding, teaching, and service — and it keeps growing throughout your career.

This guide covers what to include, how to order and format each section, how long an academic CV should be, how to list publications, and how the conventions differ by career stage and country. If you would rather not assemble it by hand, you can build one automatically from your ORCID record — see the last section.

What is an academic CV?

A CV is a comprehensive academic biography. Its job is to document the full breadth of your scholarly contributions so that a hiring committee, funder, or admissions panel can assess your record. Where a résumé is tailored and trimmed to a single role, an academic CV is exhaustive and cumulative: you add to it over time and rarely remove anything.

Because it is read by specialists, an academic CV favours completeness and accuracy over brevity. Clear structure, consistent formatting, and correctly formatted citations matter more than visual flourish.

What to include: the core sections

Most academic CVs are built from the same building blocks. Include the sections relevant to your field and career stage, and omit those you have nothing to put in yet:

• Header — name, current position, and professional contact details (and your ORCID iD).
• Research interests / summary — a few lines framing your work (optional, more common earlier in a career).
• Education — degrees in reverse-chronological order, with institution, dates, and thesis title.
• Appointments / positions — academic and relevant professional roles.
• Publications — the centrepiece for most research roles (see below).
• Grants & funding — awarded funding, with funder, title, amount, and dates.
• Awards & honours — fellowships, prizes, and distinctions.
• Teaching — courses taught, guest lectures, and teaching roles.
• Supervision & mentoring — students and trainees supervised.
• Presentations — invited talks, conference papers, and posters.
• Service — peer review, editorial roles, committees, and outreach.
• Professional memberships, skills, and references — as relevant to your field.

Ordering the sections

After the header, education, and positions, lead with whatever is strongest for the role you are applying to. For research-intensive posts and grants, put publications and funding high; for teaching-focused roles, bring teaching and supervision up. Tailor the order to the reader without inventing or padding content.

How to list publications

The publication list is where most committees spend their time, so make it easy to scan and impossible to misread:

• List works in reverse-chronological order, optionally grouped by type (journal articles, preprints, book chapters, conference papers, datasets, software).
• Use one consistent citation style throughout, and keep it identical across every version of your CV.
• Highlight your own name in each author list so your contribution is visible at a glance.
• Include DOIs (and links) so readers can find the work.
• Mark works that are under review, in press, or preprints clearly and honestly.
• Do not pad the list — quality and relevance read better than volume.

Consistency is the most common failure point. Formatting every reference through a single citation style — the Citation Style Language (CSL) is the standard behind tools like Zotero — guarantees your Word, PDF, and LaTeX CVs all read identically.

How long should an academic CV be?

There is no fixed page limit — an academic CV is as long as your record justifies, and it grows over time. As a rough guide: a master's or PhD applicant might have 2–4 pages, a postdoc 3–6, and a senior professor well beyond ten. The exception is funder and job "short CVs", which often cap length (e.g. two pages) or use a narrative format such as the NIH biosketch, UKRI's Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI), or an ERC CV. When a call specifies a format or page limit, follow it exactly.

Tailoring by career stage

• Students & grad-school applicants — emphasise education, your thesis or research project, any publications or presentations, relevant skills, and references; it is fine to be short.
• PhD students & postdocs — lead with publications, conference activity, funding/fellowships, and teaching; keep it current for rolling job and grant deadlines.
• Faculty & principal investigators — foreground grants, publications, supervision, and service/leadership; expect a long, sectioned document and a separate short CV for funders.

Formatting and country differences

Conventions vary. In the US and Canada an academic "CV" is the long scholarly document (a "résumé" is the short industry version), while in much of Europe "CV" can mean either. Some countries expect a photo, date of birth, or nationality; many others — and most US/UK academic contexts — deliberately omit personal details to reduce bias. European applicants sometimes use the Europass format, and major funders increasingly require their own narrative CVs. When in doubt, match the norms of the country and institution you are applying to.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Inconsistent formatting or mixing several citation styles in one document.
• Padding the publication list or burying your most important work.
• Letting the CV go stale between applications.
• Ignoring a call's required format or page limit.
• Relying on a name match for your publications — common and non-Latin-script names are easily confused with someone else's work.
• Typos and broken links — proofread, and check every DOI resolves.

Build your academic CV automatically

Keeping an academic CV current is repetitive, manual work. SigmaCV (free and open source) builds it for you from your ORCID and OpenAlex record — matching your work by identifier, never by name — formats every citation consistently, and exports to PDF, Word, LaTeX, Markdown or BibTeX, or a living public page that re-syncs. Metrics are off by default and field-normalized, in line with DORA, and your data stays yours (per-field consent, export, deletion).

Build your academic CV free

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