GoKawiilJob hunting in the current economic climate can feel like a futile task for many early-career researchers.Credit: Amit Basu/Getty
I am struggling to find job security. Over the past two years, I’ve been rejected for positions as a senior research fellow, a lecturer and a research funding manager. My initial one-year contract, which was extended to 2.5 years, officially ends in three months. Every application feels like a lottery ticket. Every rejection feels personal, even when I know it shouldn’t. It’s as if I’m no longer good enough to be in academia. The stress is building. I feel like my career is at stake and, even more urgently, I’m starting to ask myself difficult questions about how to pay my rent once my contract runs out.
I know I’m not alone. At least five friends and colleagues at a similar career stage are also applying for jobs with months, or even weeks, left on their current contracts. It’s difficult to aim for independence as a researcher by landing a fellowship or getting a permanent position while navigating a career stage filled with fixed-term contracts.
My relationship with my PhD supervisor has become toxic — what do I do?
I hold a PhD in behavioural science, as well as a doctorate-equivalent qualification required to become a chartered health psychologist. I currently work as a researcher on the mental-health impacts of climate change at Imperial College London, one of the world’s leading universities.
And I’ve done what you’re supposed to do to make it in academia: I’ve published papers, won research grants and consultancy funding, taught across disciplines and co-hosted a United Nations webinar on what solutions young people want to improve their mental well-being during the climate crisis. I’ve also presented and strategized at a European Commission meeting on climate and health, and have been featured on the BBC World Service’s The Climate Question.
I work with several youth-led organizations, co-lead the lived-experience advisory board for the Lancet Psychiatry Commission on climate change and mental health, and deliver training on how to have difficult conversations about the climate, including at the Natural History Museum in London. I have academic mentors supporting me. Outside academia, I have worked in several sectors, including for charities and non-governmental organizations aiding hurricane recovery in the Caribbean.
Many people have achieved much more, but on paper I hoped that I looked like someone who should feel secure in their academic career.
Identifying the issues
So, myself and my colleagues find ourselves whispering the same question: is this a personal failing, or a symptom of a wider systemic shift in academia? A meta-analysis published in Nature Human Behaviour in June1 reported that early-career researchers have a greater prevalence of symptoms of mental ill health, such as depression and anxiety, compared with the general population. Job insecurity is listed as one of the stressors. I feel especially drawn to this issue because, as a health psychologist, I can see how allowing this period of uncertainty to become a period of self-criticism could damage my health and be unhelpful in my job hunt.
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