The purpose of our research is to understand how postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) at Dutch research universities experience their working conditions, their further career prospects and opportunities, in relation to their mental health and wellbeing. The postdoc population is substantial and growing. Given that their lack of career prospects and…

Women in academia are typically outnumbered by men, a phenomenon metaphorically known as "the leaky pipeline." This study contributes by showing a motherhood penalty in the career pipeline at the postdoctoral stage in Germany--that is, during habilitation. Based on CV information and an email survey, the paper examines which factors are…

Scientific communication (SC) has important social-cognitive, behavioral, and career-related benefits for emerging researchers, but both mentors and mentees find development of SC skills challenging. Whether training mentors to effectively mentor development of SC skills could have a meaningful impact on mentees was not clear. The Scientific…

This paper argues that the South African postdoctoral fellow system is de-professionalising academic work by constituting postdocs as students who receive training from the university rather than employees who work for it. Ironically, it obscures this de-professionalisation with a discourse of postdoctoral fellowships as 'professional development'…

Postdoctoral researchers are important contributors to European higher education, playing significant roles in research, but also in teaching and societal engagement. Despite their valuable contribution, the situation of postdoctoral researchers remains challenging in Europe as issues such as temporary or short-term contracts, high workloads and…

A descriptive phenomenological research design using a socialisation theoretical framework is employed to describe the lived experience of socialisation and its influence in the career pathways of 16 engineering postdoctoral scholars. Descriptive phenomenological data analysis strategies resulted in four constituents regarding effective…

Authors examine the impact of honors education on four early career scholars who each spent two years in a postdoctoral position (2017-2023), highlighting how initial in-depth exposure to honors curricula and culture positively influences professional identity and teaching practice. Fellowships in a Teaching, Research, and Mentoring (TRM) Program…

Careers of early career researchers (ECRs) are significantly determined by the structural conditions within a scientific system. Due to the low predictability of career prospects in and outside academia, early and ongoing proactive career behaviour is crucial for their career development. However, ECRs' engagement in proactive career behaviour has…

Purpose: This paper aims to identify the documented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on early career researcher (ECR) activity, development, career prospects and well-being. Design/methodology/approach: This is a systematic literature review of English language peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2021, which provided empirical…

Background: The number of engineering PhDs pursuing postdoctoral research scholar (postdoc) positions has steadily increased in the last 30 years. Postdoc positions are commonly thought of as a step toward academic careers. However, engineering PhDs are more likely to work in industry, which leaves open the question of the role of postdocs in the…

Purpose: Mentoring postdocs is a shared responsibility and dynamic process that requires a mutual commitment between the faculty mentor and postdoc. The purpose of this study is to understand how minoritized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) postdocs view and engage in mentoring exchanges with their faculty mentors. In the…

Academic and policy discourse has idealised academic mobility despite studies showing that it can have adverse effects on individuals' experiences and contribute towards exacerbating existing inequalities. This article focuses on career (im)mobility stories of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) early career researchers that…

In discipline-based education research (DBER), early career scholars, such as graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, observe a slew of possible career pathways. Yet, there is a lack of opportunities to learn about such pathways, particularly when transitioning from traditional science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) disciplinary…

International mobility programmes, both in-person and virtual, aim to build human capital. Though there is evidence of their impact on skill development, there is scant research on career and professional benefits. Moreover, because virtual mobility is a new concept, there has been little investigation into how this mode affects the perceived…

This article explores how organizational mobility and foreign nationality affect a researcher's chances of an internal career promotion in university systems that do not have rules preventing inbreeding and where teaching occurs mostly not in English but a local language. As a case study, we have examined the Flemish university system, the Dutch…