Creating Research Environments that foster Mental Health and Wellbeing Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • Increasing awareness of Researcher Mental Health has emerged through journalistic articles in the most prominent science journals, in discussions among early-career researchers on social media and bottom-up initiatives of early-career researchers. Recent research findings on the prevalence of mental illness among academics and early career researchers, such as, the seminal paper of Levecque et al. (Research Policy, 2017), have received much attention. Although much work remains to be done to destigmatise mental health among research stakeholders, many research institutions and research funders are beginning to take action to design institutional practices that support researcher wellbeing and ensure a positive research culture within the research environment. This session will include speakers, who have formulated clear policy recommendations about how to foster supportive and inclusive research environments. The Researcher Mental Health and Well-Being Manifesto (Kismihok et al., 2021, https://zenodo.org/record/5559806) is a call to identify which practices and actions are effective at creating research environments that foster mental health and wellbeing, reduce mental health stigma, and empower researchers when it comes to well-being in their workplace. The ReMO COST Action provides a framework for involving a network of researchers, practitioners and institutional stakeholders in achieving the objectives of the Manifesto through designing actions and initiatives at the policy, institutional, community and individual levels.

    The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers was updated in 2019 and commits research institutions in the UK to obligations with regard to research environment and culture, employment, and professional and career development. In the updated Concordat, mental health became a key theme of how institutions, funders, supervisors and researchers can promote a healthy research environment.
    The career outlook and working conditions of PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers have been addressed by the Marie Curie Alumni Association and Eurodoc in the Declaration on Sustainable Researcher Careers (Kismihok et al., 2019, https://zenodo.org/record/3082245) with recommendations to redesign the education of early-career researchers, so that they are empowered to build a more vibrant European Research Area, whether they make a career inside or outside academia. The dysfunctional nature of career progression at the postdoctoral level has been addressed by the OECD report on “Reducing the precarity of academic research careers” (2021, https://doi.org/10.1787/23074957) with recommendations “to improve working conditions and professional development, better link funding to human resource policies, make governance more inclusive, promote equal opportunities and diversity, improve human resource management, promote inter-sectoral and international mobility, and develop the evidence base on research careers”.

    Finally, the session will include the perspective of a practitioner from a Counselling Service within an academic institution, who provides psychological, psychotherapeutic and psychiatric services to academic staff and students based on evidence-based interventions.

publication date

  • 2022