Career development

In this section we discuss how the institutes impact the career development of the postdocs and assistant professors through the division of tasks, internal relationships, and promotion criteria.

4.4.1. IMR

Education was a central element in the career development of the assistant professors within IMR. Not only lecturing but also setting up and coordinating courses was part of their education load. Getting their University Teaching Qualification was an aim of several, with the goal to get tenure or promotion. This procedure took up relatively much time, to the frustration of several interviewees. Except one, nobody got compensation for the time spent on this procedure. Social relations were built around education mostly, e.g. through meetings that more often than not centred around educational affairs. For the few postdocs present in the IMR that we spoke to, this led to relative isolation.

For the postdocs, little support came from the institute, except for their direct supervisors. Their goals were to conduct research, publish articles and acquire grants. One of them mentioned that as she had no valuable networks to draw from, she would have to become successful in her academic career through the winning of (prestigious) grants. They acknowledged the importance of teaching experience for a further academic career, but one was not interested in teaching or an academic career per se, and the other had a 100% research task and was still recovering from a disease at the time of the interview.

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For the assistant professors, criteria to get tenure were “ambiguous” and “vague”.

Publications, good teaching evaluations, University Teaching Qualifications, and gaining funding were criteria recurrently mentioned by interviewees as most important criteria. Teaching evaluations were criticized by multiple interviewees: they argued how these evaluations do not revolve around the quality of teaching but around student perceptions of teachers; these evaluations are too much emphasized. Additionally, management or administrative tasks are mostly seen as needed to get ahead towards either tenure or an associate professor position. Finally, grant proposal writing was an important theme concerning future plans, as the interviewees knew that in order to be able to do research besides their teaching tasks they would have to bring in their own research money. The start of their career was seen as an important phase that would influence their chances for the rest of their career:

“especially in the beginning of your career it’s important that you can propel yourself

forward [knallen], can show who you are...And when you then have a nice publication, you go and build from that so to say, because based on that you can work together with

people who suddenly find you interesting for what you have accomplished” (IMR,

assistant professor, man)

Several interviewees indicated that they would have liked to see more sharing of knowledge and progress regarding research within the faculty through meetings or seminars. A few suggested a mentoring program or structural coaching. Others mentioned more (small) budgets for early career scholars in the IMR to travel abroad for short periods, such as conferences of collecting data in fieldwork. One interviewee wanted a longer paternal leave for men around the birth of their children.

4.4.2. IMAPP

Within IMAPP there seemed to be a clear agreement that academic careers cannot be built within one institution, or even one country. Going abroad was an almost taken-for- granted aspect of a successful career in STEM sciences. Some interviewees came from abroad, whereas several Dutch interviewees had experience abroad. Diversity of employers and countries for the sake of building networks and of gaining new perspectives and learning of other ways of doing were important elements here. Other criteria often mentioned were publications (though more emphasized by the postdocs than the more senior assistant professors) and acquiring research money through grants. The postdocs were mostly focused on doing the research they wanted to get ahead, knowing that publications are key to being accepted for tenure-track jobs. The assistant professors were more focused on acquiring grants to further develop their research lines and research groups.

Education was approached by most postdocs in the interviews as something ‘on the side’. More than most postdocs, the assistant professors saw education as much more important for their advancement. One of the assistant professors met all criteria to become associate professor, yet the only thing standing between this interviewee and promotion was getting a Advanced University Teaching Qualification, required for an associate professorship.

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Committee work was also more important for assistant professors than for postdocs.

Some postdocs saw ‘organizational citizenship’ simply as sometimes attending faculty meetings, a few had a history of active participation in committees.

Another aspect important for career development regularly mentioned had to do with personal relationships and networking. Most interviewees were aware of the importance of visibility and knowing people in their field for their potential advancement in science:

“being very good in your field does not guarantee that you’re gonna get a permanent

position at the end...you just have to be exactly the right person at the right time in the

right place...”. (IMAPP, postdoc, woman)

One woman stated how image and publications were the two important aspects of acquiring grants and building an academic career:

“no one really um records like what, since I don’t have fixed some kind of obligations, no

one really records what I’m doing in any time. The only thing that matters is how much l publish and how much of image I’m creating” (IMAPP, postdoc, woman)

This quote shows how postdocs have the space and freedom to do either their own or a

project’s research, while this at the same time lacks social support or control – the annual evaluation of publications aside. From the large part of the IMAPP interviews, the image arises of postdocs as academic entrepreneurs, who need an institute to be appointed to and a network to draw resources and positions from. Several postdocs mentioned one particular woman professor who sponsored them to gain access to the institute.