The Psychologist, January/February 2023
Early Career Researchers: Our world, our challenges, our future.
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Early Career Researchers: Our world, our challenges, our future.
This is a member only download
Access to PDFs of Psychologist issues is restricted to members of the society. Join us to enjoy this and a host of other benefits.
Welcome to a very special guest edited edition. We have handed the wheel to a team of Early Career Researchers from the University of Bath. The amount and scope of contributions they have pulled together is truly impressive…
Opportunities and challenges faced by Early Career Researchers
We jumped on Twitter to ask a number of Early Career Researchers about their career in psychology and the challenges they face.
Jacob’s Ladder: facing the academic system
Richard Valentine assesses why a reform of today's academic system is needed.
The wall of who and what
Rachel Allen describes her experience attending university through a craftwork depicting her my own career experiences.
There's a researcher in me
Chelle Oldham brings us a poem describing all of the ‘hats’ an academic and researcher might wear on a daily basis throughout an academic year.
Not there yet
Sumangali Radhakrishnan brings us a short poem that focusses on the lived experiences of precariously employed, qualified academics in higher educational institutions in India.
Hi, I’d like to return this philosophical stance, please?
Charlotte Davis questions how much power she has over her own early career research decisions.
The importance of engaging with ontology and epistemology as an ECR
Yalda Natasha Tomlinson reflects on ontology and epistemology, two key philosophical ideas underpinning methodology in psychological research.
Engaging with research as a clinician
The following two articles consider the challenges and opportunities of engaging with research as an early career practitioner psychologist.
Engaging in Open Science practices as an ECR
Chloe Burke and Rachel Lees with challenges and recommendations.
‘Sometimes I give too much to one, and then the other one suffers’
Emily Hards discusses her experience of balancing motherhood with being an early career researcher working in academia. Questions from Guest Editor, Nina Higson-Sweeney.
Should I stay or should I go?
Dominika Bulska with a few words about doing research abroad.
‘Teaching gave me a source of purpose, structure, and self-efficacy…’
Daniella Nayyar and Naomi Heffer discuss the challenges surrounding identity in the PhD process.
Not all bad, not all good: Considering the mental health of Early Career Researchers
Guest editors Marlene Staginnus and Naomi Heffer meet with Cassie Hazell and Clio Berry to discuss their research into the factors impacting on ECR mental health.
Are we ready to talk about thriving in academia?
Or is it just about surviving? Kate Woodthorpe on the perils and potential of starting out.
The day of submission
Ryan Cogley's talks about the emotions of completing and handing in academic work.
Routes to change
We asked our Twitter followers about how challenges relating to ECRs are being, or could be, addressed.
Learning from experienced mentors
Christine Charvet has found this engenders success: how can we scale it?
Building empowering research communities
ECRs as leaders can create the academia we want to work in, argue Vera Maren Straßburger and Klara Jurstakova.
Risk reform, or remain within the academic monolith?
Sarahanne Field on ECRs stuck between a rock and hard place.
Being RAD
Kunalan Manokara with three steps for a young scientist to cultivate diversity of thought.
Open scholarship pedagogical communities
Flavio Azevedo on how they can help ECRs overcome individual and structural challenges in academia.
Academia or Industry: A tired dichotomy?
Rebecca Woodrow investigates why there is a mismatch between the comparatively small amount of positions available and the number of ECRs seeking them.
Passport privilege in academia
Parvathy Ramesh outlines the routes for change.
Pursuing a job overseas
Táhcita Medrado Mizael, PhD, with a tale on multiple dimensions of diversity and inclusion.
Being non-WEIRD in WEIRD Academia
Alma Jeftić reflects on how she and other colleagues have been seen throughout their career for coming from a low and middle-income countries.
Don’t rock the boat?
Jordan Kirwan reflects on his experience as a working-class PhD researcher, the challenges around identity and concerns around how activism can impact career prospects.
Responding to the climate crisis
Samuel Finnerty on opportunities and challenges around activism.
The Union and the University of the Future
Kayleigh Charlton on why treating long-term, positive relationships between employers, employees, and the union allow us to focus on building the best possible future.
Featured job: Serco, HMP Fosse Way
Various Psychologist roles.
Visions of the future
At a crossroads between dystopias and utopias, we took to Twitter to ask a tricky question...
Envisaging an inclusive research future
Dr Emily McDougal, Ellen Ridley, Dr Rachel Nesbit and Dr Charlotte Bagnall spoke to people on the psychology career path about the challenges faced by early career researchers.
Being the Disabled™ PhD
Cassandra Lovelock and Eleanor Dewar on what they see as the academy's desperation to diversify, but refusal to open any new doors.
People not papers
Caitlin Naylor with two visions of the PhD process.
The Zillenial
Kirsten Westmoreland on how the ECR environment has changed and how experienced researchers can address it.
No mental health without planetary health
Georgia King has a positive vision for the future.
From academia to industry… and back again
Ashleigh Johnstone discusses how we can better promote the movement between academia and industry.
Why do so few psychology researchers and clinicians work in industry?
Claire Hamlet shares her reflections as a Health Psychologist and User Researcher.
We/I: Reflections on the process of collaborative thinking
Clau Di Gianfrancesco and Elena Gkivisi offer a tentative example of what writing matrixially, together-in-difference, may look like.
Early career researchers: Closing thoughts
Final words from your Guest Editor team, and our Managing Editor.