Forming a hive: The importance of recognising and organising postdoctoral ‘worker bees’
A recent piece by Welmoed Visser in Ad Valvas describes the struggles of postdocs, “the disposable worker bees of academia”. As postdocs working at Leiden University, we recognise many of the concerns postdoctoral researchers face, such as stress around work pressure and precarity.
These problems are worrying, not only for individuals, but also because a healthy community of postdocs is vital for the university and scholarship in general, since many aspects of research, teaching and committee work are very much dependent on their work.
Fortunately, the piece in Ad Valvas focuses not only on problems but also suggests possible solutions. Christine Teelken, professor of Organisational Change, offers several tips for postdocs:
- Don't let yourself be taken advantage of; be aware that your research is important.
- Organise, connect with other postdocs, and build a network together.
- Be aware that there is also a high demand for highly educated people outside of academia.
We believe that these tips are valuable, but, as Teelken also notes, organisational change is necessary to support individual endeavours in these areas. In this blog post we would like to focus on the first two tips, which are most strongly connected to the organisational structure of the university, and offer recommendations for institutional support, stemming from our own experiences and perspectives as postdocs.
Lacking data
Postdocs are indeed a vital part of the research that is conducted within the university. This is, however, a claim that is currently hard to substantiate. Perhaps the most noteworthy point in the Ad Valvas piece concerns the lack of data about postdocs: “The exact number of postdocs at VU isn’t even known.” The situation in Leiden is, unfortunately, similar. As Teelken notes, the UFO system has the categories Researcher 3 and Researcher 4, which overlap with but are not identical with the role of postdoc. Elsewhere, categorisation is likewise insufficient. The results of the Work Experience Survey, for example, can be broken down according to function, but here we again find ‘Researcher’ as general category, making it hard to gain insight into the specific issues faced by postdocs.
This lack of registration is symptomatic for the lack of attention given to postdocs and temporary lecturers (often the same people, just under a different type of contract, which is why we are inclined to refer to these positions as ‘teaching postdocs’, in contrast to the more widely recognised ‘research postdoc’). It is not just the number of postdocs that remains unrecorded – the same holds true for the amount of work they do. In a recent attempt to find publication data on postdoctoral researchers for a piece on academic precarity, this information seemed not to be registered anywhere.
Such data could be of huge help in recognising the role of postdocs, and in improving our position. Publications are relatively easy to register, but this is not the only relevant information. Which part of the work on committees and editorial boards is done by postdocs? Which part of teaching and mentoring of students? Which percentage of events do they organise? Postdocs are essential for the present ánd the future of Dutch academia, and in order to formally recognise this, systematically collecting data is an important start.
Organising
The lack of data is also an issue when attempting to organise, network, and connect. In Leiden, we have been working to increase representation for postdocs in decision making procedures (e.g. by founding a postdoc council within our institute), but this becomes a complicated endeavour if it is unclear how many postdocs there are, and where. It is difficult for postdocs to get in touch with one another and form their own networks, which is vital to their wellbeing, especially when postdocs have moved here from abroad and lack both a social and professional network in their new country. We are lucky that our institute supports our initiative by digging up the relevant information, but trying to get in touch with postdocs in other institutes takes a lot of effort, as there are no clear communication lines and (again) often no clear list of postdocs that are currently employed.
There are more hurdles when it comes to organising. Postdocs have short contracts, from a few months up to four years. Those who are new to the organisation (and in many cases new to the Dutch academic system) will have a hard time navigating the university and finding the relevant networks quickly. When your time at the university is limited, your contract might be almost over once you have managed to connect and organise. In founding a postdoc council within our institute, we were lucky to have favourable conditions: we knew Leiden University from previous contracts and thus already had a network, and our institute currently has a sizeable amount of postdocs with relatively long contracts, meaning it is possible to find colleagues willing to commit to the work.
However, we do not think this should be left to luck. The number of postdocs in our institute will probably decrease at some point in the future, meaning that what we are building right now might not be sustainable for the future. Therefore, we believe that representation of postdocs should be embedded in the university structure, with faculty-wide councils supported by the faculty office, similar to PhD councils.
Postdocs should also be involved in every important decision being made at the university. Postdocs were not involved in the formal discussions around the budget cuts in the Faculty of Humanities last year, even though the measures have an enormous impact on our careers. This underrepresentation provided an incentive for us to organise, and talks about potential improvements are currently ongoing at a faculty level, but the university should also take responsibility by giving postdocs a structural seat at the table without this being left up to the initiative of individual postdocs.
Going forward
Postdocs and lecturers are not just a ‘flexible shell’, which can be hired when needed and disposed of just as easily: they provide a huge, essential contribution to teaching and research. We know we make important contributions, and we know how to organise and are willing to do so, but we also need institutions to give us that data and the seats at the table in order to sustainably improve our working conditions.
It seems that organisations like Universiteiten van Nederland, the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences (KNAW) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) could play a very meaningful role in supporting postdocs, as could the universities. Although individual colleagues often make important efforts to support the interests of postdocs and temporary lecturers, these groups should be taken more seriously on an institutional level, too. We ask colleagues and leadership to help us make sure that our perspectives are taken into account in all important decisions. This should become a matter of course. Together, we can work towards a healthy academic hive for all.
Resources on academic precarity
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