NERCOUTE ‘Learning to be’ a successful academic – scaffolding academia for ECRs in Natural Sciences

The ‘early career’ stage has been identified as a critical phase in a researcher’s development. For those on ‘education and research’ contracts, navigating the transition from PhD/postdoc to independent researcher alongside teaching responsibilities and ‘citizenship’ roles can be challenging – particularly as this is often considered to be achieved by ‘on the job’, self-led development with little support. The probation period for permanent academic staff in the UK is typically three years, which may be seen as providing sufficient time to master this shift in role but can also be argued to be a significant wait for researchers to be ‘confirmed in post’. It is unsurprising, therefore, that research councils and other organisations offer dedicated support for individuals identified as ‘early career researchers’ (ECRs), while the recently launched ‘Researcher Development Concordat’ is often interpreted by Higher Education Institutions as prioritising ECRs in its implementation. An additional complexity is the experiences of academics from groups marginalised based on gender, race/ethnicity and social class, as research has shown ECRs do not start on an even playing field. Underrepresented academics are less likely to have access, through their families and social circles, to knowledge about academic careers and strategies for success in these pathways and are more likely to experience ‘imposter phenomenon’ than their peers. There is currently little research which explores the impact of the extended, unstructured probationary period for female, working-class and ethnically minoritised ECRs, although we hypothesise the nature of this process may significantly impact their retention and success. Internal research at our institution has demonstrated experiences of uneven career progression support for individual staff in their immediate research environment, despite uniform institutional promotion policies. This has implications for career success of already under-represented staff: e.g. female staff in senior positions and the representation of ethnically minoritised staff at all career levels. This project aims to investigate the mechanisms of support which Natural Sciences ECRs who are on a permanent ‘education and research’ contract and from a range of sociocultural backgrounds, have accessed – or otherwise – to meet their probationary targets. We aim to better understand the relationship between these mechanisms and the specific research cultures in natural environment disciplines to improve the diversity of these fields at every career stage. The objectives of this pilot project are to conduct interviews and focus groups with 30 ECRs from diverse backgrounds in NERC-facing departments at the University of Exeter e.g., Geography, Ecology & Conservation and Earth & Environmental Science. We will combine social learning theories with social identity theories to analyse the data and share the findings with ECR stakeholders and prospective follow-up project partners in a co-creation event to develop recommendations for institutional and external support that can directly address inequalities in progression based on gender, race/ethnicity and social class. We will build on this pilot in a larger project sampling more institutions, with the findings used to develop a baseline-assessment document for identifying gaps in ECR development. This document will link to a roadmap indicating a range of recommended pathways to support, which institutions can link to their internal staff development processes. There is scope to use findings from the larger project to develop a survey for capturing research cultures in ECR onboarding processes, which could be disseminated by NERC and potentially adapted for other research councils.