Shedding light on those who provide support

Loissel, Elsa

doi:10.7554/elife.64739

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…This highlights the need to provide assistance and training for those providing the support. [5] If an individual's mental health is not a priority, they may ultimately end up leaving their institution, resulting in a loss of diversity and talent. This is supported by a recent Nature survey of postdoctoral researchers, where 51 % had considered leaving science due to anxiety, depression, or similar issues related to their work.…”

Section: Why Mental Health Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Research Culture on Mental Health & Diversity in STEM

Limas

Corcoran²,

Baker

et al. 2022

Chemistry A European J

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The onset of COVID-19, coupled with the finer lens placed on systemic racial disparities within our society, has resulted in increased discussions around mental health. Despite this, mental health struggles in research are still often viewed as individual weaknesses and not the result of a larger dysfunctional research culture. Mental health interventions in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academic community often focus on what individuals can do to improve their mental health instead of focusing on improving the research environment. In this paper, we present four aspects of research that may heavily impact mental health based on our experiences as research scientists: bullying and harassment; precarity of contracts; diversity, inclusion, and accessibility; and the competitive research landscape. Based on these aspects, we propose systemic changes that institutions must adopt to ensure their research culture is supportive and allows everyone to thrive.

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Section: Why Mental Health Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Research Culture on Mental Health & Diversity in STEM

Limas

Corcoran²,

Baker

et al. 2022

Chemistry A European J

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“…For instance, institutions and funding agencies that do not encourage the traditional gender roles allowing both men and women to take family leave, see better work-life balance, and reduced work-life conflict [63,64]. If the culture in your research lab constrains your ability to manage your work-life balance in a way you find satisfactory, shifting departmental and institutional attitudes and policies can put pressure on PIs to build a more supportive work culture via steps outlined elsewhere [11,12,[31][32][33]. Although organizational culture cannot be changed overnight, changes in policy can go a long way in creating a culture that aids work-life balance in the academic workplace [62][63][64].…”

Section: Rule 10: Open a Dialogue About The Importance Of Work-life Balance And Advocate For Systemic Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Departments and institutes need to contribute to improving research practices for academics at all levels on the career ladder [29,30]. PIs and mentors can promote healthier environments in their laboratories by respecting boundaries and providing individuals with greater autonomy over their own working schedule [11,12,[31][32][33]. However, institutions do not typically prioritize work-life balance, leading to the loss of valuable talent in the research pipeline.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ten simple rules to improve academic work–life balance

Bartlett

Arslan

Bankston³

et al. 2021

PLoS Comput Biol

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The ability to strike a perceived sense of balance between work and life represents a challenge for many in academic and research sectors around the world. Before major shifts in the nature of academic work occurred, academia was historically seen as a rewarding and comparatively low-stress working environment [1]. Academics today need to manage many tasks during a workweek. The current academic working environment often prioritizes productivity over well-being, with researchers working long days, on weekends, on and off campus, and largely alone, potentially on tasks that may not be impactful. Academics report less time for research due to increasing administrative burden and teaching loads [1][2][3]. This is further strained by competition for job and funding opportunities [4,5], leading to many researchers spending significant time on applications, which takes away time from other duties such as performing research and mentorship [1,2]. The current hypercompetitive culture is particularly impactful on early career researchers (ECRs) employed on short-term contracts and is a major driver behind the unsustainable working hours reported in research labs around the world, increases in burnout, and decline in satisfaction with work-life balance [6][7][8][9][10]. ECRs may also find themselves constrained by the culture and management style of their laboratory and principal investigator (PI) [11][12]. Work-life balance can be defined as an individual's appraisal of how well they manage work-and nonwork-related obligations in ways that the individual is satisfied with both, while simultaneously maintaining their health and well-being [13]. Increasing hours at work can conflict with obligations outside of work, including but not limited to family care commitments, time with friends, time for self-care, and volunteering and community work. The increasing prevalence of technology that allows work to be out of the office can also exacerbate this conflict [14,15].The academic system's focus on publications and securing grant funding and academic positions instead of training, mentoring, and mental health has skewed the system negatively against prioritizing "The whole scientist" [5,16]. Research focused on the higher education sector has revealed that poor work-life balance can result in lower productivity and impact, stifled academic entrepreneurship, lower career satisfaction and success, lower organizational commitment, intention to leave academia, greater levels of burnout, fatigue and decreased social interactions, and poor physical and mental health, which has become increasingly prevalent among graduate students [1,[17][18][19][20][21][22]. For instance, a recent international survey of over 2,000 university staff views on work-life balance found that many academics feel stressed and underpaid and struggle to fit in time for personal relationships and family around their ever-growing

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“…Solutions may lie in providing more training for supervisors and trainees, raising awareness across all research-related entities-from institutions to funding agencies-and in defining new processes to rate and measure scholastic performance. As one 2019 study has put it: "Ensuring that all supportersnot just group leadersreceive help, training and recognition may be key to fostering healthy, positive relationships between those who provide and receive support" (Loissel, 2020). In fact, training research scientists to become better mentors has been shown to improve the quality of undergraduate research experience and enhance the quality of undergraduate research (Pfund et al, 2006), which reinforces the need to infuse the scientific system with this kind of practice.…”

Section: Closing Remarks and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seizing balance and success during your PhD experience

Rodrigues

2021

Eur J of Neuroscience

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Doing a PhD is a long, yet rewarding, expedition. Amid that journey, several decisions must be made to position yourself and stand out within a tough system as well as to align your personal goals and interests with those of supervisors, teams, and institutions. Many challenges will arise throughout that PhD journey and a degree of uneasiness and uncertainty will sometimes linger. In this opinion article, I put forth a personal and honest view of how to seize balance and success during your PhD experience. I reflect on issues such as failure, planning, work‐life balance, and personal drive. All in all, I highlight difficulties shared among all PhD students while discussing personalized strategies and coping mechanisms to deal with adversity. Taken together, this is a timely piece that aims to raise awareness about the problems affecting most PhD students and, in parallel, to inspire and empower fellow PhD students. Notably, this is also a call to the research community to be sensitive to these struggles and to foster practices that enable PhD students to live to their full potential.

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Shedding light on those who provide support

Abstract: An eLife survey explores the experiences of those in the research community who support colleagues struggling with their mental health.

Cited by 12 publications

References 12 publications

The Impact of Research Culture on Mental Health & Diversity in STEM

The Impact of Research Culture on Mental Health & Diversity in STEM

Ten simple rules to improve academic work–life balance

Seizing balance and success during your PhD experience

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