I want to start this conversation: do you want to leave science/academia? If yes, why? Do you want to stay but there are many disadvantages?  Or do you have colleagues who want to leave or did leave? To where do you leave?

I saw many of my friends and colleagues leaving academia. For good reasons. that is so sad, some really good researchers left, and with them the potential of their amazing skills. Not everyone leaving has a burnout, but the conditions are often just not good enough to stay.

Personally, I am half-leaving academia, transferring into self-employment as environmental consultant/researcher/engineer. I love research, but I feel that the academic system is not good. We are exposed to a lot of stress, time stress, expectations, lack of team spirit or acknowledgement, or even underpaid. And of course the temporary job situation is not fair – needing to move every few years to a new city or country, not getting a bank credit because it is a temporary job. It is almost impossible if you have kids on top, or family to care for. So why is this such thing?

Temporary jobs also result in that your employer is not putting much effort in providing good working conditions. Compare this to an employer who hires you for a permanent position – they want to keep you, you are an asset to them, and being unhappy or even leaving would mean a loss for them. Academia does the opposite and that creates difficulties and I think a huge loss if efficiency and money.

But, science is amazing!!! It has a lot of advantages: flexibility, international and open-minded colleagues, the chance to work on the newest questions, variation in work type – office, lab, field, …, traveling opportunities

Let’s start to be much more open about this topic, because talking about it, is the first step to recognize what goes wrong, find out how we can do it better, and make academia a nice working place again. I love the initiatives happening, such as young researchers talking openly about mental health. That is a great first step. 🙂
And let’s look at the institutions and labs where things are going well, to learn and take over what they do!

Let’s discuss here, let’s think about solution strategies. 🙂

Yours, Cleo