Relationships and Expectations

The professional relationship between early career researchers and their principal investigators (PIs)/managers is key in shaping academic careers.  Research suggests potential conflicts in the different professional expectations held by early career researchers and their managers.  

In the first year of our project, we gave postdocs access to various training sessions which all aimed to provide them with the knowledge and skills to have meaningful career conversations with their PI. Unfortunately we struggled to recruit participants for this study; however, we learned a lot and reconsidered how we might best improve research relationships.  You can read more on this in the F1000 article.

In the second year of our project, we explored the expectations postdocs and PIs have of their own and each other’s roles. To capture critical experiences, we solicited views in multiple creative formats through a narrative “Your Voice" survey.  To capture positive experiences, we organised the university’s first “Research Culture Celebration” inviting nominations of PIs or research groups who exemplify key values.  We interviewed participants from both studies to gather more nuanced information about their experiences.  You can read more on our Relationships & Expectations Study page.  We are currently writing up the results of this study.

Building on this exploratory work on expectations, we are currently developing and evaluating two types of workshops.  Firstly, a workshop for PIs and their research groups, where we help teams to develop their own team handbook, tailored to the team's culture, aspirations and context. Team handbooks codify the research culture, values and ways of working within teams.  Secondly, in collaboration with the Cambridge Postdoc Academy, we are offering a workshop "Strategies for a successful postdoc", supporting early-stage postdocs in setting expectations and acquiring strategies for mastering professional challenges.  In both workshops, we use Creative Non-Fiction (CNF) as stimulus material to help widen the discussion and weave our research findings into the workshop material.  CNF uses literary techniques typically found in fiction (e.g., storytelling and character development to communicate insights from our research.