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Nick Riddiford is a postdoc in  developmental biology in Institut Curie in Paris. Last year he surveyed scientists to find out more about their working practices. He published his results on F1000Research as a research article. He explains more here about why he carried out the survey and what he thinks needs to change.

I finished my PhD in January 2016 – around the same time as the junior doctor strikes in the UK – and had read several articles that I thought did a great job of explaining to the public exactly who and what junior doctors are, and why the new proposals were unfair.

While I supported the junior doctors, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would take for the public/media to get behind early-career scientists with such passion. A career in science is demanding in many ways, but I think most people don’t realise just how precarious a position many early career researchers find themselves in. For example, it is quite normal in academic research to work on short-term contracts – often across several countries – into your late thirties, with no guarantee of a job at the end.

I explored these ideas in an article I wrote for The Guardian, which had a short survey attached, in order to provide a data point to establish a community of scientists in the UK who are passionate about improving the current system.

What I found

Echoing trends seen in the US, the majority of respondents did not feel comfortable about their long-term prospects in a career in research. Most people – mainly PhD students and postdocs – felt that they were working too hard and that there weren’t enough jobs in research for them to move into. For example, more PhD students (mostly in their mid to late twenties) reported working at least one day over the weekend than not, and 16% worked every day of the week – all for an average salary of less than £17,000.

The breadth and depth of responses

While I was mostly interested in collecting data on UK-based biomedical researchers, the survey was completed by people from over 40 countries, which was very surprising, and I think reflects that science is a global community. However, I was most surprised by the sheer number of people that answered – I collected 1,128 responses before I started analysis. In particular, the number of people who went to such lengths to explain why they were planning on leaving academic research was genuinely moving, and I really got the sense that there was a shared desperation about the position many people were in.

How do we improve practices of early career researchers?

There are a number of ways that some of the working habits revealed by my results – such as working more than 50 hour weeks in 37% of cases – could be addressed. I think the very nature of the science PhD puts people in an ambiguous position – PhD students work like employees, but are not provided the same level of security, compensation, or clarity about how many hours they should be working, or how many days holiday they are entitled to. I think this opens them up to exploitation, and that an important first step is realising that they are allowed to have a life outside of the lab. Particularly in the later stages of the PhD, taking time to think about career opportunities outside of academia is crucial to avoid being stuck without a job after graduation.

We can also learn a lot from movements that have found recent success in the US, such as the early-career advocacy group Future of Research and the postdoctoral union UAW Local 5810. Both groups advocate for and with early-career scientists to provide them with the information and support they need to take more control of their careers. It is my hope that in the coming years we will see similar groups form in the UK and Europe, and that the media will give more space to exploring the pressures felt by scientists.

As well as Nick’s research article, you can also read more about his work in Times Higher Education.