‘What seems to be missing is actual reality’ Why are postdocs (and closely related researchers) hesitant to engage with non-research-focused professional development opportunities?

Introduction

In Higher Education (HE) settings, the term ‘research culture’ refers to ‘the behaviours, values, expectations, attitudes, and norms of our research communities’ (Royal Society, n.d.). Powell et al. (2024) have put forward a framework for research culture that aims to offer a comprehensive view of the aspects that support open, inclusive, and supportive research cultures and related initiatives. Validated through consultations and interviews with key stakeholders and researcher networks, the framework is organised into four areas:

Although Powell et al. (2024) recognise there may be some overlap among the categories, they group effective leadership and management under point four, and professional and career development opportunities within the remit of point three. With an emphasis on the role of career and development (C&D) conversations, in this paper we assume that points three and four are in fact inextricable. In other words, we posit that the professional relationship between researchers – typically postdocs and their managers – typically Principal Investigators (PIs) – can directly influence the opportunities for development that researchers feel willing/able to engage in.¹

Even in cases where the PI-researcher relationship is regarded as ‘good’, there is a tension between pressure to produce research outcomes and the longer-term development needs of junior researchers. Despite the mentorship expectations underlying academic hierarchies, PIs have commitments to their funders that may sometimes lead them to prioritise project-related tasks over people-focussed activities. Conversely, researchers – who are typically employed on fixed-term, project-based contracts – must take initiative in exploring other opportunities or securing their own funding should they wish to progress professionally. Whilst developing advanced technical skills may certainly facilitate the undertaking of research, other forms of professional development, including so-called ‘soft skills’, can help researchers make deliberate career choices by providing insight on navigating the (academic and non-academic) workplace and on their personal strengths and weaknesses. In the modern university, where academic contribution is assessed through outcome-based metrics, both PIs and their researchers may be concerned that these forms of development take time away from the projects and desired deliverables they are required to complete (Herschberg et al., 2018; Van Der Weijden et al., 2016).

Efforts to enhance research culture need to consider these dynamics in researcher relationships and identify ways of empowering researchers to navigate these dynamics effectively. In this paper, we contribute to this endeavour by presenting the findings from a pilot study with 14 STEM postdocs and closely related researchers at the University of Cambridge. As part of our research efforts, we focused on three interrelated aspects of the researcher experience: engagement with professional development; C&D conversations; and the barriers faced when requesting and receiving feedback. Our specific objectives were to explore the types of C&D conversations that take place between researchers and their managers, and to examine the extent to which readily available forms of training could prepare researchers to facilitate productive conversations. This focus was motivated by a common understanding amongst professional services staff (LS) of the difficulties Cambridge researchers face in initiating productive conversations around their career aspirations and development needs. This experience is not unique to Cambridge, however, and evidence indicates that early career researchers in general do not feel as though they receive either regular feedback on their performance or guidance in terms of their career aspirations (Gottlieb et al., 2021).

Although our broader research design examined the effectiveness of a variety of professional development tools (including the Myers Briggs Type Indicator) in preparing researchers for initiating C&D conversations, this paper concentrates on the impact of the 360-degree feedback interventions. In the Wellcome Trust Townhalls report (2020a), some members of the research community proposed implementing 360-degree feedback opportunities to address the challenges associated with receiving feedback. From this, along with our understanding that researchers often have multiple connections from which they could request or receive feedback, and that 360 tools can provide an avenue for collecting and organising such feedback, we hypothesised that offering 360-degree opportunities could both redress the feedback shortfall and provide researchers with a launching pad for initiating C&D conversations.

In this paper we explore three insights:

In what follows we will first discuss the significance of career and development conversations in the workplace generally, after which we will explore the feedback shortfall experienced by researchers and the potential ways in which 360-degree feedback interventions may mitigate this shortfall. We will then outline the design of the pilot study we conducted before reviewing our findings and putting forward an original framework of researcher development.

Career and development conversations

C&D conversations are formal and informal discussions which incorporate at least one of the following characteristics (Right Management, 2016; Hirsh, 2018):

C&D conversations differ from traditional performance evaluations, which are often pre-planned and take place on an annual basis. C&D conversations serve to evaluate and enhance performance in ways that align with the dynamic nature of organisations and the people within them. Frequent C&D conversations can therefore allow employees and their managers to identify and address workplace issues as they arise (Kidd et al., 2004; Winter, 2013).

An ongoing debate exists in non-academic settings regarding the integration of appraisal discussions focused on past performance with developmental conversations aimed at personal growth and skill enhancement (Evans, 2017). There are also difficulties with ascertaining exactly what makes for a ‘good’ career and development conversation. Throughout this paper, there is similarly a recurring theme that explores whether a ‘good’ conversation is necessarily satisfying, and to whom it is so. For instance, is it still a good conversation if an employee is provided with feedback that they may not want to hear? And how can we define a ‘good’ conversation in relationships with an inherent power imbalance, where the person receiving feedback may feel unable to challenge it?

360-degree feedback

In the Wellcome Trust (2020b) report, ‘What Researchers Think about the Culture They Work In’, 360-degree feedback was suggested as a means by which poor academic practice can be identified and deterred. In subsequent Townhall proceedings (Wellcome Trust, 2020a), 360-degree feedback was also put forward as one avenue for ‘improving research culture’, though the report did not elaborate on how these improvements might take place or even who the recipients of 360-degree feedback would be. 360-degree feedback involves collecting performance evaluations from various sources, including supervisors, coworkers, subordinates, and external parties. This feedback process also commonly includes self-evaluation. Anonymised 360-degree feedback is thought to be particularly powerful in improving self-awareness and mitigating the negative effects of biases and power dynamics in the process of giving and receiving feedback (Hensel et al., 2010).

There are some challenges to implementing 360-degree models. Providing feedback can be time-consuming, which can result in a lack of responses from raters. It can also be difficult to identify appropriate raters. Research indicates that reliability increases with the number of raters, with 10 being considered a desirable number. For a rater to have a strong baseline knowledge of the individual being rated, it is suggested that raters have at least 10 interactions with the individual (Hensel et al., 2010). Furthermore, 360-degree feedback can have negative effects on self-confidence should the employee feel ostracised or judged unfairly by the raters (Karkoulian et al., 2016; Peng & Zeng, 2017). To ensure the effectiveness of the feedback received, it has been proposed that professional support, such as mentoring, is made available to the individual receiving feedback (Vukotich, 2014).

Research design

Our research design began with the hypothesis that improving the frequency and quality of C&D conversations may help postdocs and close related researchers establish a more informed understanding of their role and their performance within it. Due to the respective obstacles that PIs and researchers face in broaching such discussions, we sought to identify readily available professional development interventions we believed to be capable of equipping researchers with the confidence to facilitate C&D conversations. To identify suitable interventions, we consulted with careers professionals at the University of Cambridge and conducted a search for readily available - ‘off the shelf’ - training interventions. We then categorised the identified tools into themes (e.g. self-understanding, feedback from others, conversations with managers, and cross-cutting tools).

Our pilot study was intended to consist of four workshops. Each workshop was designed to include two tools from different themes, each with a different cost associated with delivery. The workshops were advertised to current researchers at the University of Cambridge. Due to the significant number of postdoc researchers present at the university, which totals just over 4,000 (Postdoc Centre n.d.), we anticipated a high number of sign-ups for the study, which we hoped would allow us to make firm observations regarding the effectiveness of the tools being tested. Of course, there are other particularities of the Cambridge context and research culture that require consideration. Cambridge is a collegiate university. It is organised into faculties and schools and has 31 colleges, which serve as the base for student admissions and small group teaching. Many researchers have both college and university affiliations, and some researchers who do not work under a PI in a department are on postdoc or fellowship contracts and run their own research under the remit of a college. The University of Cambridge is also one of the largest research-intensive universities in the UK, with an annual research income of around £720 million (Ioppolo & Wooding, 2021). As an ancient university with a prestigious reputation, research contracts with the university are competitive, attracting a large number of applications. All this amounts to a decentralized and high-profile system of research that may create high-pressure work environments or expectations of high-pressured environments. Still, while these characteristics do distinguish Cambridge from other universities, we maintain that researchers at Cambridge and beyond share a common need for support and constructive feedback. In this regard, our work may still offer insightful contributions to other settings.

Our expectations around the number of sign-ups proved false. Following practical challenges with recruiting enough participants to carry out all four workshops, only two were carried out. The structures of the workshops we did run are displayed in Table 1. Due to the relevant comparability of the 360-degree feedback tools offered across these workshops, this paper focuses on the effectiveness of these interventions. Workshop one delivered one high-cost tool, ‘Challenging Conversations’. The second tool, ‘At My Best’ (AMB) was a low-cost strengths-based 360-degree feedback tool that enables individuals to seek positive feedback from up to 12 ‘raters’, such as colleagues, managers, staff, friends, and family. Workshop two combined an informative session on putting together a narrative CV (low-cost) with access to a customised 360-degree feedback tool and follow up coaching session (high-cost). The 360-degree feedback model was based on a variation offered in the FLF Development Network.

Methods

We evaluated the effectiveness of the workshops through a combination of survey and interview methods. The full experimental protocol is displayed in Figure 1 and was approved by the Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee (approval number: PRE.2023.029) on 20^th April 2023. Participants were recruited through flyers, which were distributed over social media, email channels and posted around the university and in postdoc groups. Prospective participants were advised that participating in the research was a condition of attending the workshops.

Figure 1. An overview of the research protocol.

Each of the blocks and icons within represents a stage in the data collection process, starting from the left-hand side. Our data collection efforts started with the first survey. Then, on the same day as the workshop, we held focus groups with the participants. We then distributed survey two after participants had been given enough time to engage with all the information around the professional development interventions incorporated in the workshops. The orange block indicates a two-month pause in the data collection process, during which participants were expected to undertake a career and development conversation with their manager. After this, as illustrated in the final green block, we distributed one final survey and invited participants to a one-to-one online research interview.

Data was collected at three points: before the workshop, immediately after the workshop, and two months after the workshop. As stated in our approved ethics application to the Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee, written consent was obtained at the point when participants registered for the workshop. Consent was verbally reaffirmed at the start of each workshop and prior to the research interviews. Per the Participant Information Sheet (available at Etheridge et al., 2024), participants were aware that they could withdraw from the study at any point during the data collection phase. Prior to attending the workshop, participants were required to answer survey questions on their demographic background, postdoctoral experience, relationship with their PI, and confidence with career conversations. This included completing a Personal-Growth-Initiative-Scale II (PGIS-II) (Robitschek et al., 2012), which considers the extent to which a person seeks out opportunities to grow and initiate change in oneself. We incorporated the PGIS-II as we believed participant responses could allow us to account for the influence of personality differences in the effectiveness of the workshop interventions.

In the days following the workshop, participants were invited to complete a second survey. This questionnaire regarded their impressions of the interventions they had been presented with. We also explored these impressions via semi-structured focus groups, which were conducted immediately after the workshops had taken place.

Two months after the workshops, participants were sent a final survey enquiring about the influence of the development tools on any career and development conversations that had taken place in that time. This survey included a second PGIS-II scale. Our intention was to see if the interventions had a quantifiable effect on participants’ attitudes to personal growth and how, if at all, these changes developed over the course of the study. Participants were also invited to join one-to-one semi-structured interviews. All research instruments, along with collected data and Atlas.ti 23 code manager, is available on the project Open Science Framework repository (see Etheridge et al., 2024).

In total, we recruited 14 participants. Eight attended the Challenging Conversations/AMB workshop, and six attended the bespoke 360 feedback/Narrative CV workshop. All 14 participants were involved in group interviews and four attended individual interviews. Interview data was analysed using a general inductive approach (Glaser & Strauss, 2017). This is where raw data is compared against raw data before being organized into categories to create a framework capturing key themes and processes. The analysis was undertaken on Atlas.ti 23 Desktop. The exact process is listed below:

Findings

The main findings from the interview and survey data are as follows:

In this section we discuss these observations, paying attention to participants’ reported experiences with both career conversations and the 360-degree feedback tools offered as part of the research.

Participant characteristics

As participants voluntarily signed up to the workshops we were facilitating, we recognise that our participant sample is likely non-representative of the postdoc population at Cambridge. Though this is a discussion we return to in the next section, the non-representative nature of the sample does not diminish the cautious observations we were able to make with the participants that did sign up. First, and as discussed, Cambridge’s postdoc population is already an outlier in the sector. Second, the participant sample captured reasonable diversity in postdoc experiences and backgrounds. Of the 14 participants, eight participants identified as male, five identified as female, one participant identified as non-binary, and another preferred not to specify their gender identity. The participants belonged to various age groups, as depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Participant (postdoc) age range.

Participant (postdoc) age range. A vertical bar graph depicting the age range of the participants, as determined by the responses given to survey one.

The participants also reported a diverse range of ethnicities: eight participants identified as White, three of Asian descent, and one participant each as ‘North African/Mediterranean,’ ‘White Eastern European,’ and ‘Mixed or multiple ethnic groups.’ Regarding confidence when conversing in English, seven participants reported being ‘extremely’ confident, three reported being ‘very’ confident, one person reported feeling ‘reasonably’ confident and another chose not to specify their confidence level.

Participant characteristics point to a diversity of research experience. The years in which participants were awarded their PhDs ranged from 2000 to a projected graduation date of 2024. Two participants had yet to submit their PhD thesis. Figure 3 shows the gender split regarding the years since PhD submission. The number of postdoc positions held varied from zero to five, with some individuals having had multiple postdoc experiences.

Figure 3. Participant (postdoc) gender split and years since PhD submission.

Participant (postdoc) gender split and years since PhD submission. A horizontal bar graph illustrates the gender split in participants’ professional experience, understood to be the number of years since their PhD submission, as determined by the responses given to survey one.

The majority of participants worked in a STEM capacity; however, a number of academic disciplines are represented in the data set, including:

• • Biological and Medical Science

• • Chemistry

• • Education

• • Engineering and Materials Science

• • Geography

• • Psychology

Out of the 14 participants, 12 had one primary PI/supervisor and two participants had two supervisors. Two participants shared a PI. Seven of the participants reported reporting to male primary PIs and 7 reported reporting to primary PIs who were women. For the participants with more than one supervisor, one was supported by a primary PI who was a man and a secondary PI who was a woman. The other was supported by two PIs who were men. PIs had varied levels of experience:

• • Half of the participants reported their primary PI/supervisor as having over 20 years of experience

• • Four reported their primary PI as having six-ten years of experience

• • Three believed their PI had less than three years of experience for their primary PI

As shown in Figure 4, participants reported that the female primary PIs had relatively less experience. For those with two PIs, one participant worked under two supervisors with over 20 years of experience, and another participant worked under one PI with less than 20 years of experience and a second PI with less than three years of experience.

Figure 4. Primary PI gender split and experience supervising postdocs.

A horizontal bar graph displays the gender distribution and years of professional experience of the Principal Investigators of postdoctoral researchers involved in our study, as determined by the responses given to survey one.

Personal-Growth-Initiative-Scale II

Participants were asked to fill out the PGIS-II (Robitschek et al., 2012) on three occasions – prior to the workshop, immediately after the workshop, and two months after the workshop. Only a handful (3/14) of participants filled out the second survey, and therefore the results from that survey were not analysed. Most participants (6/8 and 4/6 from first and second workshops, respectively) filled out surveys one and three. While this sample size is relatively small to conduct inferential statistics, it allowed us to make descriptively assess whether the workshop led to any observable change in their score. The PGIS-II is made up of four subscales – Readiness for change, Planfulness, Using Resources, and Intentional behaviour, each assessed by 3-5 items on a 6-points scale ranging from ‘Disagree strongly’ (0) to ‘Agree strongly’ (5). As in Robitschek et al., the questions for each subscale were averaged, with items not answered given the participant’s scale average. Descriptive findings (see Figure 5) showed an increase in the average score following the workshops for three of the subscales - Readiness for Change (mean difference $\overline{d}=0.33\pm 0.30$ standard errors (ste) from the mean), Planfulness ( $\overline{d}=0.36\pm 0.32$ ste), and Using Resources ( $\overline{d}=0.17\pm 0.22$ ste), along with a decrease in the average score of the Intentional Behaviour subscale ( $\overline{d}=-0.13\pm 0.25$ ste). None of the results were observed to be significant at an alpha of 5% (t(9) = 0.526-1.127, p = .289-.611), which was not unexpected given the small sample size, as mentioned. The data along with the analysis script in R are available in the study’s online material.

Figure 5. PGIS-II results.

Bar graphs depict group-averaged subscale score before attending the workshop and two months after, with error bars depicting 1 standard deviation from the group mean. Scatter plots depict individual participant scores, with the diagonal line depicting the identity line (such that Before score = After score, with participants above the line scoring After > Before, and vice-versa).

Figure 6. Researcher development framework.

This is a flow chart of the factors informing postdoc engagement with professional development activities. This framework was initially developed as an outcome space of the core themes that emerged from the interviews. These themes, and the number of codes within them, were identified by researchers BI and ME, with the codebooks publicly available at Etheridge et al. (2024).

Discussion

Our initial study aimed to understand how or, indeed, if, career development interventions can improve researcher relationships. In this paper, we explore whether giving researchers at the University of Cambridge access to 360-degree feedback tools could address the feedback shortfall experienced by this group and equip them with the skills to initiate successful C&D conversations. Our ability to comment on this is limited. Only half of the participants made use of the 360-degree feedback tools and most of these participants were already having conversations of this kind with their PI. Moreover, there are certain complexities that our research processes failed to capture, particularly in relation to perceived culture and gendered barriers.

Firstly, while survey one allowed participants to indicate the extent to which cultural barriers hindered productive C&D conversations with their PI, neither the survey nor interview protocol prompted them to elaborate on the specific nature of these barriers, making it difficult to interpret the three occasions when participants did identify cultural barriers as being at least ‘somewhat’ significant. This oversight also means we have been unable to sufficiently examine the cultural factors that may have made requesting 360-degree feedback challenging, thus contributing to the difficulties we faced in evaluating exactly how effective the interventions were. Yet exploring the variety of ways in which cultural barriers can manifest should be a priority for future research on staff-manager relationships, particularly in contexts with a highly international research staff population. Indeed, one barrier could be the ‘boss effect’ (Liew et al., 2011), wherein some individuals from East Asian backgrounds culturally perceive work supervisors as a social threat due to fears of negative evaluation. Whilst three participants in our study disclosed having Asian ethnicity, only one identified cultural barriers as an obstacle to C&D conversations. Our research cannot, then, contribute to discussion on the ‘boss effect,’ although future investigation may wish to explore the interplay between cultural differences, attitudes towards authority and willingness to engage with career development and feedback tools.

Secondly, scholarly research on the influence of gender on management styles and perceptions of leadership examines how gender stereotypes – specifically, the perception that women are nurturing and supportive, while men are viewed as decisive and assertive – reinforce the association of effective leadership with masculinity (Koenig et al., 2011). Research in academic environments indicates that women faculty members are more likely to undertake, or be assigned, service responsibilities compared to their male counterparts (see Järvinen & Mik-Meyer, 2025 for an overview of this discussion). It is therefore worthwhile to consider whether gender stereotypes – operating at implicit or explicit levels – influence how researchers perceive the leadership qualities of their mentors and principal investigators. In our study, no gender barriers were disclosed for the seven participants with women PIs, with all except one claiming that their woman PI was at least ‘moderately’ interested in their development. Although gender was identified as being ‘somewhat’ of a barrier for three women participants, all of whom worked under PIs who were men, the participants all reported that their PIs were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ interested in their development and, furthermore, two of these PIs actively engaged with the 360 tools provided. Once again, neither the survey nor interview protocol inquired further into the gendered barriers to productive C&D conversations, making it difficult to draw reasonable conclusions in this regard. To better understand why some researchers may be hesitant to request feedback, and furthermore why some researchers may struggle to receive the feedback they requested, future explorations on this topic should give direct consideration to gender dynamics, and should, moreover, give PIs the opportunity to comment on the ‘obligations’ they may experience and negotiate in relation to hosting C&D conversations with their researchers.

It is with caution that we offer the following insights. First, observe that a researcher’s level of experience may affect their willingness to request feedback from multiple raters, perhaps suggesting that future applications of the 360-degree feedback should take into account the diversity of needs amongst postdocs and closely related researchers, and that effort should be made to clarify why each model is appropriate for different career stages. Between AMB and the anonymous 360-degree tool based on the FLF model, participants identified that AMB may be preferable for improving self-efficacy amongst newer researchers whereas the latter model’s emphasis on constructive feedback was better placed for those looking to make the transition to a leadership role. Following the suggestion offered in the Wellcome Trust Townhalls Report (2020a), that 360-degree models may be used to instil positive research culture, further investigation should be conducted into the benefits of implementing different 360-degree opportunities for researchers with varied experience and responsibilities.

Our findings also highlight concerns around time management. For some participants, what counted as an ‘effective’ use of time was informed by the needs of the project and the PI, and not by their individual career needs or aspirations. Thus, while research culture initiatives are increasingly concerned with the support obligations PIs have to their research teams, and with empowering researchers to take ‘ownership’ of their careers (e.g. Vitae, 2019), our findings suggest that project-focused orientations make it unclear just how much support researchers can expect or request from either their PI or the support networks available in their institutions. Furthermore, if, as our study suggests, some researchers assume that being supported in their career is not a standard practice of PIs, then they may find themselves caught at a support and training deadlock wherein they need and would benefit from support but are neither given it nor do they feel entitled to request it.

The above themes, alongside other less-commonly mentioned topics from the surveys, focus groups, and interviews have been consolidated into a conceptual framework for postdoctoral engagement, illustrated in Figure 6. This framework, which was developed iteratively by three members of the project team (ME, BI and LA) explores the processes that facilitate postdoc engagement with professional development activities. It consists of six interconnected themes: broader cultural factors (national funding structures and research cultures), institutional influences (institution-specific policies and structures), researcher and PI characteristics, relationship dynamics, and researcher engagement levels. These themes interact in a hierarchical manner. Broader cultural and institutional factors serve as a backdrop, shaping researchers' career trajectories and expectations. These, expectations influence the dynamics of the PI-researcher relationship, impacting the direction and content of any C&D discussions that occur as well as the researcher’s engagement in professional development activities. This engagement is also influenced by factors characteristics including personality, professional aspirations and interpretations of broader cultural influences within academia. Indeed, such pressures were observed in participants’ regard for the different 360-degree feedback tools, which were affected by factors such as perceptions around time and applicability of the feedback requested.

Within the framework, the interplay between PI-researcher dynamics and researcher engagement with professional development challenges the division of these matters proposed by Powell et al. (2024). Recognizing the influence PIs can have on researchers’ engagement with professional development is important to consider when developing interventions to ensure the effective leadership and management of researchers. A number of actors across the sector are already doing this. For example, in 2020, the University of Liverpool’s Prosper programme pioneered a PI network that provides a platform for principal investigators across the UK to meet, share experiences and discuss best practices (McBride, 2023). Moreover, the University of Glasgow have recently piloted a ‘Catalyst Mentoring’ scheme in which collegial conversations between research staff and senior staff were seen to be impactful in supporting self-awareness around relating to others and making conscious career planning decisions (Guccione, 2023). Additionally, during a workshop for PIs around ‘Challenging career assumptions’, Careers Coach, Dr Elizabeth Adams, explored how the assumptions researchers make about careers within and beyond academia can exacerbate barriers to engagement with career development. She encouraged attendees to attempt minimise this influence by asking their postdocs predominantly open-ended questions about their career; by being alert to the postdocs’ inner critique; and by signposting them to support services and networks available at their institutions (Prosper, n.d.).

On the one hand, interventions such as these are of high importance in seeking to break the silence around the influence of researcher relationships on postdoc careers choices and trajectories. On the other hand, these interventions may suffer from the same issue that we faced with participant recruitment – that is, their self-selecting nature attracts those who are already thinking about these issues, those who consider them a good use of time, and, crucially, those who feel able to use their time in this way. As the Researcher Development Framework illustrates, these considerations are influenced by wider cultural issues, which speaks to the difficulty of trying to challenge narrow, project-focussed attitudes in a policy landscape that encourages these attitudes at the same time that it endeavours to change them.

On a practical level, this Framework demands that future policies or interventions targeted at the PI-researcher relationship strive to respond to or at least accommodate for the influence of culture on how these interventions are received. On a theoretical basis, the framework captures some of the contradictory sentiments that underpin modern academia. Specifically, the Framework confronts notions of deservingness and personal responsibility: the researcher, though agentic in their career, moves through a landscape of competitive design, beholden to relationships and metrics that were not by their design. Participant 6 argued that missing from professional development activities is a sense of ‘reality’, a sentiment we interpret as referring to the lived experience being a researcher in a profession characterized by competition, precariousness and vast racial, gendered and ableist disparities in career advancement (Sarabi & Smith, 2023), research commissioning and funding (Wellcome Trust, 2022), promotion (Lerchenmueller & Sorenson, 2018; Rollock, 2021), attribution, publication and citation practices (Hengel, 2022). While development initiatives may acknowledge these conditions and seek to confront them, this reality still hinders engagement with such initiatives and thus preserves the status quo. It is not necessarily the case, then, that development activities are missing or failing to consider this ‘reality’. Rather, the thing which is missing is the ability to realise conditions in which all researchers across different experience levels can and feel able to effectively engage with and request support and development.

Conclusion

In this study, we explored interventions to empower researchers to initiate C&D conversations with their PI. We offered workshops to current postdocs and closely related at the University of Cambridge utilising widely available professional development tools. However, we found that only a few postdocs made use of the opportunity to engage in this training and many of those who did engage reported already having C&D conversations with their PI. This supports that, with our interventions, we did not manage to reach those postdocs who might need such training, including those with problematic relationships with their PI. Still, our analysis of the survey and interview data produced an overarching framework of the relationship between researchers and their supervisors within the wider university and academic system. Our analysis reveals that an in-depth exploration of the various factors contributing to the quality of the PI-researcher relationship is needed to better understand the challenges the respective parties face in not only prioritising professional development but in defining professional priorities and expectations. We are currently launching a study, based on the researcher development framework, which explores professional expectations of PIs and postdocs on the level of the self, others, the job role, and the wider academic system. We hope that this research will shed further light on possible avenues for supporting postdocs and their PIs to engage in meaningful C&D conversations and to unfold their professional potential.

Ethical approval and consent

This research study was approved by the Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee (approval number: PRE.2023.029).) on 20th April 2023.

As stated in our approved ethics application to the Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee, written consent was obtained at the point when participants registered for the workshop. Consent was verbally reaffirmed at the start of each workshop and prior to the research interviews.