ReMO Webinar - The Power of Peers: Community in Academia

Postdoctoral researchers might change employers frequently, move internationally, handle a high workload, have family and friendship commitments in various parts of the world, and are enveloped in a system of competition. And yet they continue to create and maintain communities that are interdisciplinary, mixed-gender, and span languages and backgrounds.This presentation explored the benefits of community among (postdoctoral) researchers, from the perspective of an independent coach who works with researchers and a researcher developer who heads a university’s PostDoc Office. We outlined common challenges postdocs face, gave examples for community activities that have been beneficial, describe their impact, and gave practical examples for people seeking to facilitate community (be it postdocs themselves or researcher developers). We focussed on a programme we run together: the PostDoc Peer Mentoring. Short biosJohanna Stadlbauer is an anthropologist responsible for postdoctoral researcher development at the University of Graz (Austria). Having previously worked in German and Austrian equal opportunity units and in research with the aim of violence prevention, she has a passion for involving stakeholders for creating change in organizations. Her mission is a more fun and kind academia.Yasmin Dolak-Struss is a trainer and systemic coach for researchers. After a degree in physics and a PhD in biomathematics, she worked as a scientist in this field and then spent more than 16 years advising and training international researchers in European funding and career development. She is a facilitator in several (peer) mentoring initiatives and provides training and individual support to researchers to help them find a successful and happy career path.
The slides of this presentation are published under: Stadlbauer, J., & Dolak-Struß, Y. (2024, Juni 26). The Power of Peers: Community in Academia. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12548959
This work was performed within the framework of COST Action CA19117 - "Researcher Mental Health".
References National Postdoctoral Association (2023), Postdoctoral Barriers to Success, www.nationalpostdoc.org/resou... University of Graz PostDoc Peer Mentoring Programme, postdoc.uni-graz.at/en/offers... Kim-Oliver Tietze (2023): Kollegiale Beratung, rororo Verlag. Tea Pavkov-Keller (2024): Herausforderungen für die mentale Gesundheit in Academia. Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen der REMO Action und Erfahrungen aus der Wissenschaft. In: Personal in Hochschule und Wissenschaft entwickeln, 3/2024, S. 23-36. Johanna Stadlbauer (2021): Researcher Wellbeing, In: Personal in Hochschule und Wissenschaft entwickeln, 5/2021, S. 36-40. Johanna Stadlbauer (Dec 2023): Reflecting on Academic Kindness, RCC Blog, postdoc.uni-graz.at/de/neuigk... academic-kindness Sara Liedholm (Apr 23, 2024): Wellbeing and Belonging Promote Success in Academia, Workshop report published on website of Lund Stem Cell Center