The purpose of our research is to understand how postdoctoral researchers at Dutch research universities experience their working conditions and their prospects and opportunities, in relation to their mental health and wellbeing.

When looking at the employment conditions of postdoctoral researchers (postdocs), their direct working environment (e.g. their supervisors) as well as more indirect factors such as institutional and HRM-policies, our recent studies (Van der Weijden & Teelken, 2019, 2020) revealed these have not kept up with these alternations and the demands placed on them. Consequently, postdocs are caught within a dual controversy. The first involves the lack of clarity concerning their career prospects and developments despite their highly valued work, the second regards the fact that they are specialized staff, contributing to the primary process of their employing organisation but comparatively invisible and weakly connected with the organisation they are working for. Although the postdocs’ formal position seems weak, our previous study revealed that their situation in terms of academic socialising is much stronger and active than appears at first sight, particularly due to their personal agency. (Teelken & Van der Weijden, 2019).

Given this dual controversy, we think that the postdocs’ mental health deserves further investigation. Whereas studies on the mental health of PhD-candidates and lecturers are now increasingly available, the outcomes are quite unfavourable as they demonstrate substantial stress amongst these groups, see for example the recent work by Pitt et al (2020), Ysseldyk (2019) and Van Benthem (2019). Studies concerning the mental wellbeing of postdocs are comparatively rare, the first study on the mental health of Canadian postdocs demonstrated that they face serious problems and experience severe stress, which play a role in their job satisfaction (Van Benthem et al., 2019). Therefore, purpose of our research is to understand how, in the context of labour market instability, postdoctoral researchers experience their working conditions and their prospects and opportunities, in relation to their wellbeing.

Research question: How do the postdoctoral researchers at Dutch universities consider their employment conditions and how does this affect their mental wellbeing?

Data collection In 2019, a sample of 676 postdoctoral researchers in the Netherlands completed the online questionnaire. We distributed the questionnaire with help of the staff at the department of Human Resources at 9 out of 14 Dutch research-oriented universities, amongst all disciplines. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. Participants were free to withdraw at any time Data analysis methods Survey data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 25. As a first step, we examined the descriptive statistics. Table 1 shows the mean, minimum, maximum and standard deviation of the variables included in this study. Secondly, we used logistic regression analysis to evaluate the association of several independent variables on the outcomes of mental health. Furthermore, we asked the respondents whether they could explain their response to our questions about job satisfaction. We received many replies, some quite elaborate, to our open question in this survey (377 out of the 676 respondents from all 9 universities). We coded all these responses manually, and given the extensive number, used a structured design of thematic codes. Most important categories involved the nature of their response being positive, ambivalent, or negative. Within these categories several subcodes will be distinguished. We used quotes to illustrate our findings.

Preliminairy findings: The quantitative part of our research demonstrates the level and prevalence of the lack of mental wellbeing of postdocs. The results showed that about 70% of respondents indicated experiencing serious thoughts, feelings or conditions related to their mental health during their postdoctoral appointment. The most commonly reported experiences were feeling under constant strain (47%), concentration problems (35%), and sleeping problems (33%). (More than) one-quarter reporting feeling losing confidence in self and feeling not playing a useful role. Of imminent concern are the 15% of postdocs who report feeling worthless. 39% of the postdocs surveyed experienced four or more symptoms and were therefore at risk of developing serious mental health problem, which can lead to anxiety and depression. 56% of the postdocs experienced at least two symptoms (GHQ2+), 47% reported at least three symptoms (GHQ3+), while 39% reported at last four symptoms (GHQ4+). The qualitative analyses reveals a more nuanced picture of positive experiences (n=74), mixed or balanced experiences (n=137) and negative experiences (n=161).

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