Neoliberal policies worldwide have shaped higher education systems, where regulations dictate the working environment. In the Spanish context, ANECA (Agencia Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad y Acreditación/National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation) is an external evaluation agency that determines the accreditation of the role of teaching staff working at public universities. This agency has established a system of three professional roles followed by 50 state universities, offering a progressive pathway towards a permanent position, including postdoc positions. Through a qualitative narrative study employing semi-structured interviews, this research explores the perceptions of professional identity and collective learning communities developed among 18 university teachers. This group of purposefully selected staff works in each of the three existing roles as they strive for a permanent position in a Spanish state university. The research results reveal a sense of distress among the participants due to the constant demands for accountability in publishing, which requires significant effort. Due to a long research path on many occasions with years working abroad,  scholars are empowered to work in a community together, trying to develop a new working environment in which solidarity, gender rights, and the feeling of fighting for a balance in their mental health are shared goals. In a hostile external working environment, they desire long-term vocational and work-life stability, often at the expense of feeling empowered in their personal career development. The life narratives of early career professionals provide a unique perspective of a highly competitive system on the professional identity development of higher education teachers.

Embracing a qualitative case study approach (Merriam, 1988), this study conducted 18 semi-structured interviews (Horton et al., 2004) with postdoc teaching staff actively seeking permanent university permanent positions. Following the conceptual approach of recognising professional identity as a developmental process throughout one’s career (DeCorse & Vogtle, 1997), an interview guide was employed to facilitate a narrative-based exploration of participants’ experiences from their undergraduate studies onwards. The research participants were purposefully selected (Coyne, 1997) based on their possession of the first ANECA (National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain) accreditation and their more than five years tenure in academia. The participants were selected purposefully, considering criteria such as affiliation with the same university, a minimum of five years of experience, possession of a PhD, and active pursuit of a permanent position. The initial indicators evaluated at the start of the interviews included age group, gender, chronology of earned degrees, employment history, years of experience, and years in their current profession. The first author of this study was a visiting scholar at the institution and was assisted by two research students. Together, they sent invitation emails to all postdoc staff working in areas such as Health Sciences, Natural Sciences, Engineering, Humanities, and Economic Sciences, and they accepted their participation by signing a consent form. Data collection occurred between March and May 2023, with participants invited to a shared office within the health department. Tape recorders were utilised during the interviews, which involved two interviewers, and notes were taken to ensure comprehensive data capture. We decided to listen to the participants in pairs as we wanted to be sure that we were following the entire interview guide, and we decided that this situation would lead to a detailed discussion during the data analysis process. The thematic analysis (Gibbs, 2007) was applied to analyse the interview data by three rounds of shared coding of the entire data (Clarke et al., 2015).

Within the Spanish academic landscape, our participants’ experiences reflect the profound impact of neoliberalism on their professional trajectories. As highlighted by scholars such as Carvalho and Rodrigues (2006), neoliberalism’s emphasis on market-driven social relations and the commodification of knowledge has penetrated the realm of education, creating formidable challenges for educators and teachers. The audit and ranking systems, as described by Berg et al. (2016), contribute to the production of anxiety and intensify competition among academic faculty members in Northern European universities, echoing the experiences faced by our participants. Furthermore, the neoliberal policies and financial constraints examined by Caretta et al. (2018) resonate with the challenges encountered by our informants, including the pressure of heightened competition and limited resources. The lack of protocols aligning individuals’ capabilities and competencies with available job positions, as highlighted by Di Paolo and Mañé (2016). Staff members have shared their narratives of a decade-long journey in which they often felt undervalued. All participants expressed a common sentiment that, upon acquiring the role of ayudante doctor, they finally gained the ability to choose the subjects they teach, coordinate within their areas of expertise, and participate in research teams. They also took on roles as tutors and mentors for master’s and PhD students. Participant 15 further highlights that while working abroad, she experienced greater autonomy in selecting the subjects she wanted to teach, emphasising the hierarchical and restricted nature of the Spanish system. The dichotomy between personal and professional values and the structural and power influences on workplace learning has been extensively discussed (Trede et al., 2012). As described by Cruess et al. (2019) and supported by Steinert et al. (2019), the identities of tertiary education teachers as professionals and researchers are well-recognised by universities. However, there needs to be more recognition of their identities as teachers.

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