“I wanted to appoint a PhD candidate who I was confident would pull the project and who had sufficient background knowledge, but my boss said: ‘He’s not such a strong economist, should we really hire him?’” This illustrates how difficult it can be to recruit early career researchers (ECRs) for positions in cross-disciplinary projects. Not only do they need to be academically excellent, but they also require additional competencies and experience such as stakeholder management, communication, and collaboration. Can we expect candidates to bring this full package, or could we be looking for the proverbial ‘five-legged sheep’; the unrealistic ideal of someone who is good at everything? How then do we balance the trade-offs between different assets? How can we support ECRs to develop cross-disciplinary identities and expertise? What does this require from supervisors?

Conducting research in collaboration across disciplines (interdisciplinarity) and in with non-academic actors (transdisciplinarity) places demands on academics that are reported to pose challenges for the selection, training, and reward. In this project, we explore the experiences of early and mid-career scholars across academic contexts and possible approaches to better support them, such as interdisciplinary training networks and team-based hiring procedures.

Team members:
Annemarie Horn (UU)
Jessica Oudenampsen (UU/UMCU)
Cathelijne Stoof (WUR)