For this new series of collaborative blog posts, early career researchers (ECRs) in French history in the UK were invited to reflect on their recent experiences. In autumn 2025, the situation across UK universities looks increasingly bleak, with more than a hundred separate redundancy schemes or cuts underway by one tally. In this context, the already challenging position of ECR researchers has grown much worse very quickly and perhaps more quickly than other colleagues realise. When so many of us feel powerless in the face of the structural problems facing universities, there is value in sharing experiences and drawing attention to practical things that institutions and senior colleagues can do to help ECRs in our fields. There is value, too, in giving ECRs opportunities to express their frustration in ways that they cannot in conversation with colleagues upon whom they might depend for their next job, reference, or other assistance.
The contributors include men and women, ranging from PhD students to postdocs and come from a range of institutions. None of them are employed on open-ended contracts. Their words have not been edited or blended together, but are presented as anonymised, numbered contributors. The contributors and numbers are not the same in every post.
This post is the second of three, following a post describing what it’s like being an ECR in 2025, and before a final post offering their advice to current or prospective PhD students in French history. For this post, we asked contributors: what can more senior colleagues, institutions, and organisations such as the Society for the Study of French History do to help ECRs?
Contributor 1:
One piece of advice I would share with senior members of staff is to try and remember that ECRs are also colleagues and even fellow human beings!
I have had my fill of hair-raising anecdotes about how teaching fellows and postdoctoral researchers are treated by permanent members of staff. A friend of mine told me about how a joint leaving drinks was arranged for a postdoc and a permanent member of staff. After about an hour at the pub, all the permanent members of staff left to go to a restaurant booking to which none of those on fixed contracts had been invited. A similar tale involved a department where teaching fellows and postdocs were systematically excluded from social events, as the permanent staff thought their desired choice of restaurant would be too expensive for early career researchers. Doubtless the latter were very grateful for such a considerate expression of solidarity over their lower pay.
Of course, these anecdotes partly reflect particular departmental or institutional cultures. Many places do offer a supportive and respectful environment to their fixed-term colleagues. I should also add that I have personally benefited from the generosity and support of senior colleagues in countless ways. One area where there might be a more specific opportunity to support ECRs is in things like appraisals, career planning, and professional development. Some older members of staff sometimes regard these things as bureaucratic, box-ticking exercises that get in the way of actual research and work. They certainly can be, but done well they can also be opportunities to raise issues, request guidance, and simply feel listened to. For these exercises to be meaningful, however, requires a degree of engagement and effort on the part of the organisers to ensure their success.
Contributor 2:
Senior colleagues: perhaps the greatest favour you can do young scholars is to NOT supervise their doctorates unless you are really 100% willing and able to be a good supervisor to them.
I have seen so many colleagues have their careers in academia destroyed from the start because they were dependent on supervisors who lost interest in them, became chronically absent and unresponsive, and/or did not have the time and energy available to dedicate to all the work a good supervisor needs to do to help a doctoral student write and improve their thesis, prepare for a competitive job market, and generally get through the years of the doctorate that will probably at times be very hard, both academically and personally. Know that if you decide to accept someone as your PhD student, you are not only committing to supervising a project you find interesting, but also to supporting a real, three-dimensional young person who over the course of the years you spend together might go through personal crises, relationship breakdowns, bereavements, serious health issues, disability and more, and if you are not fully willing to stand by them and advocate for them even when these issues prevent them from being as productive as you would ideally want them to be, the right thing to do for you is to say no to supervising them. Doctoral students deserve supervisors who are available, supportive, and genuinely interested in helping them grow not just intellectually but as people.
If you are not able to do that, don’t supervise anyone.
Additionally, if you are supervising or mentoring an international student, please educate yourself on the visa issues they will face and advocate for them whenever possible. Those of us dependent on visas in the UK face many additional obstacles compared to British citizens, including for example the fact that we cannot officially take sick leave longer than a few weeks, that at the end of our studies we need our viva and corrections to happen within an often very tight timeframe in order for us to be able to apply for graduate visas before our student visas run out, that our employment rights are limited to 20 hours a week even in the period between submission and the official end of our degree, and that we are limited in which jobs we can apply to after graduating because the harsh restrictions of the graduate visa (which will become even harsher if current government plans get adopted) cut short the time we can spend job hunting without being deported, as well as preventing us from accepting jobs below a certain salary.
I would also urge senior colleagues to think very hard about whether they are treating female ECRs the same as male scholars, as well as about ways to hold accountable colleagues who may not do so. Certain fields of history in the UK are still very male dominated, and women often do not benefit from the same informal opportunities as men: we don’t get invited to the pub as much and consequently miss out on networking opportunities, and we don’t get picked as protégés by male senior historians whom we remind of their younger selves. As a rule of thumb, whenever you find yourself in a room with only men in it, or with a disproportionate number of men to women, that should be your warning sign that you need to take active steps to change something so that young female scholars have an equal chance to be included.
Finally, regarding the atrocious state of the job market, senior colleagues have a responsibility to resist normalising the rise of ultra-short-term positions. As long as you keep acting like it is acceptable to expect ECRs to move to a different city or even country for postdocs and lectureships limited to nine or even six months, these positions will continue to be offered. Whenever you are asked to advertise such a post to your students, or whenever you are involved in creating such a post at your institutions, please speak up against it. This is a race to the bottom that is highly detrimental to the wellbeing of younger colleagues, who – unlike you – aren’t in a position to speak out against it.
As for institutions and organisations like the SSFH, there are a few practical things you can implement that can make a big difference for ECRs. When organising a conference, send out acceptance emails to speakers as early as possible and at least several months in advance, as this allows ECRs time to apply for funding and book accommodation in advance when it is cheaper. Additionally, please make expensive parts of the conference, such as a gala dinner, optional to improve affordability.
Additionally, one of the most important functions of institutions and organisations for young scholars is offering sorely needed funding, for everything from research trips and conference attendance to writing up scholarships. It makes a huge difference for young scholars. Please continue to do everything you can to continue to offer, and if possible even extend, this support. In particular, it would be very helpful if more funding opportunities could be aimed at helping ECRs who have finished their doctorates but have not secured stable jobs yet successfully bridge this transition.
One opportunity to help ECRs that does not require much money is to award prizes for articles, dissertations, theses, books etc., ideally as many different prizes as is feasible — putting such a prize on their CV can be very helpful for a young scholar given the extremely competitive job market.
Finally, mentorship schemes are extremely valuable and one of the most important ways in which organisations and institutions can help ECRs. Ideally, they would be institutionalised as semi-permanent programmes and opened up at regular intervals for new people. For senior colleagues, the same applies here as for supervising doctoral students: please only sign up for such initiatives if you are really willing to devote some time and energy to the person you are mentoring. But if you are, know that your support can genuinely be life-altering. In particular, being willing to be a mentor to young colleagues who might be facing disadvantages because of their gender, nationality, class, health issues, unsupportive or disengaged supervisors, or other significant problems can help them overcome these barriers and potentially contribute considerably to their well-being as well as to their success in academia.
Specifically for institutions, one of the best things you can do to help your ECRs is offering workspaces for them. This aids community-building, which in turn helps combat the pervasive loneliness and the mental health crisis among young scholars. Offering ergonomic desks and chairs can also improve their physical health, especially given that many cannot afford the costs of paying for a similarly supportive setup in their own homes or don’t even have the space for it.
Contributor 3:
Dear Senior Colleagues, please don’t make me make you feel better.
I’ve noticed a strange trend recently, where a senior colleague makes an effort show they are aware of the challenges of the job market. To show their understanding, the senior colleague acknowledges that it was never this hard when they were in this position, that things seem almost impossible for young scholars, and it becomes quickly clear that they feel guilty for their job security and salary. I find myself having to reassure the senior colleague that nobody begrudges them their success (this is a lie), that we are sure that we will find something (this is a lie), and that I’m sure they deserve their position and faced challenges getting there too (also a lie).
Organisations such as SSFH can’t make more jobs. But they can provide training to help Early Career scholars think about how to use their existing research, language and communication skills for other career paths. It would also be useful to think about how to use a Trojan Horse method to sneak French history into other arts, humanities or social science jobs.
Contributor 4:
When a department advertises a new permanent post, at least one ECR on a fixed-term contract in that department should be able to apply for it.
What should not happen, as it frequently does, is the following: all ECRs in a History department work on European and/or North American History; the department has money to advertise a permanent post; the geographical focus the department chooses for the new post is such that none of the ECRs can apply for it. Legally, the department has every right to claim that its strategic interests take precedence over its ECRs’ personal circumstances. Morally, however, such a behaviour is indefensible.
