Behind the pursuit of discovery, many researchers are quietly struggling with wellbeing challenges shaped by academic structures, workplace culture, and personal pressures. This blog post explores three key challenges and prompts reflection on researcher wellbeing as a shared institutional responsibility.

Workload, performance and burnout

Researchers often operate in a “high expectations, always-on” environment balancing publishing, grants, teaching and administrative duties, which increases sustained stress and burnout risk. Over time, this sustained pressure can become normalised.

Nature’s PhD survey found that 36% of respondents had sought help for anxiety or depression caused by their studies, alongside a recognised long working hours (41–60 hours/week) culture. Wellcome’s 2020 research culture survey also linked poor culture and competition with mental health strain, highlighting that 53% of researchers have sought or wanted to seek professional help for depression or anxiety.

These pressures shape everyday experiences (guilt when resting, disrupted sleep and reduced capacity for creative thinking) and impacts both individual researchers and the quality of the research they produce.

This raises important questions for institutions: what behaviours are being rewarded, and what do these signal about rest, boundaries, and sustainability? Is productivity equated with long working hours rather than meaningful contribution and impact?

Resources to help individuals and institutions engage with these challenges include Wellcome’s work on reimagining research culture and NHS Every Mind Matters guide to managing work-related stress.

Job insecurity and anxiety about the future

Short-term contracts, funding cycles and limited permanent positions create environments of ongoing uncertainty, which directly impact researcher wellbeing.

Evidence provided by Wellcome’s survey, shows that only 29% of researchers said they feel secure pursuing a research career. While a systematic review of qualitative research on academics’ mental health highlights job insecurity combined with high expectations as a key condition leaving researchers at risk of poorer wellbeing.

Uncertainty also shapes behaviour in less visible ways: reducing people’s willingness to speak up, set boundaries, or take leave, reinforcing cultures of overwork and silence.

For institutions, this invites deeper reflection. How do employment practices shape psychological safety and long-term colleague wellbeing? Are colleagues enabled to plan, pause or ask for support without fear of negative career impacts?

Insights and evidence supporting institutional thinking on this point include the C-DICE report on researcher precarity in UK higher education. For individuals experiencing anxiety around job security the Mental Health Foundation offers resources and support.

Toxic and unsupportive research cultures

Power imbalances, unhealthy competition and lack of accountability in the research environment can create unsafe conditions where bullying and harassment can take root and persist.

Wellcome’s research worryingly found 43% of researchers had experienced bullying or harassment and 61% had witnessed it. While Nature’s PhD survey reported 21% of respondents experienced bullying, often involving supervisors or colleagues. This affects mental health directly and blocks help-seeking because people fear retaliation or being labelled “difficult”. In turn, this undermines trust in the institution and weakens the integrity of research cultures.

The above evidence calls for institutions to question: do existing systems of reporting make it safe, and worthwhile, for people to speak up? Or do they inadvertently reinforce silence?

UKRI’s work on preventing bullying and harassment outlines expectations for healthier research environments, while the The Research Companion has compiled a list of resources for those experiencing academic bullying.

From individual resilience to systemic change

If these challenges are systemic, the response requires collective reflection and meaningful structural change. Improving researcher wellbeing cannot rely solely on individuals coping better within problematic systems. Reframing wellbeing as a shared institutional responsibility offers an opportunity to build research cultures where researchers, and the work they do, can genuinely thrive.

By:

Dr Antoinette McKane, Researcher Development Officer, Directorate of Research and Business Engagement

Dr Swati Sharma, Research Associate, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

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