Hosted by Postdoc Reps and funded by the Faculty of Life Sciences EDI committee:

We invite all those who work as postdocs, work with postdocs, intend to work as postdocs or who manage early career researchers to join the talks and participate in the workshop.

This event will be an opportunity to explore the ways in which the structure of academic careers at postdoctoral level produce obstacles to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).

We will hear about current sociological research on Higher Education in the UK and elsewhere, and discuss how migration and precarity intersect with identity and mental health to produce a knotty problem in the leaky pipeline.

We will use this discussion in a workshop to generate ideas to help Pathway 2 researchers overcome postdoctoral challenges at Bristol (and worldwide!) and help the faculty better integrate the ever-changing postdoctoral community within the Faculty of Life Sciences.

We will attempt to understand how Bristol can reduce the detrimental impact of postdoctoral employment on EDI and benefit more from postdoc expertise, both while postdocs are in Bristol and also by retaining their expertise and a long-term connection with them once they move into other employment.

Speakers:

Dr Barbara Read (Reader in Gender and Social Inequalities, University of Glasgow). Gender and Precarious Employment in Higher Education: what are the issues?

Dr Furaha Asani (Research Lead, Watershed / Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol). Visas and Vagaries: the personal and political in short term contracts

We will also host a workshop to generate ideas to help postdocs from a personal, community and institutional perspective.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Is Doing A Postdoc “A Bad Life Choice”? No!