Page 171 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

procedures is no guarantee for more fairness or equality in outcomes (Helgesson & Sjögren, 2019; Noon, Healy, Forson, & Oikelome, 2013; Van den Brink, Benschop, & Jansen, 2010) because micro politics play an important role in hiring decisions. Nevertheless, formalizing hiring processes for postdocs could be an important first step towards more accountability and equality.
Also, my study on postdoc hiring shows that PIs tend to opt for candidates who can meet project objectives, in which availability can prevail over other criteria, partly because they need a postdoc researcher who can start at short notice. Given the importance of having the right candidate in the right place, I recommend research funding organisations to extend the obligatory starting date of projects in order to provide PIs with more time for good quality recruitment and selection.
At the same time, I see the need to take into account the careers and career prospects of postdoc researchers. I advocate for research projects that are sufficiently long (for example three years at least) and provide postdocs with somewhat more stability than projects with a shorter duration. Furthermore, I argue that PIs should take part in the responsibility for the career development of postdocs with regard to a postdoc’s research line, as this is important for the next step in an academic career. They could, for example, give a postdoc responsibility for the part of the project that matches the research line of the postdoc (most) or give a postdoc time, next to the project, for their own research.
Additionally, postdocs should get training in multiple tasks, to better align the postdoc position with a next position in academia or outside. For example, they could get teaching and / or management tasks in addition to their research project. This way postdocs not only expand their skills, but they contribute to their department too, which can facilitate their embeddedness in and value to the organisation. Also, this might change their ‘project worker’ status into a more valued and well-rounded colleague.3
3 During the course of the GARCIA project we developed a toolkit for early-career researchers to inform them about difficulties and opportunities they may encounter as well as to prepare for an academic career. See for the toolkit: Dennissen, M., Herschberg, C., Benschop, Y. & Van den Brink, M. (2017). Toolkit for organizing workshops 'precarious positions' for early career researchers. GARCIA working paper n. 17, University of Trento, ISBN 978-88-8443-714-3, http://garciaproject.eu/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/GARCIA_working_papers_n.17.pdf
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