The Action Research on Research Culture project is an international collaboration investigating how changing the recruitment, development and retention of researchers could improve research culture.

Improving research culture – the norms, values and behaviours of researchers and the research system – is a key to revitalising research and increasing its contribution to society. Early career researchers – especially postdocs – are often central to improving research culture because they face several challenging circumstances including strong competition for job opportunities on short fixed-term contracts.
The Action Research on Research Culture (ARRC) project at the University of Cambridge investigates how changing the recruitment, development and retention of postdoctoral researchers could improve research culture. The ARRC project’s international partners are University of Edinburgh (UK), Leiden University (The Netherlands), Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), and ETH Zurich (Switzerland).
These standalone research briefs form part of the ARRC team’s background research to understand current practices around research culture issues in other countries. The briefs summarise practices from select European universities about the ways they approach the recruitment of postdocs and postdoc precarity.
- Recruitment of early career researchers (postdocs): summary of practices from selected European universities
- Precarity of early career researchers (postdocs): summary of practices from selected European universities
For more information about the ARRC project, visit arrc.group.cam.ac.uk