As a Young Academics network, we are always eager to find out how we can support our members in different ways. During the General Assembly at the AESOP Annual Congress held in Łódź, Poland (July 10-15, 2023), we asked our members for feedback about various items. More specifically, we were interested to find out how the pandemic has affected your academic and personal life, what you miss in your daily academic environment, and finally how we as YAN can support you. We are now happy to share this feedback!
How have you been affected by the pandemic?
- More time for work
- Unable to travel to conduct field work
- Brutally
- Travel!
- Less opportunities to attend events and network with other researchers
- Less opportunities to meet YA from other countries
- More time for desk work
- Living a isolated life during the pandemic
- More work than ever
- More time for myself, and for work
- Distance learning, Home Office, less social contacts
- Psychological isolation -terrible/ helplessness
- Productive
- Less contact in person
- Not really affected actually
- Less opportunities for conferences, networking, social events ect
- Less/no face to face meetings/conferences
- First two years of PhD in a vacuum because no chance of meeting others/traveling to conferences
- I had to interrupt several activities, including fieldwork
- Social events and travel
- Honestly, not that affected
- Not been able to attend many conferences - just catching up now
- Move from one country to another - change of academic setting, need for new networks
- Became hornless for 7 months
- Nice calmer lifestyle
- "Wasted time"...
What are you missing in your academic environment?
- Opportunities for peer based feedback on ongoing research
- Someone who can guide me through the process for getting a permanent position in academia
- Psychological support from a person who is also in the research environment
- Not very much since I started my phd recently ...
- Nothing at the moment, to be fair.
- International comtacts
- Transparency
- Funding
- mentorship on jobs
- Not much socializing nor dialectic discussions
- I second mentorship on jobs
- Lack of senior scholars at the office
- Someone who can guide me to navigate permanent positions
- probably forums to find others who would be interesting in collaborating in projects, writing papers, sharing complementary skills when researching
- Other researches working with same topics
- Nothing, either.
- Not much at the moment
- Phd student dont really come together and dont communicate too much. Everyone focuses on their own stuff
- I'm agree with peer-based feedbacks
- Guidance and not being competition driven
- Better connection with people working on similar topics but in different univesities and research groups
- People I can learn from
- More structured basic courses - how to navigate research, do interviews etc
- Deeper input from the perspective of urban planning.
How can the Young Academics Network (YAN) help you?
- Continue your great work.
- Organising networking activities
- Release of this survey results on the website
- Grow together
- Networking
- Networking for common issues, and perhaps try to come up with possible solutions
- Through a mix of both online and in-person events (useful to have both as it's not always possible to travel - due to funding issues etc)
- Post-phd opportunities - where to find funding
- Inspire
- Events where you can reflect with others in same situation
- create informal, on-going forums to find people to collaborate with e.g. on Slack or similar
- Relaxing during the conference without too much networking pressure
- Exchange knowledge platform
- Reaching out with workshops based on previous answers
While some answers resonated with our own experiences, others were new. Did you know that you can find a lot of information on current calls, events & job opportunities on our website? Check out the "Events & Calls" and "Jobs" sections regularly to find out about new opportunities. In terms of networking, our annual YA conference is a great way to network & get feedback on your own research from experts! We expect to soon launch the call for abstracts for the 18th edition that will be held in Milan, Italy on March 19-22, 2024.
Do you have an idea yourself on how the YAN can support you in the challenges mentioned above? We are always happy to listen to new ideas via our email address
