Formalised Peer-Support for Early Career Researchers: Potential for Resistance and Genuine Exchanges

Thériault, Beck, Mouroutsou, and Billmayer analyse and discuss the concept of ‘formalised peer-support’ in workshops for Early Career Researchers (ECRs). In the neoliberal university, a number of workshops are offered to ECRs for them to learn how to ‘play the game’. In that context, ECRs might feel ‘inadequate’, linking to the concept of imposter syndrome. A sample of abstracts of UK-based ECR training events and two reflective vignettes are analysed. The analysis reveals that most support offered frames success in terms of meeting the neoliberal university’s requirements. The authors contend that ECR workshops can be reappropriated as sites of agency. Individuals who have not experienced feelings of imposterism, they conclude, are more likely to uncritically promote neoliberal ideas of success.