Authors

• Matikainen, Minni (University of Jyväskylä)
• Piironen, Anni (University of Jyväskylä)

Keywords

career, equal opportunity, research grants, research workers, tertiary education (second stage)

Abstract

The study charted young researchers' experiences on the development of their own academic expertise in the early stages of their research careers. The respondents were asked to describe the opportunities and challenges they had faced and whether they had received help and support for their work and from where. The data include 51 informal writings, of which 16 are written in English and 35 in Finnish.

Some respondents had just begun their academic careers while others recalled their early careers. Many respondents discussed their experiences of doctoral education and doctoral dissertation work. Aspects relating to research grants and financial circumstances, networking and the reflection of the respondent's own status in the working community emerged as central themes in the writings. The respondents described their individual experiences of the development of their own academic expertise and related feelings. In the invitation to write about their experiences, the respondents were asked to consider whether, for example, gender, age, ethnic background or position in the academia were connected to their experiences in the scientific community.

Background information included the respondent's age and gender, language used to write and information on how long and in what field the writer had worked in. The data were organised into an easy to use HTML version at FSD.

The dataset is only available in the original languages (Finnish and English).