Am I an early career researcher? I ask myself this question every time I receive an email or see a social media post about opportunities for ECRs. For me, the answer is usually a pretty confident no. After all, I started my undergraduate degree twenty years ago this year, and worked for 15 or so years in the public sector, so how could I be ‘early career’? Obviously, the fact that I’m in the middle of my PhD candidature puts me firmly in the ECR category, but it’s really not a label that sits well with a forty-something mother of a teenager. So, why don’t I feel like an ECR and does it actually matter? I don’t seem to look like most ECRs – they’re young, vibrant, full of enthusiasm for every little thing. I’ve had a bumpy ride the last twenty years, and it shows. Most ECR opportunities I see are also aimed at people younger than 25, 30 if they’re being generous, and that definitely excludes me.
At this point in my candidature, I’m not thinking about what comes next (well, not really). As a middle-aged mum to a special needs kid, finding a place that supports my caring responsibilities is going to be hard enough, and thinking about that kind of stuff does me more harm than good right now, especially with COVID uncertainties thrown into the mix. I still don’t know what my end game is and whether I want to stay in academia or if the public sector will beckon once again, so does a label like ECR mean something important for me or is it something that helps others put me into context? After all, we scientists are very good at labelling and categorising.
One label I do sit with, rather uncomfortably it must be said, is imposter. Surely, a time will come when my supervisors will realise that I’m not the researcher they were looking for and I’ll be politely asked to move along. After all, so much in research has changed since I completed my Honours in 2005. The technological advancements, the new statistical languages and programs, the whole world of sci-comm, these all happened after I graduated and which, as a policy maker, I rarely came across (which is a very different story). I know this whole imposter syndrome is so common amongst so many of us, but actually, it really does apply to me. I haven’t published anything since my Honours papers, I haven’t presented at conferences since 2006, I hadn’t even been involved in any kind of research at all during my time in the public sector wilderness. So how did I manage to convince some of our best ecologists (yes, I’m biased) to accept me into their project? I must have tricked them somehow, right? What does a policy wonk know about camera trapping and machine learning and R for goodness’ sake?
When I first started out in this field (pun intended), everything (well, nearly everything) was done by hand. Digging in pitfall traps and laying out metres and metres of drift fencing, followed by crazy nights checking those traps, night after exhausting night. Sifting through field guides to identify all those unknowable critters without an app in sight. Data collection was in a neat little notebook and transcribed later onto a computer. And stats! We were taught how to do every test by hand! No using SPSS or Excel until we’d got the hang of manually calculating the results. And now, there is so much more to learn now than I ever thought possible that there are days when I feel crushed by the weight of all the new things I need to master.
But I guess that’s what makes me an ECR. It’s not an age thing like I trick myself into thinking, it’s about a thirst for knowledge, and where you are in your life-long quest for it. It’s not about how you see yourself, but what others see in you, and learning to have confidence in their belief in you. I know there are more technical definitions of ECR that are used for funding opportunities and the like, but I think I prefer my definition, because at least I can see myself, my whole imperfect self, in it. And surely that’s the real aim of such a label.
Rambling with Ange 