The Insider, Season 2, Episode 3

“Beautiful Frameworks, Precarious Reality: How Europe Designs Research Careers”

Europe has spent years refining its approach to research careers. New frameworks, recommendations and initiatives now promise sustainability, fairness and better working conditions for researchers across the European Research Area.

And yet, for many people working inside the system, precarity and pressure remain part of everyday life.

In this episode, Ricardo Miguéis brings together Luísa Henriques and Susana Rodrigues to look more closely at the gap between policy ambition and lived experience, and to ask what Europe’s research career frameworks are really delivering.

Luísa Henriques is a Senior Policy Analyst and Advisor to the Board of Directors at Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) in Lisbon.  

She has been closely involved in European discussions on research careers, including the 2021 Council Recommendation, and offers an insider’s perspective on how these frameworks were shaped, what they are meant to change, and the constraints that shape their implementation.

Susana Rodrigues approaches the same questions from inside research organisations. As Head of the HR Department at INESC TEC and a researcher in Occupational Health at INESC TEC’s Centre for Biomedical Engineering (CBER), she works directly with researchers navigating short-term contracts, evaluation pressure and uncertainty, and studies the health consequences that follow.

The episode unfolds in two parts:

Part 1 – The promise behind the frameworks

The first part looks at how research careers became a policy priority at European level. Luísa reflects on the intentions behind recent reforms, the focus on skills, mobility and sustainability, and the effort to professionalise career paths beyond the traditional academic model.

At the same time, both guests point to a persistent tension: Europe continues to rely heavily on project-based funding and fixed-term contracts, even as it promotes long-term career development. On paper, the frameworks are strong. In practice, they sit within structures that often pull in the opposite direction.

Part 2 – Human cost, awareness and implementation

The second part of the conversation turns to the human impact of this gap. Drawing on occupational health research and European-level evidence, Susana discusses the high prevalence of stress and mental health challenges among researchers, not as individual issues, but as systemic outcomes.

One idea keeps returning: awareness is no longer the problem. The real challenge lies in implementation. Building systems that genuinely support people takes time, resources and cultural change, both within institutions and across the wider research ecosystem.

Rather than offering easy solutions, the episode closes with a more difficult question. If Europe chooses to keep its current research career structures, is it also prepared to be honest about what they demand from the people who make the system work?

For The Insider, this conversation speaks directly to the broader theme of Season 2: how Europe designs progress, and whose realities are taken into account when policy meets practice.

Listen to “Beautiful Frameworks, Precarious Reality: How Europe Designs Research Careers” on Apple Podcasts

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Artwork note:

The artwork for this episode reflects its central tension. Europe’s research career frameworks are carefully designed and elegant, like the ornate umbrella shielding the statue from the sun. They are built to address visible pressures in the system, represented by the harsh light above. But when the real rain comes (the less visible realities of precarity, uncertainty and mental strain) that protection often falls short. The rain symbolises what the frameworks struggle to cover: the human consequences that appear once policy meets practice. Elegant in theory. Precarious in practice.