Every year, the IMISCOE PhD Network invites PhD students to reflect on their research trajectories. Even though the work we all put in is a major part of what we do, most of us deal with a lot of pressure. For some, private matters occupy our time. For others, teaching and side projects are necessary to earn a living wage. After years of talking and naming these challenges, we decided to ask a different question: What actually keeps us here? This question became the foundation, and that’s how we landed on last year’s theme: Finding Joy in Academia.
During the PhD Day, we discussed what can bring us joy and happiness during our PhD journeys. Together with Zakia Essanhaji from the podcast Joy in Academia, along with Anne-Wil Harzing and Christa Sathish from Positive Academia, who joined us for a workshop session, we highlighted that despite hurdles, academia offers unique, positive experiences that bring us meaning. Despite the pressure to constantly perform and produce, academia still offers a rare kind of freedom: the ability to choose the questions we care about, explore them in ways that make sense to us, and create spaces where people can come together to think. That freedom, and the communities we find along the way, are often the reasons we start (and stay) on this path.
This theme followed us to the IMISCOE Annual Conference in Paris. The evening before the official programme began, we organised a pizza evening for PhD students. The evening brought together around 40 PhD students from all over the world. During dinner, we exchanged experiences and found peers who made the week to come easier to digest. By the time the conference started the next morning, people already had a few familiar faces to spot in the crowd. Those moments of recognition, like a quick smile before a panel or a wave in the hallway, made the days ahead feel less like navigating a sea of strangers. For those attending alone, it meant arriving on day one with a ready-made group to check in with.
Our panel and workshop deepened these conversations. We invited three speakers: Ismail Oubad (University of Liège and University of Genoa), Carolin Schütze (Malmö University), and Swantje Falcke (Utrecht University), who offered three key reflections on Joy in Academic Life:
- Research is more than data extraction. During interviews and fieldwork, we make connections with people, and they can bring us joy, even if we make these connections in precarious circumstances.
- Time can be seen as central to the PhD trajectory. Of course, there is always pressure to keep progressing and finish assignments. However, during the PhD, we also have time to delve into new topics, take time to really understand an issue, and think before we make our next step. All of this leads to personal growth, also a major achievement during a PhD, allowing us to find out what kind of academic we want to be.
- Lastly, Swantje Falcke made a strong point to reframe hardships during the PhD. She reminded us that, of course, it is best to make the PhD project really our own, but she emphasised that it is also about the people you meet along the way, tying this back to the value of community while doing research.
In our workshop discussions, these points came alive. People reminded each other that there’s always a person behind the researcher; one who has friends, family, hobbies, and responsibilities outside of academia. During a workshop session, we continued the discussion in smaller groups and shared some insights that are worth sharing. First, we should not neglect the person behind the researcher. We all have a life outside of academia. One of the participants shared that their friends kept them grounded after a long day or weeks of grinding to meet a deadline. Others have emphasised the value of family and how our roles in our lives might also change over time. Having children and starting a family certainly has an impact on our lives, including on our jobs as researchers. Second, different countries offer different environments for PhD students. Some are required to teach while others have to fund themselves. This leads to diverging trajectories, depending on where one is completing a PhD. Keeping that in mind is helpful when imposter syndrome hits and we compare ourselves to all the brilliant people who are studying elsewhere and have achieved so much. Success is relative and depends heavily on the country, even the institutions we work at, which brings us to the last major point: the community.
A common thread of last year’s topic of Joy has been the people and the community. No matter what context we are all working in, the value of community and exchange is what we heard the most during the events. Whether it is a spontaneous coffee with a colleague or a fun online meeting organised by the IMISCOE PhD Network, research is much more than data analysis and literature review. It is about sharing ideas, brainstorming with others, and finding your place in this community of researchers.
If there is one thing last year’s events have shown, it is that Joy in Academia is not something we just stumble upon. It is something we make: by creating spaces to connect, by taking time seriously, and by keeping sight of the relationships that matter. And it’s something we can choose to keep making, together.
Across all of this, one theme kept coming back: community. The kind that grows over coffee breaks, informal conversations, or drinks after a conference day. It is what makes the hard moments less lonely and the good moments even better. These connections remind us that research is not just about producing work; it is also about helping to advance progress and society.
For the upcoming year, we want to stick to the positive side of research. In our opinion, research is, among other things, driven by curiosity. For PhD students, this means the impulse to ask questions, to explore data, and to follow ideas wherever they may lead. Curiosity helps us navigate the hurdles of our trajectories, turning challenges into opportunities for discovery. It is present in the freedom to experiment with concepts, in the excitement of uncovering new insights, and in the conversations that spark fresh perspectives. Nurturing curiosity not only brings purpose and fulfilment to our work, but it also keeps alive the sense of wonder that motivated us in the first place.
Tying this to the value of community, we are not curious on our own. When we recognise the guidance and support of others, it becomes clear that a community grounds our curiosity. The friendships formed with colleagues, the solidarity in facing challenges, and the collective pursuit of ideas all remind us that academia is sustained not only by individual achievement but also by community. That is why we want to turn to curiosity and community for the upcoming academic year.