I did everything the system told me to do.

As a student, I was unambiguously advised by all supervisors that academic success was a case of publish or perish. So I published consistently and internationally, building collaborations across institutions, countries, continents and disciplines.

For this, I was rewarded with a second Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship, six years after having completed my PhD as part of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie () with the highest honours.

And by now, I have authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and have an h-index of 44, according to Google Scholar. I supervise PhD and MSc candidates across multiple institutions and countries. I have coordinated international research collaborations and won several awards, including the for “demonstrating outstanding abilities in the fields of Crustacean Behaviour and/or Invasion Biology”. And, last year, I obtained my habilitation: my licence to teach in my home country of Germany.

By all conventional academic metrics – papers, citations, external funding awarded, indicators of esteem – this trajectory should signal readiness for independence and leadership. But being now in my mid-thirties, a divorced single father with custody of two daughters, I find myself still without a permanent academic position. And I face continuous rejection of my applications for one.

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In Germany, scientific productivity is celebrated, but seemingly . Indeed, beyond an implicit and never clearly communicated threshold, additional output seems to no longer strengthen job applicants’ profiles. Instead, it seemingly begins to work against them. Individuals with high visibility, international mobility or thematic ambition may be perceived as too difficult to integrate or even as destabilising to existing hierarchies – especially if they are also outspoken.

This logic is rarely articulated directly but it is evident in what I have heard behind closed doors. Hiring committees in Germany – and elements of this phenomenon surely exist elsewhere, too – typically value long-term collegial cohesion very highly. Hence, their members often favour not so much the objectively best candidate as the one who is “similar to themselves”, I have been told by someone close to such a committee. The decision “always oscillates between ‘we choose the best’ and ‘we choose the one who fits us best’”, I also learned.

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In addition, “most people do not want stress in their work environment”. So while “provocation within limits is fine…those who give the impression of being a troublemaker are often not invited”. But what is troublemaking? Even writing an article like this can count, it seems: “Constant – even if justified – complaining about the injustice of the system can lead a faculty member to fear bringing conflict into the department.”

Moreover, claims to have demonstrated international excellence can always be undercut by a sense that there is still more the candidate could achieve. Job applicants are told – often very politely, but sometimes less so – that they are “on a good path” but should address a small number of remaining gaps. These typically include more independent funding, more doctoral supervision, more leadership roles and more comprehensive teaching portfolios. What remains unsaid is that many of these criteria are structurally unattainable without the very permanent positions they are meant to justify. Under such conditions, excellence can paradoxically become a liability rather than a straightforward advantage. Signals of high autonomy, external visibility and disruptive capacity can be interpreted not simply as academic strengths but as organisational risks.

For instance, I have been frequently told that I need “1-2 more Nature papers”, “to win a big grant”, and show dedicated teaching ability. But I was also warned that hiring committees might be suspicious of my frequent moves between institutions: from Germany to Italy for my PhD, back to Germany for a postdoc, followed by a few months in the Czech Republic and now a postdoc in the UK. But, of course, this suspicion is absurd given that migration is the reality of postdoctoral life – particularly for those aspiring to follow their interests and achieve excellence.

To be fair, I am far from the only German academic who feels that a permanent position is overdue. Indeed, in German academia, career precarity is the norm. In that sense, this article is not an individual grievance but a structural diagnosis.

Under Germany’s Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act 2007 (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz), people are only legally permitted to remain in fixed-term postdoctoral positions for six years after their PhD (excluding certain third-party funding extensions). But even after the postdoctoral period – by which time people are typically in their mid-thirties – permanent positions and are often not equivalent to independent academic careers.

Junior professor positions, for instance, are often limited to six-year fixed terms and only sometimes offer a tenure track. Lecturer-type (Dauerstellen mit Schwerpunkt Lehre) roles are occasionally permanent, but numerically limited and obviously teaching-heavy, with restricted research independence; I have not come across any in recent years). Mid-level (Mittelbau) positions can be permanent but are also rare and are unevenly distributed across federal states and disciplines. Hence, 82 per cent of German non-professorial academic staff are on fixed-term contracts, with average durations of about 20 months. It .

Professorial appointments are, of course, permanent. But the average age at the first appointment to Germany’s main professorial ranks (W2 and W3) is above 42, and the average age of professors as a whole is 53, with just 4 per cent under 40. Moreover, only about 15 per cent of university academics ever reach professorial level. Most have to endure precarity for their entire careers.

The situation becomes even more crazy. When I started to apply for a European Research Council grant, I had to find a host institution. I contacted several universities in Germany and most of them told me outright that they could not host me because winning such a fellowship comes, under German law, with permanence and they cannot make such a long-term financial commitment amid the German university system’s chronic underfunding and the rigid budgeting restrictions imposed by the ����Vlog Pact (Hochschulpakt), a federal-state funding agreement that caps and earmarks university financing.

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Meanwhile, in order to maintain my habilitation status at the German university where I earned it, I have to conduct teaching there: effectively, unpaid labour without any reasonable chance of this leading to a permanent position.

When professorships are so comparatively rare, you might expect them to be reserved only for the very best researchers and teachers. Yet, as I have said, I have come to see them not so much as prizes for scientific excellence as long-term institutional commitments subject to selection procedures that prioritise the minimisation of organisation risk.

Under conditions in which base funding is increasingly capped, flexibility in reallocating permanent positions is limited, and a lot of effort is required to coordinate entrenched institutional actors, each professorial appointment – even though it comes late in careers, if at all – becomes a long-term structural decision rather than a short-term performance bet. It is a 20-30-year (or even longer) commitment that fixes thematic direction, personnel lines, budget shares and internal power distributions within a faculty, department or even larger institute/university.

Candidates that are already embedded in local networks and aligned with existing disciplinary boundaries are predictable in their trajectories and thus perceived as “safe”. What should count as intellectual independence can, in such appointment settings, be reinterpreted as a source of friction, reduced manageability or institutional variance. By contrast, a highly visible, internationally competitive candidate may be perceived as increasing organisational uncertainty: strong grant capacity can shift internal resource flows; thematic ambition can redirect faculty strategy; and pre-existing external visibility can immediately alter internal prestige hierarchies and reduce dependency on local patronage structures. Before I applied for a position at one university, for instance, I was told by a professor there that my CV was superior not only to all its current postdocs but even a large share of its professors – and I could be certain that some of those professors would have an issue with me as I would make them look “bad”.

Hence, in a system with few chairs and (except in extremis) permanent tenure regardless of performance, faculties may rationally prefer predictability, local embeddedness, and incremental alignment over high structural variance. But the result, from a perspective of an early career scientist who since 7th grade always desired and strived for a position in academia, is a widening disconnect between how academic careers are rhetorically framed and how they are structurally adjudicated. This fuels frustration and accelerates talent loss – from institutions, countries and the sector as a whole – while weakening the very scientific competence, teaching quality and grant imagination on which academia depends.

As I am adjusting myself to the realisation that I may soon have to leave academia, it is important to highlight that this essay is not a call for sympathy. Nor is it a demand for reform framed in absolutes. But I do hope to invite reflection on : would senior scientists known for their visibility, public engagement or intellectual audacity have found a place in today’s academic system, in which careers are defined by precarity and advancement is tied to short-term signalling (prestige journals, grant capture, metric optimisation)? Or would they have been advised to wait, adapt and become less disruptive before being considered “ready”?

I realise that saying all this – against a close colleague’s advice – may further limit my chances of permanence in Germany. But it is vital for academic systems to ask themselves whether they are selecting for scientific excellence or merely for institutional comfort. Without challenge, it is too easy to assume that these amount to the same thing.

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For young researchers – and at 37 years old I still consider myself that – the most important question may no longer be “Am I good enough?” but “How long do I have to wait until I am considered good enough by the system?” And Germany is by no means the only country in which those questions are becoming increasingly distinct from each other.

is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow at Bournemouth University.

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If you move forward with purpose, the system eventually has to make room

The year I won an ERC grant, I expected relief. Not celebration, not applause. Just relief. The kind that comes when years of uncertainty finally crystallise into something solid. A lab. Independence to pursue your own scientific ideas. A future that can be planned in more than 12-month increments. Instead, that year taught me how fragile a scientific career really is.

On paper, I had done everything right. A PhD between research groups in Spain and Portugal and multiple postdoctoral fellowships, each more competitive than the last – one in the US, another in the UK, followed by a third that was meant to be transitional towards independence. I published, patented, supervised students, built ambitious research programmes. I learned how to survive in elite environments where productivity (unfortunately) is the only stable currency.

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I also learned how to live science with a family. I moved to Boston with my daughter when she was 18 months old. I learned how to remain productive amid jet lag and childcare stresses, running experiments between daycare pickups and writing grants after bedtime. By the time I left, after what was by far the most rewarding time of my professional life, I had two children and a deeper commitment to science than ever. But I also had fewer illusions, and I felt it was high time that I had a permanent position.

Winning the ERC grant should have changed everything for us. And it did, but not in the way I expected. The grant validated my ideas at the highest European level. It said clearly: “This person is ready to lead.” What it did not do was guarantee a place to do so.

Within my institution, back in Portugal, the response was not excitement but containment. I was encouraged to “stay incubated” inside the same lab where I was doing my third postdoc. Independence was framed as premature. Leadership as disruptive. The money I was bringing – €1.5 million – was welcome. The autonomy was not.

At that moment, I realised something deeply unsettling. In science, success does not always unlock doors. Sometimes it exposes how tightly controlled they are. I was not trained by the senior local figures who quietly pre-validate who is “ready” before any formal decision is made. I was productive, funded and internationally trained and recognised, but I was not institutionally embedded in the right way.

So I had to leave. I was in effect forced to leave. Not because I failed. Because I succeeded. I left an institution that did not want a new group leader because I was not part of the “club”. So I packed my life again – abandoning collaborations, routines and a fragile family balance rebuilt across countries – this time not chasing opportunity but insisting on independence. And respect. This is the part of academic science we rarely say out loud.

Research is one of the most precarious professions worldwide. It demands total dedication during the years when people build families, roots and identities. It runs on short contracts and unspoken hierarchies. It celebrates excellence publicly, while negotiating it privately. It demands passion to endure the lack of stability, in the hope of ultimately becoming one of those carefully curated success stories you see behind office doors with “professor” on them.

Yet this is not a story about quitting. Today, I, too, am a full professor, at an institution where I feel completely recognised and nurtured. I love doing science. I love teaching. I love watching students discover that they can ask questions that no one has asked before. I love building teams in which people do not have to choose between ambition and humanity.

I write this piece so people can see that while success in science is never guaranteed, regardless of merit, it is never out of reach, no matter how many “failures” you have to endure first. Dreams are hard to follow, and there are always those who will try to tear you down. But, believe me, you cannot let that happen.

What kept me in science was not blind optimism. It was stubborn belief. Belief that ideas matter. That independence is worth fighting for. That institutions can change if enough people insist on better models. That mentorship can turn individual survival into collective progress.

To those who are considering leaving science, I understand you. The exhaustion is real. Uncertainty is not a personal failure. If you choose to leave, that choice is valid. But if you stay, stay with open eyes, with open heart. Do not confuse precarity with inadequacy. Do not internalise structural problems as personal issues. Demand achievable milestones. Demand transparency. Demand space to grow.

I learned the true meaning of precarity the year I won an ERC grant, but I also learned that surviving it can make you a better scientist, a better mentor and, eventually, a better leader. And I am deeply thankful for this experience because I am stronger than before. Science needs people who know how hard it is and stay regardless – not because the system is fair, but because it is worth fixing.

So take the leap, even when not every risk is calculated. When you work hard, stay focused and keep your eyes on the finish line, no storm can break you down. The path will bend, institutions will resist and people will doubt you, but momentum is powerful. If you move forward with purpose, the system eventually has to make room. Believe me.

is a full professor in NOVA Medical School at NOVA University Lisbon.

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