NSF Award
2504110
Mid-career researchers generally face a variety of distinct challenges: increased teaching loads, greater expectations for service and advising, a more competitive landscape for funding, and a lack of the variety of targeted programs that supported them as early-career scholars. As a result, many mid-career researchers do not make the impact they set out to achieve, or simply leave academia. Without a structured support system and training, these faculty do not have the skills they need to endure -- let alone flourish -- at this critical point in their careers. Even more importantly, a lack of diversity in senior academic positions limits the community’s ability to build a workforce of future educators and researchers necessary to address local to global challenges of climate change. The absence of structured training leaves professionals in these fields ill-equipped to navigate difficult conversations, power dynamics, and the overwhelming demands of their multifaceted roles. Research suggests that leadership training programs improve leadership effectiveness, project outcomes, research engagement, emotional intelligence and confidence, while also reducing workplace conflict. Even though mid-career faculty comprise the largest segment of academia and that the benefits of mid-career leadership training are resounding, leadership programs are rarely available for them. ClimPraxis will develop a framework for climate and environmental scholars at the mid-career stage to build community and gain critical leadership skills.<br/><br/>The goal of this project is to provide structure and opportunities for mid-career cryosphere scholars to interact and support each other. Through intentional leadership training and goal setting, this project will support new leaders that we believe will administer to a more diverse community and will enable scholars to work together on bigger, multidisciplinary problems that the traditionally siloed structure of academia discourages. This pilot program will include a cohort of climate scientists working in the cryosphere; focusing this effort on a small community with contiguous career goals and substantive, field-specific, leadership challenges will facilitate cross-pollination both within disciplines and between institutions, and generate targeted support and training. This pilot program will focus on career reflection and assessment, leadership skill building, career planning, and career action. By documenting the process and collecting feedback from participants, this pilot will also investigate the individual needs of mid-career researchers and effective ways to meet those needs.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
