Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - English

The Berlin Science Survey investigated how stressed researchers are by their work. The results are alarming: more than half of the respondents regularly feel physically or emotionally exhausted by their work. More than a quarter consider their own health to be at risk. This threatens the quality and sustainability of academic work. Politicians and university managers must see it as their duty to improve the framework conditions.

The work culture in academia is characterised by a very high level of intrinsic motivation and a high work commitment. However, in connection with the often inadequate framework conditions, there is a risk that researchers will reach their stress limits. This was examined in the last wave of the Berlin Science Survey.

The Berlin Science Survey 2024 asked about specific stress factors. Stress factors are quite high and thus give cause for concern (Figure 1). Almost two-thirds of respondents state that they regularly, i.e. “often” (28.3%), “very often” (25.4%) or even “always” (10.7%), work under time pressure. Almost as many (57.1%) feel that they regularly fall behind with their work. A good half regularly feel frustrated at work due to poor conditions. A good 50% state that they “often” (23.1%), “very often” (20.9%) or even “always” (7.8%) feel physically or emotionally exhausted by work. These percentages clearly indicate a risk of burnout. However, not all respondents seem to be immediately aware of this, because only 26.9% see a health risk from their work situation, which is nevertheless an alarmingly high figure.

39.6% also state that they often, very often or always have to make sacrifices in their private lives due to work. Interdependencies in their work are a burden for around a quarter: 28.5% of respondents are regularly unable to complete their own work due to a lack of input from others. An equal number (28.5%) report that they regularly have to compromise on the quality of their own work (see Figure 1).

Fig. 1 Stresses at work

When the results are broken down by status group, it is striking that professors experience particularly high levels of stress in two areas (see Figure 2): 80.1% report that they are “often”, “very often” or “always” under time pressure at work, while 68.8% “often”, “very often” or “always” have work to catch up on. The other aspects of stress also occur more frequently among professors than among postdocs and predocs. Interestingly, however, the picture is reversed when it comes to the question of exhaustion caused by work. Here, predocs are the most likely to report exhaustion (56%), and professors - the least likely (43.2%) (see Figure 2). This circumstance may be explained by the lack of security among predocs in terms of career development. Professors, on the other hand, are the most likely to know what they are putting up with the stress for, while predocs cannot be sure whether the stress will pay off at some point.

Fig. 2 Stresses at work, by status groups

In the gender comparison, women consistently report higher levels of stress than their male colleagues (see Figure 3). The only question on which no differences were found was whether respondents felt they were constantly behind with their work; here, 57% of both men and women said that this was regularly the case. The highest stress levels were reported by gender diverse individuals. In particular, the stress levels relating to one's own health are particularly high here, while the stress factors relating to the quality of work do not differ greatly from the other gender groups.

Fig. 3 Stresses at work, by gender

In summary, it can be said that the situation in science is characterised by highly motivated scientists who, under rather modest conditions, are highly motivated to conduct science at a high-quality level. In doing so, a lot of researchers work to their limits, which poses a risk to the quality and sustainability of the research performance. It is therefore also the task of university management to minimise the burden through appropriate measures and structural conditions.

The Berlin Science Survey

The Berlin Science Survey (BSS) is a scientific trend study on cultural change in the Berlin research landscape. To this end, the Robert K. Merton Center for Science and Technology Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin regularly surveys the experiences and assessments of scientists in the Berlin research area online. 2,776 female scientists in the Berlin research area took part in the most recent study. We would like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who took part in the study.

The whole report with all topics can be found here:
https://www.berlinsciencesurvey.de/en/results24/sum

The data from the 2024 wave of the BSS are available for download as a scientific use file from the HU's open-access publication server: https://doi.org/10.18452/32547