Beyond Burnout: Building Institutional Support for Researchers' Mental Health

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Elisa Garcia Garcia, of EURAXESS Spain (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, FECYT), about one of academia's most under-addressed issues: researchers' mental health. Drawing on her own move from bench researcher to research manager, Elisa breaks down what "institutional support" really means in practice, introduces SATIS — a new self-assessment tool helping universities audit their own mental-health support across eight key areas — and shares results and lessons from the REBECA mentoring programme, which tackles career uncertainty, one of the biggest stressors researchers face. The conversation moves from policy frameworks and EU-wide recommendations down to concrete, low-cost interventions that institutions of any size can start putting in place today.

 Link to additional resources: https://www.euraxess.es/spain/self-assessment-tool-institutional-supportive-measures-mental-health-researchers

Guest

Elisa Garcia Garcia, PhD — Project Officer at the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) and Trainer/Career Advisor with EURAXESS Spain. A former researcher herself, she now works on researcher mobility, career development, and institutional well-being policy across the EURAXESS network.

Key Topics Covered

• The hidden mental health toll of academic careers: chronic stress, heavy workloads, and competitive culture, seen from both the researcher and the research-manager side
• The WHO definition of mental health and why EURAXESS frames its work around well-being, not just illness
• SATIS: a self-assessment tool helping institutions benchmark their support across 8 areas — policy and leadership, coordination, evidence-based planning, promotion, prevention, intervention, and monitoring/visibility
• Real institutional models referenced, including Luxembourg University's interconnected support network and input gathered from Spanish, French, and Portuguese EURAXESS partners while building SATIS
• The REBECA mentoring programme: addressing career-path uncertainty as a major stressor, and what worked (and didn't) about delivering it online
• Why even non-clinical interventions — mentoring, career guidance, peer support — measurably improve researchers' sense of well-being
• What's next: leadership training for junior group leaders/PIs, and embedding mental-health measurement into everyday EURAXESS activities

Timestamps

• 00:00 – Episode intro and recap of the EURAXESS Smart Talks series
• 00:54 – Meet the guest: Elisa Garcia Garcia (EURAXESS Spain)
• 01:58 – Q1: What does EURAXESS offer for researchers' mental health, and what resources are available?
• 05:54 – Q2: What do we mean by "institutional" support — research managers, PIs, or dedicated units?
• 10:21 – Q3: For institutions without an established system, what guidance and materials exist to help them get started? 
• 16:19 – Q4: Lessons from delivering mentoring and support sessions online vs. in person
• 19:24 – Does it actually work? Measuring the real impact of these interventions on researchers' mental health
• 23:13 – Closing thoughts, thanks, and where to find the resources mentioned

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:29

We tried to increase scientific collaboration between Europe and the world. Hi, I'm Daria, a senior expert at Euro Access National Contact Point in Latvia.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

And I'm Joan, a teaching increased assistant from the Faculty of Mechanics Engineering in Ustopia.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

And you are listening to the Euro Access Smart Talks podcast. Hi, today with us is Elisa Garcia, who is representative of Euraxis BHO from Spain. And we will uh we have met today in order to clarify a little bit about the researchers' mental health and all the support stuff that is available on Euraxis or will be available on Euraxis and other projects and activities that is out there. So, first of all, uh Elisa, thank you very much for coming.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here and to be able to explain what Euraxis can do for the well-being of researchers.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yes, and considering your situation as usual, we are have a lot of a huge workload and uh we need to cope ourselves uh as if we are not uh researcher only, uh, but uh with uh so many heads. Uh, I guess the initial interest uh could be also personal to explore on the mental health uh issues and what there can be done. So, can you tell us about the your access and how what helpful resources it has?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Well, um definitely after your first question, um, I now I am not an hour researcher. I was a researcher, I'm now a research manager, um, but as a researcher, definitely I feel on my own scheme, you know, what uh very heavy workload, um, very competitive, um, yeah, and difficult career can make on yourself. Now that as a research manager and with a heavy workload too, I can tell I can tell definitely um I I have the same stressors, you know, uh that make uh any human being to be uh stressed, uh chronic stress, you know, and they could take lead you to anxiety or depression. But I think the main difference now, uh what I can experience is the how my institutions deal with the the their the general work environment and the culture and the cool and the culture of work in within the institution. And this is where we came kind of kind of like okay, what we can do for the research mental health of the mental health of researchers. Um and yeah, we are from Eurexis, an initiative that uh support the mobility and the career development of researchers. So then we came to our mind like whenever we do any kind of intervention, especially on mobility and also in career development, we are somehow creating supportive uh uh supportive um career environments. I mean, to for to be that the researchers can be able to develop themselves. And also everybody knows that one of the most stressful situations in your life is changing countries, changing houses, changing countries. It obviously it really depends on the circumstances that you move, but definitely it could be a very stressful situation. So we thought, hey, by doing uh supportive measures on mobility, we're actually providing the well-being of researchers. But like I said, we also are um are doing um are supporting researchers towards their career development. Um that means also um we we all know as well that this is to develop talents is extremely linked to the to the institution policies, human resources policies. And so as Euroxus, we thought, what if we uh try to uh indicate or help also institutions to take into account the well-being of the researchers? So we kind of switched the way of thinking instead of just uh supporting researchers, we will support the institutions in otherwise improving their policies, their human resources policies, taking into account the um you know this idea of the of the mental health of researchers. And please bear with me. We what we when we talk about mental health, we use the World Health Organization definition that is the state of mental uh of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stress, uh the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learning and working well. This is our idea of uh health and development, and contribute to the community. So here we are as your access promoting mental health.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

That's great. Aware more more of the awareness measures uh to make sure that everyone are uh on the same page regarding what we mean by mental health and how we can improve it. Uh uh, of course, tools and resources are crucial, have crucial importance. But uh, what I wanted to ask you, uh when you say on an institutional level, uh, do you think same as like those research managers or specific departments uh that deal with uh mental health? Or uh is it uh, for example, should be uh principal investigators aware that have a group of researchers uh under their control? Uh how you uh think of this structure when you say institutional?

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Yes. Um yeah, thank you for for this question. Uh when we started to create this uh this tool for uh the what we have called SATIS, that is self-assessment tool for institutional supportive measures on mental health of researchers, then um we I mean we we I mean we did a heavy study on literature, and then it's uh it came it came clear to us that it's not, and also there is many recommendations as well from the European Commission and so on, not specifically for researchers, but in general for for employees and and employers, that there is many areas to be covered. It's not just a matter of promoting or preventing or even care, you know, but it's it's more than that because institutions can put in place some measures, like for example, if someone has uh uh a mental disorder, unfortunately, it would be great if they have some kind of uh methods to intervene. Obviously, it's very important that supervisors, um managers in lines, I will call them, you know, even research managers or units are are aware of this uh mental health. But there is more than that. And basically what we we created a framework that uh covers eight different areas. So very important is that the institution itself have policy and leadership in place that actually commit to to support the mental health. Otherwise, you have different units doing things, but there is no comprehensive and there is no leadership. So this is very important. Then a second uh part was coordination and collaboration. Once again, you need to create a cohesive uh strategy. And also the third one is basically that creating the planning. And this planning of the you know, the action plan, the the activities, the uh actions that you're gonna be that you're gonna be doing to promote and to prevent mental health needs to be co-designed. So uh researchers, and also it needs to be based on evidence. It's uh it's it's important because you don't know how uh do you know how important is an issue until you don't measure. And also uh a sentence that I like to say sometimes is you don't measure what you don't care. So it's important to have numbers. Then it comes uh actions that we are more used to, like promoting and preventing. And in prevention, there is a ton of work because basically uh the stresses in the work environment has been very well um described. So uh and what we did with this with this um with this uh tool was actually to um modify them a little bit, knowing the um the cultural, the academic cultural life and the research cultural life in within public institutions. So we we slightly fine-tuning to actually make more meaningful the prevent the preventing uh actions to be more meaningful for researchers' uh environments. And then obviously you need a career intervention that sometimes is needed in order to when you have already mental disorders. Um then also you have all of these measures need to be visible and accessible, otherwise there's no point. And very important one, like I said, we uh something is important when we measure. So we need to monitor. So and also in order to know if our if our institutional activities regarding mental health have been um have been uh positive or negative or have any kind of impact, we need to measure them as well. So as you can see, uh it's a very big area. Um, so eight different areas to cover to have a um, I would say impactful activities and to move forward the mental, I mean the the mental the well-being of the researchers in general.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Uh thank you very much for such an answer. Now I at least understand how it all this huge structure works. And uh regarding also the institutions, uh what I wanted to say, like referring to previous interviews on mental health, what that we had with the Luxembourg University, they have already established a structure that helps uh uh researchers on their way forward to move them a little bit out of uh uh this in case they encounter uh these mental health issues. Uh and uh as I understand, they it's a very well-designed, I would say. They already established all these uh you know core notes that uh are interconnected between themselves. Like uh first you uh raise alarm regarding a person. For example, if you notice something that is normal versus not very normal, like common for this person or not very common. So this is very interesting how they this ecosystem is uh surviving and trying to help uh healing themselves. But uh, what I wanted to ask you if there is not so well established system, and we should accustom that not every university has it support system in that respect. Also, there are very huge universities and there are uh small ecosystems that uh uh somewhat are trying to establish it uh right now. Uh, did do they uh can they find something uh for them, for example, to guide them in establishing this system in uh the materials that uh um are uh there available?

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Yes, I mean uh referring to your comment, definitely there is a lot of I mean, good good news is that institutions are some of the institutions are already working on the mental health of researchers. I mean, that was uh something that we also discovered when we were creating this tool. Um, we actually had the support of the a network of Spanish health promoter universities, um, that is a working group of the Spanish Conference of Rectors. So they were providing us, you know, with their action plans, with their strategies, with their policies. We also have support from the French Access Network that uh some again some universities were actually testing the this tool, you know, and providing feedback on how this tool would be useful for them. And also, and um very key and very important was the Center of Biomedical Engineering Research of the Portuguese Inestec um uh institute that uh really had, again, like like Luxembourg University, a very good uh policy and actions and activities. Like I said, not only on care and intervention but promoting. And you really you're you're just referring these nodes of units within institutions that need to coordinate in order to provide with um with meaningful and impactful services to researchers and to the mental health of researchers. So we try to put all many of these inputs together. We we create this test, um, and this test you can find it uh um in the Spanish, the Euraxis Spanish portal, soon to be also uh in the Euraxis Central portal. Um how how would help institutions, and this is actually with the institutions that we were testing this tool, they were telling us that it really helps for them to uh bring the topic to current policies, um in on human resources for researchers, like for example, the ones who are making the actions files for the human resources strategy, uh excellence in research, you know, the ones related with the charters. So it will help them to bring this um perspective of the mental health of researchers, and many of the activities and many of the actions will be um in synergy with already other actions in place. So for them, it was kind of like a guiding, it's a guiding questionnaire. So you are going from areas and it's basically asking you, uh asking the institution, you know, and also obviously not only one person for the institution can fill this questionnaire. This should be this coordinated group of people of units taking care of the human resources policies, um, asking themselves like, hey, do you have any, do you monitor, for example, the mental health of your researchers? Do you actually um measure the quality of activities that you have? Do you, for example, do you have any care uh activity uh for your for your researchers? So it is basically there, a guiding questionnaire that you can score yourself and then two years later on, and we we also provide a base on how how many how often to do it, you come back to it and say, okay, this is something that we were slightly better, or we have now going a little bit worse, or the opposite, and hopefully the opposite, you know, because this questionnaire is basically already providing ideas, you know, for on what to do. And a second part of this tool obviously will be this um gathering these practices because, as you mentioned, there's many institutions already doing very, very uh interesting things and very um yeah, important things for the mental health of researchers.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yeah, that sounds uh great, and uh embedding it uh into uh other different activities like HRS for HR excellence in research definitely makes it easier to uh have a complementary action than to establish a new uh activity in the university that should be treated uh as a uh because exactly uh as you said, one person is not capable of bringing everything together, monitoring and uh uh establishing this a reasonable action plan that uh uh to treat uh these issues. Uh maybe I know that you had uh a little bit of historical overview, uh maybe. Uh I know that you had uh uh tried to also offer um not the courses but the mentoring sessions uh for researchers uh online. Uh I wanted to ask you how was it going? Any insights from this experience? Because maybe it's also an option for the institution not to try to stick to each uh uh schedule uh and or announcing a big day that today we come together, guys, and uh we are doing this and that, but maybe also explore these opportunities of uh being online and uh maybe it's it's more effective even uh than to bring everyone together in one room and uh then um discuss these issues. So, any any insights uh from you regarding these sessions?

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Yeah, I mean that what we did from Euraxis actually, specifically and already naming that we are um what we did is kind of like tackling one of the work stressors uh that that it's well uh known that for researchers. Actually, I would say too one is the uncertainty of your future, uh what am I gonna be, or what I'm doing, what what am I doing this for, you know, and this is related with career trajectory and the career progression in the in the academic world, that sometimes uh researchers do not have a lot of information, what they could do with the actual skills and the knowledge and the very general competences, what they can do in the general labor market, not only in the one from the academic or the public research institutions. So when we thought, okay, this is done through a mentoring program, research has been academia, Rebecca mentoring program, definitely this could be done online. So actually, when you are thinking about the action plan that an institution can do for mental health of researchers, you can think of I mean, different type of activities like these mentoring programs, uh, that actually they could serve for the mental well-being of researchers. And and in one point within the Rebecca Initiative, actually what with another type of scheme that we have with peers local, we we we we put more emphasis on the psychosocial support, you know, from peers, psychosocial support from the from their own peers of researchers to actually explore, you know, what they can do in the future with their professional lives. Then we start to measure what if we have some impact on the mental health of the and we started, at least not not in a very clinical and very academic way, I must say, but we started to ask people, do you feel better basically? Do you feel anxious? Do you feel now that you have you know your place in this world and you don't feel so so bad? And uh yeah, and uh and and we have very positive uh results. So it's like with these little um, well, little you know, interventions like mentoring, even if it's not specifically aiming for the mental health of researchers, we have we impacted their mental health. We are supporting them. And I am very sure that if we uh start to measure, you know, to bring this perspective of mental health in many activities that we do as Euro Access Centers, you know, like for example, the well-being, the sorry, the welcoming institutions. I mean, specifically tackling these researchers who are moving or mining researchers, risk initiatives that we have. And if we started to measure the impact that we have on their mental health, I'm pretty sure we're gonna have positive results. So many interventions can be done to support the mental health of researchers. Like you said, it's not needed to bring people together in one hour and say, okay, we just we celebrate the mental health, which is an action that is perfectly great. But also you can think of actions, even online settings. You know, Rebecca is uh mentoring program, it's an is an online program that supports a lot the mental health of researchers. Um, isolation, uh, especially when you move in, feeling alone, feeling that you are the only one who is gonna leave academia, you are the only one who is a failure because doesn't take uh get on very well with the researcher, with the um manager in line or group leader, oh, because you don't understand the culture of an institution and what's my role here, I don't have any kind of control of experiments or kind of things I can do, you know, this kind of stressors, very well defined stressors already. Um by doing interventions like, for example, I cannot always dream to do a leadership uh program for junior group leaders. And human beings they need to learn. And one of the interventions that we do, we did in the last Era Talent project was also this webinar with researchers trying to understand their group leaders. It's like what's going on, you know. Um to improve also these interrelation um relationships within the academia, that is another of the work stressors, you know. So, yeah, many different activities can be done. And even the ones you don't think that uh they are not even designed specifically for mental health, they can really support the mental health of researchers.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Yeah, for example, not being ignorant is already something, actually. But at least I know that someone cares is is so rewarding sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Exactly. Someone cares, you have a place in the institution, someone is waiting for you. Um you you have an impact on real world, you know. Sometimes within the world of academia, you cannot feel your your role in the in the world, you know, somehow, what am I doing this for?

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

So and this is extremely stressful for any human being. So uh just tackling these kinds of things can help a lot, uh, researchers.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah, that's a great note, I think that we we need to uh finalize already. So all the resources that uh Elisa was referring to will be put in the description uh to this episode. And you are super welcome to explore and see how they can help you on the institutional level as well. Thank you very much, Elisa, for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Thank you a lot for inviting me to talk about uh mental health resources and the role that as your access we can support it. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Um thank you for listening to this episode of the Euro Access My Talks Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

We hope that you enjoyed this episode and can't wait to share more with you next time.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

You can follow us and find more episodes on the access portal, our social media profiles, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

This episode was preferred by hosts Daniel and Elon Aranhelo's editor is the dedicated memorial of Professor Miroslav Ryanovich.