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Happy, healthy, and productive?! A workshop to promote sustainable careers for doctoral students

Semester

Semester 2, 2025-2026

Type of course

Professional Development and Impact

Date

May 28 and June 29, 2026

Location

Utrecht University; follow-up meeting via Zoom

Duration

2 days

Maximum number of participants

15

ECTS

1 EC will be appointed for participation in the complete course

Staff

Annabelle Hofer (University of Cologne)

Content

Doctoral studies expose students to new opportunities and challenges, including complex tasks, academic writing, co-author and supervisor dependencies, and unstable employment conditions. The aim is to retain motivated doctoral students in academia and foster sustainable career development. In this workshop, we'll employ the "sustainable careers" model by De Vos et al. (2020), emphasizing personal satisfaction, health, and performance. We'll engage in presentations, individual work, group tasks, and plenary discussions to explore strategies for sustainable career development within academia. We will discuss the results of the career resource questionnaire and how to increase career resources. The course is divided into several blocks where knowledge is shared in lecture-style inputs and active parts in which participants work on their cases.

Learning goals

  1. The doctoral students know their central career resources.
  2. The doctoral students know how they can gain or generate further career resources.
  3. The doctoral students are prepared to transfer what they have learned into their daily work.

Preparation

  • Read the compulsory literature
  • Complete an online survey (e.g., career resources questionnaire)

Block 1: Welcome and create an understanding of sustainable careers 

Short presentation → key issues: Sustainable career:

  • What is it?
  • Who are the people responsible?
  • What is the goal? Person-Career Fit → as a basis for happy, healthy, AND productive.
  • Why is this relevant in our context? → Challenges of doctoral studies and scientific career.
  • How do we achieve the goal?

Block 2: Clarify the individual topic/challenge and identify resources

  • At the beginning of this block, participants introduce themselves and refer to the issue they want to address in the workshop.
  • In addition, there is input on the topic of self-regulation and career resources. Here, the preliminary survey results are referred to, and recommendations for action to build up resources are discussed.

Block 3: Individual cases

  • Discussion of the individual topic in groups: Collection of ideas for solving or dealing with the challenges.
  • Individual exercise to formulate specific if-then plans for everyday work.

Block 4: Lessons Learned and take-home message

  • Closing the workshop with the collection of the different strategies.
  • A final round, including networking and joining a LinkedIn group for future exchange.

Within the blocks, there will be exercises that can be used in the future in daily work (e.g., relaxation techniques). 

Follow-up meeting 

The follow-up meeting will take place on Monday, 29 June 2026, from 10:00-12:00, and will be held online via Zoom.

Ongoing networking/exchange via LinkedIn

 

Literature

Compulsory literature

Additional literature

  • Hirschi, A., Nagy, N., Baumeler, F., Johnston, C. S., & Spurk, D. (2018). Assessing key predictors of career success: Development and validation of the career resources questionnaire. Journal of Career Assessment, 26(2), 338-358. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072717695584
  • Spurk, D., Hofer, A., & Kauffeld, S. (2021). Why does competitive psychological climate foster or hamper career success? The role of challenge and hindrance pathways and leadermember-exchange. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 127, 103542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2021.103542

 

If there are more PhDs interested in participating than available places, distribution will be based on seniority for this course. This means that we look at how long someone is a KLI member.