Skip to main content
. 2020 Feb 11;9:104. [Version 1] doi: 10.12688/f1000research.21066.1

Table 9. A summary of institutional and cultural changes recommended by the authors featured in this review.

Source Issue Recommendation
Garlow et al. 50 Student suicidality Outlines a method used at Emory University: An annual anonymous mental-health-
screening survey is sent to students over the internet; students with concerning
scores are urged to come for in-person help
Evans et al. 30 Mental health issues among
graduate students
Establishing career development programs that can encourage mental wellness
while addressing common career-based concerns among graduate students
Educating staff about mental health issues via a “train-the-trainers” method of
relaying information among the staff network
Encouraging staff to endorse self-care and mindfulness as key to efficient work
Woolston 139 High stress levels experienced by
graduate students
Establishing/joining a student-run or young- scientist-run community for advice
and support, such as the Cheeky Scientist Association
Seeking therapy
Getting involved with student association events, such as professional-
development or leisure activities
Encouraging graduate students to be firm and confident in their work-life
boundaries
Reaching out to other young scientists to show positivity and support
Encouraging out-of-lab public engagement activities
Broadening the model of acceptable research beyond just outcomes, so that it
also includes new research methods
Broadening the model of acceptable career paths beyond just tenure-track
Powell 82 Lack of funding for young
scientists due to competition by
older, more experienced scientists
Following the approach of funders such as The European Research Council
and NIGMS, which allocates a certain amount of grant money for early-career
researches only
Woolston 81 Overwork and burnout among
graduate students and young
scientists
Shifting the focus from strictly the number of hours worked to the amount of
worked produced; encouraging students to be efficient and make the best of their
time rather than working longer and longer hours
Supervisors should be lenient about work hours and allow time for “life”
Powell 140 Burnout and overwork among
students
Educating students to recognise the signs of burnout in themselves and others
Again, focusing on efficiency over hours worked
Recognising the importance of taking breaks, which should be short and frequent
rather than long and occasional. Breaks should be entirely removed from the
setting or topic of work. One interviewee suggests the “Pomodoro method”: taking
a 3–5-minute break every 25 minutes of work, and occasionally taking an extended
15–30-minutes break
Recognising that happiness is key for good productivity, and treating good spirits
as an important work strategy rather than merely an emotional consolation
Students would benefit from identifying their most productive time of day and
planning their biggest tasks accordingly
Using small, easy tasks to break up long, difficult tasks; small tasks can include
out-of- lab responsibilities such as household chores
Supervisors should be understanding about self- care and student needs
Woolston 141 Low self-esteem and isolation
among students, with a particular
focus on STEM and graduate
student issues
Teaching students to recognise and fight Impostor Syndrome feelings;
encouraging them to celebrate their accomplishments rather than trivialising them
Normalising rejection; understanding that is a healthy part of any academic career
Reaching out to other students who are struggling
For gender/race minorities, joining an online community of researches in your field
who share aspects of your identity
Government-instituted community programs for collaboration between young
scientists, such as the Participatory Science Platform in New Zealand
Wong 83 Students feel alone and/or unsure Restructuring academia to emphasise and reward faculty mentorship of students
Storrie et al. 121 Accessibility and efficacy of
university counselling services
Better communication between academics, university counselling, and community
counselling to create a more organised student- support network
Reducing stigma, emphasising confidentiality of mental health services, and
raising awareness of available help
Marcotte and
Levesque 25
Distress and low self-esteem
among younger undergraduates
This study explores the relationship between distress and sense of identity, and
suggests that this relationship is taken into account by counsellors; it could also
possibly be used in mental health screening
Helping students develop a solid sense of identity, which the authors show
correlates with better mental health
Setting up a program in which older students could mentor first-year students
to help navigate and normalise identity issues Implementing programs that can
contribute towards goal setting and value-formation
Parkman 142 Imposter phenomenon feelings
and low self-esteem among
students at the undergraduate and
graduate levels
Recognising the effect of imposter phenomenon on mental health and working to
address it in counselling, workshops, and orientations
Teaching students how to combat perfectionism and feelings of failure by focusing
on goal- setting and positive aspects of their identity
Powell 143 Academia has an individualistic “winner takes all” culture, in which one person
typically receives all the glory for a scientific breakthrough, or all the blame for a
failure.
This article highlights the need to shift academia’s perspective from individualistic
to collective, one in which academics help each other and work together
This could turn academia’s stressful hypercompetitive environment into an open
and comfortable one
By extension, dismantling the elitism that allows/encourages higher-status
academics to be dismissive or rude to younger academics; as ecologist Emily
Bernhardt explains it in the article, “There’s this idea that is’ OK to be an awful
person as long as you are brilliant”
Goldrick-Rab
et al. 101
Student need- insecurity Students can get involved in student-run organisations that fundraise to combat
need- insecurity and raise awareness
Universities should develop aid programs that are private and accessible, and
ensure that students know how to use them; or they should consider partnering
with existing aid charities
Goldberg
et al. 117
Trans and non-binary students’
reluctance to use mental health
services due to prejudiced or
ignorant practitioners
Educating counsellors to recognise, but not overemphasise, trans/non-binary
issues in the context of counselling
Dispelling the narrow conceptualisation of transness among counsellors
(i.e. the idea that a patient must meet certain conditions to prove that they are
“trans enough”)
Barnett et al. 12 Under-utilisation of mental health
services by black students;
unaddressed racial stress
experienced by black students
Counselling should incorporate behavior-based theories and strategies that can
help black students deal with the duality of the expectations and identities they
take on as Black students in a Eurocentric education system
The authors also recommend cooking classes that teach students how to prepare
healthy foods on a budget, and transition classes to help deal with the change
from high school to university