Introduction. In light of the 'mental health crisis in academia,' the EU-Funded Cost action (CA19117) Researcher Mental Health Observatory Consortium (ReMO) established the Survey Special Interest group in January 2022 with the ambition to conduct the largest ever benchmark on mental health in (European) academia.
Purpose. The specific objectives of the Sustainable Working Conditions in Academia (STAIRCASE) Survey that they developed were to i) examine the state of researcher mental health across institutions and countries, ii) examine what institutions are doing regarding mental health, and iii) examine how that which countries and institutions are doing is related to researcher mental health.
Based on a literature review, the following hypotheses were formulated:
Hypothesis 1: There is significant variance in mental health (symptoms of depression, anxiety stress (DASS), burnout, work engagement, and well-being at the individual, institutional, and country levels.
Hypothesis 2: Demands and resources manifest at individual, institutional, and country levels. Demands have a negative effect on indicators of mental health, whereas resources have a positive effect.
Example demands at respectively the individual, institutional, and country levels are illegitimate tasks, student-staff ratio, and corruption, and example resources at these respective levels are time until the end of the contract, aggregated frequency of appraisal interviews, and employment protection.
Methods. Data collection ran from September 2023 until August 2024 and yielded 3101 complete responses, with 30 countries having more than 25 responses, and data analysis is currently underway.
Results. The main findings about the hypotheses and lessons learned in running a multicounty-multilevel survey of this scope will be presented.
Conclusion. The STAIRCASE survey is one of the largest multinational surveys of research mental health conducted to date. Theoretical, practical, and policy implications will be discussed, and the audience will be invited and informed as to how to gain access to the open-source dataset.