Digitalized transitions: Becoming an early career stage researcher in Portugal

Abstract

Starting a career can be challenging, representing the potential end of full-time education and arrival at a position of relative economic and emotional stability. In this article, we look at this process, focusing on early career stage researchers in Portugal. Discussion is informed by theoretical ideas about transitions-to-work and awareness of the importance of digital technology, including use of online platforms in recruitment, remote working and virtual mobility. While in some respects democratizing access to research as a profession, these changes also introduce emotional and economic complexity, illustrated through the use of evidence from a recent study of researchers in Portugal. In conclusion, we deduce that despite some outward signs of liberation, digitalization also has the potential to prevent closure of the transition-to-work in the research profession, a position that also reformulates feelings of ambivalence and liminality within this career.