Owning your journey: Boosting self-efficacy in academia

Have you ever received a compli-diss – a compliment laced with critique – from a colleague, reviewer or supervisor? Assistant Prof. Le Anh Nguyen Long (University of Twente; University of Münster alumna) opened this year’s Take-Off Days with her own story of receiving one. She showed how ambivalent feedback can shake confidence yet spark growth drawing on self-efficacy to fuel motivation, persistence, and resilience in academic careers.  

The power of believing you can

Self-efficacy is no worn-out calendar-cliché. It is a psychological concept coined by Albert Bandura centered on the idea that believing in your capacity to execute tasks successfully influences whether you actually succeed. Why does this matter for highly skilled researchers? Often surrounded by even more experienced peers, facing critical feedback on passionate work, and being under constant performance pressure can make even the best feel like imposters. As the keynote and discussions emphasized, identifying resources to strengthen self-belief helps withstand a work culture driven by success and output.

The kick-off event was well-organized, informative, and inspiring. Thank you for that.

The power of feeling connected

One part of those resources are peers and networks. Learning about how others in a similar situation overcame obstacles and successfully completed a task can boost one’s own belief in being capable of the same or a similar task. To foster this effect of social modeling, interdisciplinary networking stood out as one of the event’s focus points, offering opportunities for meaningful exchange across different fields. Shared activities, such as the lunch at Münster’s marketplace, the peer walk-and-talk sessions with testimonials, and joint workshops sparked discussions about personal strategies for building self-efficacy as doctoral and postdoctoral researchers.

I enjoyed the time spent with other researchers and could benefit from the exchange of experiences. Would definitely join again! Thank you!

Gaining power through knowledge

An important prerequisite for building self-efficacy as a researcher is knowing what a successful academic career looks like. In two hands-on workshops, early career researchers learned about expectations for the doctoral and postdoctoral phases, reflected on their goals and competencies, and gathered strategies to advance in their current career stage. An extra gain from the Take-Off Days activities is the formation of a new peer support group that will provide a supportive structure for participants beyond the event itself. 

If you’re looking for additional CERes events and opportunities to connect, explore our workshop programme, coworking offers, event series, and community garden, InchbyInch.

What else do you think we at CERes can do to support your academic career progress? We’d love to hear your ideas: ceres@uni-muenster.de