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Abstract
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One in 15 people studying or working at Swedish universities has experienced bullying over the past year, according to the largest ever nationwide survey of academic workplace culture.
The results, which included responses from people at all of Sweden's 38 higher-education institutions, reveal that women and young researchers are the worst affected, with one in 7 female PhD students saying that they had been bullied over the past 12 months.
Similar patterns are likely to be seen in other countries with comparable research systems, such as the United Kingdom or United States, says Matthew Martin, a researcher at West Virginia University in Morgantown who studies bullying. He adds that, in general, women are more often the target of bullying and sexual harassment than men.
Bullying and harassment in science have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years because of wider public-awareness campaigns, such as the global #MeToo movement, through which huge numbers of women spoke up about their experiences of sexual harassment. Research funders are also placing a greater emphasis on cultivating workplace cultures that deter such behaviours through the introduction of official anti-bullying policies. Since 2018, at least two high-profile researchers in Europe have had their funding withdrawn after investigations by their institutions found evidence of bullying.
Language: en |