Working conditions and mental health among Swiss researchers
Année de publication : 2026
Numéro de document : 371
Pagination : 115
Institution éditrice : Centre universitaire de médecine générale et santé publique (Unisanté)
ISSN : 1660-7104
Ville : Lausanne
Etude financée par : Unisanté; EU COST ActionCA19117 Researcher Mental Health Observatory (ReMO)
Remerciements : J.Lasser, S. Mol, B. Cahill, and G. Kismihók, who created and managed the survey and coordinated the EU COST ReMO;
Swiss universities, High Education Institutions and Associations who actively promoted and helped disseminate thesurvey, particularly the Actionuni der Schweizer Mittelbau, Associations du corps intermédiaire A l'Université de Lausanne (ACIDULE), Union des étudiants de Suisse (UNES), EPFL Postdoc Association (EPDA); The Association of Postdocs in Natural Sciences; Association commune du corps des collaborateurs et des collaboratrices de l'enseignement et de la recherche(ACCORDER) de l'Université de Genève, Association du corps intermédiaire de l'Université de Neuchâtel (ACINE),L'Association du corps professoral de l'Université de Fribourg, Corps des collaborateurs et collaboratrices scientifiques de l’Université de Fribourg (CSWM), Netzwerk Gesundheitsfördernde Hochschulen Schweiz, and the Swiss School of PublicHealth
Abstract
Mental health problems are prevalent in academia and pose significant costs for individuals, institutions, and society. Despite researchers’ critical role in knowledge production, large-scale comparative evidence on their working conditions and mental health remains scarce. The STAIRCASE survey, conducted within the EU COST Action REMO, addresses this gap by creating the largest benchmark to date (N = 4,296) of researchers’ working conditions and mental health across 37 European countries. This report focuses on Switzerland (n = 596) and compares Swiss researchers with their European counterparts, as well as across Swiss higher education institutions.
The analysis shows that Swiss researchers report higher resilience and slightly better scores for job control and sense of community compared to the European average. However, concerns about job insecurity and work–family conflict remain pervasive. Policy perception scores were low in all countries, indicating insufficient institutional measures for mental health. Within Switzerland, substantial heterogeneity was observed: researchers at the University of Zurich reported the lowest score of well-being and highest score of burnout risk, while those at Bern scored highest on supervisor integrity and job control.
Integration with complementary evidence from the Swiss Career Tracker Cohorts study and the Swiss Occupational Health Services inventory highlights systemic challenges, including structural gaps in service provision and low awareness of available support.
These findings underscore the need for multi-level interventions addressing structural determinants of mental health in academia. While the study provides robust descriptive evidence, methodological limitations, such as lack of stratification by career stage or discipline, and uncertainty regarding sample representativeness require cautious interpretation. Future research should adopt stratified and longitudinal designs to strengthen causal inference and inform targeted policy actions.
