Editorial: Creating profiles and opening paths. Academic careers between structure and self-design

Science thrives on the fact that new generations of researchers are constantly entering the academic world, and yet it is precisely young academics whose career paths are characterised by uncertainty, complexity and ambivalence. The transformation of the higher education landscape - driven by technological progress, globalisation, demographic change and economic pressure - is not only changing research and teaching, but also the framework conditions of academic work itself. Academic careers today are emerging in a field of tension between metrification, mobility requirements and changing role models. This leads to a paradoxical concentration of demands: Young researchers are expected to be excellent in their discipline and at the same time interdisciplinary, internationally mobile and at the same time locally and regionally anchored, strong in research, capable of third-party funding, didactically adept and skilled in communication - and mostly in temporary positions, with increasing work intensification and growing competition.