Expectations around success in academia vary, and early career academics often receive conflicting messages about what they should concentrate on to achieve promotion or tenure. Taking a social constructionist approach, this paper considers the constructs of objective and subjective career success in academia and shares the perspectives of early career academics in three countries in relation to these narratives. Key findings are that objective career success in academia dominates the literature but remains ill-defined in the minds of the early career academics to whom the measures are applied, and that subjective career success in academia needs both more research attention and more consideration in promotion, tenure, and workload deliberations and policies.

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Drawing on data collected in a cross-disciplinary survey of early career academics (ECAs) in New Zealand, this article explores the factors influencing ECA conference attendance. Our conceptual framework uses conference attendance as the dependent variable and measures gender, ethnicity, family responsibilities and workload. Three key features affect conference attendance: demographic characteristics (background features and prior experiences that affect an academic's willingness and ability to attend), accessibility (constraints to attending, such as financing, family responsibilities, institutional support or teaching commitments) and purpose (the value placed on attending conferences by the individual, the institution, or the discipline). In particular, we identify differences for women, Indigenous people, and those born overseas with respect to their ability to navigate and their inclination to attend national and international conferences.… to build networks and get a profile as an international academic you need to travel. You need to be overseas because that's where all the contacts are. … that's been a real struggle for me as a NZ-based academic. The financial support from university at a general level is woefully inadequate in terms of the overseas conference and research leave. Law academic, woman, NZWithout being able to attend conferences, it's difficult to generate research and find out what the trends are within my discipline area. My experience has thus far been frustrating and for the first time in my professional career I feel that there are obstacles before me and that prejudice exists due to my gender. Education academic, woman, NZ

Although the small cohort limits the generalisability of the findings of the present study, the data obtained indicate that the diets of these Indigenous pregnant women are inadequate. Therefore, strategies aiming to optimise nutrient intakes of Indigenous pregnant women are needed urgently.