Researchers are often expected to do much more than just their research: they should write papers with high policy impact, be skilled communicators, and travel for international conferences and fieldwork. In a commentary piece recently published in the journal Sustainability Science, early-career scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Centre challenge these expectations, for example on flights. “Routine travel has become the implicit and explicit norm, where attendance at conferences worldwide, overseas fieldwork, and the need for international mobility to secure academic positions are seen as given, especially as an early-career academic”, the authors say. The paper is co-written by centre researchers Emmy Wassénius, Anne Charlotte Bunge, Mary Scheuermann, Kajsa Resare Sahlin, Agnes Pranindita, Moa Ohlsson, Abigayil Blandon, Chandrakant Singh, Kristin Malmcrona Friberg and Patricia Villarrubia‑Gómez. The authors used workshops and conversations they had regarding current tensions they felt as doctoral candidates in Sustainability Science and general academia, as a basis for their paper.