Background: Job insecurity increasingly characterizes academic work. Faculty who experience insecurity may be at risk for impaired health and well-being, but what might insecurity mean for experiences and expressions of positive psychological functioning, namely psychological well- being? Because psychological well-being is important for mental health, it is relevant to explore insecure faculty’s expressions of positive psychological functioning (or a lack thereof). Thus, this study seeks to understand: How are experiences of insecurity and psychological well-being expressed by faculty in Swedish academia?

Method: This study is a qualitative follow-up to a questionnaire study, which revealed that some faculty in Swedish academia experience high insecurity. The participant group consisted of some 20 insecure faculty from public Swedish HEIs. The interviews were semi-structured and were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, deductively, including the six theoretical dimensions of psychological well-being.

Results: Preliminary findings suggest that some experiences and expressions of insecurity and psychological well-being span across professional and personal domains, while other experiences and expressions are restricted: by the rules and conventions of the academic system in Sweden, but also by individual facultys’ personal circumstances.

Discussion: This study reveals how experiences of insecurity within academia can sometimes be experienced as barriers to one’s ability to strive to reach one’s full potential. Simultaneously, psychological well-being is also facilitated through academic work. A nuanced understanding of the ways insecurity in academia is experienced in relation to psychological well-being is important for understanding faculty motivation, and the complex interplay between academic work and positive psychological functioning.