scholarly journals Stickiness in academic career (im)mobilities of STEM early career researchers: an insight from Greece

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charikleia Tzanakou
Keyword(s):  
Academic Career ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Academic Excellence ◽  
International Mobility ◽  
Academic Mobility ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
International Profile ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Academic and policy discourse has idealised academic mobility despite studies showing that it can have adverse effects on individuals’ experiences and contribute towards exacerbating existing inequalities. This article focuses on career (im)mobility stories of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) early career researchers that are variously sticky with emotion and affect. It places emphasis on the challenges, frictions and emotional tensions for early career researchers as part of this decision-making, irrespective of whether they decide to move or not. To do this, it deploys the concept of stickiness, which allows investigating the intersection and co-construction of embodied experiences of early career academics with the internationalisation discourse of academic excellence which are not often brought together. Focused on a largely under-examined population and context, it is based on a qualitative analysis of 15 in-depth interviews with a subsample of survey respondents, as part of a mixed methods study of Greek researchers in STEM. This article compares two groups of early career researchers who are seemingly at odds but have a lot in common: those with a highly international outlook moving to build an international profile and those who decide to stay and pursue research aspirations within a national context. Stickiness is demonstrated in two ways: stickiness to establishing an international profile and an academic career dictated by the internationalisation discourse; stickiness to affective considerations which are temporal, fluid and often understated. The main difference is how early career researchers address this stickiness: through the normative international mobility or participation in collaborative funding programmes. This article shows academic mobility is not only associated with benefits but can entail negative implications for individuals. It also provides empirical insights into hidden STEM early career researchers and elaborates a concept of stickiness in academic (im)mobility with discursive and affective layers, highlighting the importance of considering affect in career development scholarship.

scholarly journals International mobility and publication activity of early-career-researchers: What do statistics, bibliometrics and scientists themselves say?

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 98-121
Author(s):  
A.I. Nefedova ◽  
◽  
G.L. Volkova ◽  
E.L. Dyachenko ◽  
M.N. Kotsemir ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Work Experience ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Publication Activity ◽  
Scientific Article ◽  
Transfer Of Knowledge ◽  
International Mobility ◽  
Academic Mobility ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Young Researchers

The article presents the results of a research project on the international mobility of the young Russian scientists. This study is focused on the impact of education or work experience abroad on their future scientific careers, namely their publication activity. The project attempts to consider academic mobility not from the traditional point of view of “brain drain”, but from the perspective of “brain circulation” which sees mobility as a mechanism for the transfer of knowledge and a valuable source of innovation as well as a necessary element of training and development of human resources in science. The participation of the young Russian researchers in international mobility was shown with the help of data from several nationally representative sociological surveys. The original feature of this project consists is combining two different methodological approaches: both objective and subjective assessments were brought together in order to evaluate the impact of international mobility on the future publication activity of young researchers. The case study of one large Russian university was examined: a unique database combining both biographical data (open information from CV and publication activity indicators (data from Scopus)) of employees of this university was collected. In addition, the in-depth interviews were conducted to complement the analysis. According to the study, the involvement of young Russian scientists in international academic mobility over the past years has been low in comparison with other countries participating in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A positive relationship between the international mobility and scientific productivity of Russian scientists was revealed. As was shown, young researchers involved in international mobility not only publish more scientific article on average, but their papers are in fact published in higher ranking journals and are cited more often. Based on the materials of in-depth interviews, the specific mechanisms pushing a young researchers to upgrade their publication activity after or during their academic mobility were identified.

scholarly journals Short-term and long-term international scientific mobility of Italian PhDs: An analysis by gender

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
Valentina Tocchioni ◽  
Alessandra Petrucci ◽  
Alessandra Minello
Keyword(s):  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Early Career ◽  
International Mobility ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Academic Mobility ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Brain

In the last years, there has been a large increase in high-educated and high-skilled people’s mobility as a consequence of the internationalization and globalization, the weakening of research and university systems of sending countries (the “brain drain” process), the increase in skilled demand and improvements in higher education of host countries (the “brain gain” process). At the micro-level, academic mobility has positive consequences on occupational prospects and careers of researchers, both in the short- and long- run. Nevertheless, numerous research studies have demonstrated the challenges of engaging in international academic mobility for people with caring responsibilities, particularly women. Using Italian data on occupational conditions of PhDs collected in 2018 by Istat and modelling multinomial logistic regression analyses, we intend to verify if female researchers are associated with a lower international mobility irrespective their field of study, and the extent to which gender interacts differently in the various fields of study in affecting the probability of moving abroad after PhD qualification. Also, the distinction between long-term and short-term mobility, which has been mainly neglected in the literature concentrating on longer stays, has taken into account. In this respect, short-term mobility is a potentially high-value investment that may be pursued also by those researchers and scientists who cannot move for longer periods, such as women with caring responsibilities. In the literature, it is acknowledged that an experience abroad during early career may have positive effects on future occupational prospects. With our work, we intend to shed light on potential disparities on moving abroad that may exist among researchers in their early career by gender, and which could contribute to leave behind women in academia.

scholarly journals Learning as moments of friction and opportunity: an autoethnography of ECR identities in queer time

2020 ◽  
pp. 135050762097033
Author(s):  
Ruth Weatherall ◽  
Sumati Ahuja
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
Embodied Experiences

In this article, we explore how time and temporality shape the identities of early career researchers as they learn to become academics. We engage in a collaborative autoethnography to reflect on how our shared identities as middle-class women and our divergences in age, ethnicity, familial status and sexuality shaped our embodied experiences of becoming academics. Drawing on the concept of queer time, we reconceptualise the becoming of newcomers as they learn (or do not learn) to belong to academia. We illustrate how queer time interrupts normative ideas of newcomer learning as progress, development and reproduction. We suggest that learning may alternatively be understood as ‘moments of friction’ and ‘moments of opportunity’ in which newcomers to the academy feel out of step, out of place and out of time. We conceptualise these moments as simultaneously painful yet productive of possibilities for learning to become an academic, differently.

scholarly journals Towards inclusive funding practices for early career researchers

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte M de Winde ◽  
Sarvenaz Sarabipour ◽  
Hugo Carignano ◽  
sejal davla ◽  
david eccles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Research Funding ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Success Rates ◽  
New Principal ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Funding Agencies ◽  
Global Representation ◽  
Funding Success

Securing research funding is a challenge faced by most scientists in academic institutions worldwide. Funding success rates for all career stages are low, but the burden falls most heavily on early career researchers (ECRs) - young investigators in training and new principal investigators - who have a shorter track record and are dependent on funding to establish their academic career. The low number of career development awards and the lack of sustained research funding results in the loss of ECR talent in academia. Several steps in the current funding process, from grant conditions to the review process, play significant roles in the distribution of funds. Furthermore, there is an imbalance among certain research disciplines and labs of influential researchers that receive more funding. As a group of ECRs with global representation, we examined funding practices, barriers, facilitators, and alternatives to the current funding systems to diversify risk or award grants on a partly random basis. Based on our discussions, research, and collective opinions, we detail recommendations for funding agencies and grant reviewers to improve ECR funding prospects worldwide and promote a fairer and more inclusive funding landscape for ECRs.

scholarly journals Competing Meanings of International Experiences for Early-Career Researchers: A Collaborative Autoethnographic Approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Sakurai ◽  
Sae Shimauchi ◽  
Yukiko Shimmi ◽  
Yuki Amaki ◽  
Shingo Hanada ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Career ◽  
International Study ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Personal Network ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
Research Experiences ◽  
Community Culture ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
Japanese Higher Education ◽  
International Experiences

Although there is a pressing demand for international experience for early career researchers (ECRs), the meaning of this experiences arising from their day-to-day work responsibilities is still unclear. Accordingly, using our emic reflections for this autoethnographic study, we—five Japanese ECRs with years of international experiences—collaboratively explored how we made sense of our international experiences, that is, our distinct capital attained from international study and research experiences. We used Identity Trajectory as a conceptual tool to widely capture ECRs’ key experiences and sense-making. Our reflective conversations resulted in five major themes: (1) global personal network, (2) communicative competence, (3) scholarly community culture, (4) scholarly ambition and (5) pedagogical application. We consistently valued our attained capital, but simultaneously recognised dilemmas while engaging in our work. Lack of institutional support was critical, preventing us from using our international experiential capital and further developing as internationally active researchers. This study offers insights for those who may consider an academic career in Japan after returning from international sojourns and for policymakers promoting the internationalisation of Japanese higher education. Studies such as this one also contribute to the exploration of the value of international experiences for researchers in different contexts.

scholarly journals Between the traditional, the neo-liberal and the open university Early career investigators caught in the triple bind of academic career requirements

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Vanholsbeeck
Keyword(s):  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Academic Excellence ◽  
Open University ◽  
Building Information ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Impact

Literature shows that, facing the neo-liberal definition of academic excellence, early career investigators (ECIs) in the social sciences and the humanities (SSH) have developed particular professional identities and behaviours towards the requirements of the academic career. Specificities of the SSH make the compliance to the assessment procedures of the “neo-liberal university” particularly challenging. Furthermore ECIs in the SSH are caught in an unprecedented “triple bind”. While pursuing their post-doctoral career in the context of the neo-liberal university, they are still academically trained in the disciplinary and collegial values of the “traditional university”. Although most career rewards and evaluation criteria are bound to the neo-liberal university, researchers now in the early stages of their career also constitute the first generation of academics to be exposed to the new requirements of the “open university”, through the Open Science policies and the Impact Agenda. In such context of uncertainty and conflicting rationalities, more efficient “early career building information ecosystems” should be put in place within academia. We also recommend to better integrate ECIs in the design and implementation of research evaluation principles and processes.

scholarly journals Insights into the impact of the pandemic on early career researchers: the case of remote teaching

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Nicholas ◽  
Eti Herman ◽  
David Sims ◽  
Anthony Watkinson ◽  
Blanca Rodríguez-Bravo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Online Teaching ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
Specific Teaching ◽  
Qualitative Methodologies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Gender Specific ◽  
Country Specific

<p>The study presents comparative qualitative findings from a longitudinal exploration of the impact of the pandemic on early career researchers (ECRs) from the sciences and social sciences. Using qualitative methodologies, it focuses on the increasing demands of remote teaching made on ECRs and the potentially negative effects these had on their research. The study also sheds light on ECRs’ country-specific teaching commitments and the extent to which these play a role in their assessment. Data comes from the first of three rounds of in-depth interviews, conducted with 177 ECRs from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US. The main findings, which are set against the published literature, were: a) over half ECRs teach and most of them are assessed on their teaching; b) there are significant differences between countries, with, for instance, French researchers hardly teaching and nearly all Polish researchers doing so; c) around a quarter of ECRs felt research was hindered during the pandemic because online teaching was increasingly demanding of their time; d) a preliminary analysis of ECRs’ gender-specific attitude to teaching in the pandemic-incurred new realities indicates that women experience more difficulties.</p>

scholarly journals How to find the right postdoctoral position for you

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. e6
Author(s):  
Dominic M. D. Tran ◽  
Aaron Veldre
Keyword(s):  
Research Output ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
Postdoctoral Position ◽  
Academic Job Market ◽  
The Right ◽  
Quality Of Research

The increasingly competitive academic job market has forced PhD graduates in psychology, neuroscience, and related fields to maximize their research output and secure grant funding during the early postdoctoral period of their careers. In the present article, based on a Q&A session presented at a research retreat (Brain and Behaviour Lab, University of Sydney) in February 2018, we draw on our firsthand experiences of navigating the transition from graduate student to postdoc. We offer practical advice to students who may be nearing the end of their PhDs and planning their first steps toward an academic career. Although the postdoc experience is varied, it is important for early-career researchers to make optimal choices to increase their chances of securing a continuing academic position. Ultimately, the goal of a postdoctoral position should be to develop all the facets of an academic career, but with a strong focus on the quantity and quality of research outputs.

Academic mobility in the context of linked lives

Human Affairs ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Vohlídalová
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Academic Mobility ◽  
Linked Lives ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Academic Couples ◽  
Depth Interviews

AbstractAcademic mobility is usually perceived and discussed as a positive phenomenon — as a prerequisite for building a competitive and successful economy and quality science. Academic mobility has now become essential to building a successful academic career in many research domains. On the policy level the negative impact of academic mobility on researchers’ lives and especially women’s is usually overlooked and marginalized. In my paper I focus on academic mobility in the context of academics’ relationships and family lives. I ask two research questions: What is the impact of mobility on researchers’ relationships? How does mobility affect the lives of the partners of mobile researchers? The analysis is based on i) 16 in-depth interviews with academics from various fields of research about their experiences of long-term fellowships abroad in the early stages of their academic path and on ii) 16 in-depth joint interviews with Czech dualcareer academic couples. The analysis shows that academic mobility has a great and significant impact on the family and partnership lives of migrating researchers. For many, especially the partners of migrating researchers, mobility means they have to make many concessions in their private and family lives. I conclude that the impact of academic mobility on people’s partnership lives is highly gendered because couples’ work and family lives are closely intertwined.

scholarly journals “Wait for a permanent contract”: The temporal politics of (in)fertility as an early career researcher

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442199485
Author(s):  
Sarah M Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Early Career ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
The Future ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
Early Career Researcher

The impetus for this intervention comes from my own experiences of advice to ‘wait for a permanent contract’ before trying to conceive a child. I contend that this considerate guidance, frequently given to Early Career Researchers, nonetheless re-inscribes a linear capitalist temporality, and that there is a need to resist this binding of the temporalities of (in)fertility to the metrics of the neoliberal academy. I suggest that to promote ‘waiting’ negates the nonlinear, everyday and intimate politics of our varied, embodied experiences of (in)fertility. It is also grounded within problematic assumptions: first, that waiting is linear; that we will arrive at a permanent job in the future, if we persist with the present; and second, that our (in)fertility is known to us, that we are able to, and will, make a rational decision to conceive a child. These are pervasive assumptions with deeply personal implications. Moreover, they are compounded by the short-term contracts, and expectations of institutional mobility that characterise many experiences of UK academia. My hope for this piece is that it invites geographers to further explore embodied politics of (in)fertility.

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