World-level ecologists in Chile: Oldtimers, newcomers, and the bypassed

Background A team of 3 scientometrists led by John Ioannidis published in 2020 an extensive and updated database (ca. 6.9 million researchers in 22 disciplines and 176 sub-disciplines), ordering them according to a composite bibliometric index that measures their whole trajectory (career-long) impact and their annual impact at year 2019. They reported the top 100,000 scientists (1.45% across all disciplinary fields) or the top 2% of each subfield discipline, thus publishing the ranking of ca. 150,000 researchers worldwide. Methods and findings We filtered that information for the disciplinary and sub-disciplinary areas corresponding to Ecology and identified a total of 14 ecologists with residence in Chile that appear in either of those two worldwide rankings. We report their measured productivity as both whole trajectory (career-long) and as annual impact at year 2019. We attribute their high registered productivity to their training at the doctoral level in prestigious foreign universities, their academic positions in internationally recognized Chilean universities, and their participation in state-funded research centers of scientific excellence. Exceptions to the rule are presented. Conclusions The 14 ecologists identified with the scientometric algorithm proposed by Ioannidis and coworkers include, but are not restricted, to the most cited ecologists in Chile. We put forth possible reasons for some puzzling omissions from these rankings.

Optimization of the REJAFA information system to improve document filing for lecturer functional positions

Functional positions or academic positions of lecturers are positions that indicate the duties, responsibilities, authorities and rights of a person in higher education which in its implementation is based on certain independent skills. The collection of lecturers' functional position files before the existence of this system was still done manually, by collecting files or portfolios in hard files and sent to LLDikti 6. This administrative aspect is one of the barriers for lecturers in improving competence. There are also a number of lecturers who do not yet have the ability to implement information technology related to the collection of functional position files. This community service was carried out with a webinar, which discussed the use of information technology called REJAFA (repository jabatan fungsional). The results of the community service were quite interactive and the enthusiasm of the participants was quite good because the main discussion was related to optimizing the REJAFA system to improve document filing for the functional positions of lecturers.

One year after the outbreak – Involvement of scientists in the Covid-19 pandemic Findings from a Germany-wide study

The Covid-19 pandemic initially led to high demands for scientific expertise, while at the same time scientific results, for example in the form of preprints, being widely and sometimes critically discussed in public almost as soon as they were published. It is an open question how Scientists react and adopt to the changed situation. With data from the (German) Scientists Survey, it is possible to map the scientists' involvement in the pandemic - across academic positions and disciplines. Our results show that scientists from all disciplines are involved in corona-related research, have started or acquired projects and already published with relation to COVID-19. Social Sciences are even more involved than e.g. life science. Gender effects emerge I such a way that women actually less rapidly adopt to the new situation.

APSA Graduate Placement Report: Analysis of Political Science Placements for 2018-2020

The Graduate Placement Report details findings on political science placements for the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 academic years, preceding and during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. More candidates, specifically candidates from top National Research Council (NRC)-ranked institutions found first placements in contingent academic positions, still indicating an alteration to the most desirable placement path, with a post-doc or research position immediately after receipt of a PhD. Having a PhD, and full funding are strong determinants of placement. Men and non-URMs continue to take full-time post-doc positions as their first placements. There were more URMs and women in tenure-track positions in 2019-2020 than in 2018-2019. There was an overall increase in the number of candidates who did not find placement during the 2019-2020 academic year, which can most likely be attributed to impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and a lower than usual response rate.

Knock on the Door: The Experiences of Internationally Educated Women Seeking Academic Positions in China

This study examines how gender shapes the experiences of internationally educated Chinese women academics in obtaining academic positions in higher education institutions in China. Drawing on feminist theories and using a qualitative narrative method, this paper investigates women’s experiences in applying and interviewing for academic jobs in China. The findings demonstrate various challenges women encounter, including gender-based discrimination, arbitrary evaluation criteria, and institutional inertia, and illustrate women’s subjectivity in pursuing academic careers. This study exposes the limitations of the statistical understandings of gender parity and the negative effects of neoliberal measurability, and suggests measures for institutions to promote gender equity.

Epistemic Disobedience and Grief in Academia

Drawing on conversations with foreign women in academic positions at one major University in Norway, this article is inspired by Barad’s and Haraway’s theorizing on how matter and discourse are mutually constituted through a diffractive approach. Understanding diffraction as an embodied engagement, a becoming with the data through shared entanglements, this article argues that the researcher’s personal background cannot be separated from the data produced. Departing from the decolonial theorist Castro-Gómez concept ‘hubris of zero-point epistemology’, the existence of an abstract and transcendental western universalism, where ‘the observer observes without been observed’ (Domínguez 2020; Mignolo 2009), assemblages of foreign female academics are explored through posthuman feminism and decolonial perspectives (Jackson and Mazzei 2012; Taguchi 2012; Puwar 2004). Through immersion in assemblages of contradictions, strength, and resistance, this article contends that policymakers’ good intentions of diversity in higher education, and the existence of different bodies, are shaking the world of academia, albeit slowly. Academia is still immersed in zero-point epistemology, favoring western, upper-class, paternalist, and meritocratic thought, detached from academics’ embodied knowledge. This brings into existence ‘bodies out of place’, re/producing grief, resistance, and epistemic disobedience when some academics are not suitable of becoming real academics.

Promoting Diversity but Striving for Excellence: Opening the ‘Black Box’ of Academic Hiring

Scholars have described how neutral routines and ‘objective’ criteria in recruitment may result in an institutional preference for certain types of candidates. This article advances the literature on recruitment by conducting an in-depth study of how the criteria for assessing quality are applied in practice in the recruitment process. Through an in-depth study of 48 recruitment cases for permanent academic positions in Norway and 52 qualitative interviews with the recruiters involved, we stress the need to grasp how evaluation is embedded in the organisational process of recruitment. By constructing an ideal type of recruitment process comprising five different steps, we show that despite evaluators including diversity concerns in their search for talent during the first stages of the recruitment process, they end up deploying narrow criteria that tend to favour men in the crucial steps of the recruitment process, in which hiring outcomes are determined.

Leaving academia: why do doctoral graduates take up non-academic jobs and to what extent are they prepared?

Purpose An increasing number of doctoral graduates are seeking non-academic employment. While statistics have revealed multiple aspects regarding the non-academic employment they hold, there is insufficient documentation of what has led them to leave academia and to what extent they are prepared for non-academic positions. This paper aims to address this gap and reports on five Chinese doctoral graduates’ reflections on their change in career choices. Design/methodology/approach This study is exploratory and follows the approach of qualitative multi-case studies. The data includes in-depth interviews with five Chinese doctoral graduates and their responses to a survey. The paper applies a theoretical perspective drawing from protean career and boundaryless career theories, focusing on the participants’ agency in managing career choices and their meaning making of career decision-making. Findings The study has found that, besides the factors mentioned in the literature, such as lack of academic positions, pressure related to academic work and lack of career planning, some participants were directed by their intrinsic values, and agency plays an important role in their career preparation. Practical implications The study makes recommendations on university career guidance for doctoral students. Originality/value This paper documents why and how doctoral students change their career choices, which have not been sufficiently documented in the literature. As well, the theoretical perspective used provides an innovative way to interpret doctoral students' career decision-making.

Die verstellte Exzellenz

The Dissimulated Excellence. Courtly Contradictions in Academic Application Procedures A standardized perfection is required from the perfect candidate in order to successfully compete for the best academic positions or scholarships. But what does excellence mean? This question will be examined in the article by means of the courtly literature of the Spanish Baroque. Courtly contradiction of any academic competition thus consists in presenting oneself as an excellence, which is considered inelegant and careless in terms of court culture, as it exaggerates one’s skills instead of critically examining them.