The study explores how boundary-spanning is carried out to further community engagement in 15 universities of differing sizes/ages across the United Kingdom. Fifteen interviewees participated in a series of four semi-structured interviews, aged between 35-50 and with a first degree (with almost half with an MSc). One third were women. All managed…

This study analyzes the unprecedented growth of international research collaboration (IRC) in Europe during the period 2009-2018 in terms of co-authorship and citation distribution of globally indexed publications. The results reveal the dynamics of this change, as growing IRC moves European science systems away from institutional collaboration,…

Supervision lies at the heart of research-based doctoral education. Existing scholarship has recognized the role of supervision in students' academic socialization and identity construction but presented little empirical evidence based on prolonged observations of actual supervisory interactions. Addressing this gap, the present study adopted a…

Due to the changing landscapes of higher education, a large body of research has studied how scholars make sense of academic identities and careers. Yet, little is known about how academics actually 'work' on their identities to navigate normative demands and complex career structures. This paper explores how scholars negotiate career scripts…

Whilst teaching awards have become an established practice in higher education, important questions remain about their effectiveness in recognizing high-quality teaching, with recent research suggesting that they may have dysfunctional consequences. We investigate how awards are perceived and impact upon recipients and non-recipients and propose…

This paper contributes to research on teaching excellence by extending the current body of literature pertaining to mentoring pedagogies in undergraduate research settings across diverse social, institutional and disciplinary contexts. Our data comes from in-depth interviews with 32 international faculty who have received excellence awards for…

This research examines the impact of non-monetary work environment factors on employee discretionary effort within the higher education sector in Australia. There is limited qualitative research that examines the factors that drive and inhibit employee discretionary effort especially in the higher education sector. Semi-structured interviews were…

Despite the wealth of literature on academic work, roles and identities, the meaning of being an academic often does not go beyond such pre-defined and separate roles of teacher, researcher, academic, professional and manager. Consequently, our understanding of academic work is limited. This article explores the holistic meaning of being an…

Recent decades have seen the evolution of UK business schools into international mass education providers. This transformation has developed against a background of institutional changes that jeopardise work conditions in academia. As few studies have examined the relationships between organisational, social and psychological aspects of academic…

Global moves to integrate Indigenous perspectives and histories into university curricula are growing. In Australia, shifts towards Indigenisation in higher education teaching and research have been slow, but now--partly due to new national and institutional policies--are re-forming the disciplinary landscapes where our students learn and grow.…

Although the system of educational credentials differs in many important ways from country to country, all western countries have experienced a similar trend in the form of an increasing number of graduate degrees. Graduate degrees have also taken on a bewildering range of forms and content. As a consequence, not all graduate degrees have the same…

The effects of gender on organisational structures for professional university staff have been largely overlooked in the literature. Using data from one Australian university, we examine the location of professional female staff in the organisational hierarchy. Our analysis indicated that significant gendered segregation existed within and across…

Feedback is central to the development of student learning, but within the constraints of modularized learning in higher education it is increasingly difficult to handle effectively. This article makes a case for sustainable feedback as a contribution to the reconceptualization of feedback processes. The data derive from the Student Assessment and…

In the debate about the (de-)professionalising effects of current higher education reforms in Germany, the non-university institutions ("Fachhochschulen") have mostly remained silent. Unlike university professors, "Fachhochschul" professors do not seem to regard managerial and market-oriented reforms as a threat to their…

Analysis of a survey of 32 Australian universities's policies concerning teaching and the attitudes of 1,489 faculty at six institutions found that only half of the institutions had developed criteria of good teaching but that faculty think good teaching should be rewarded more highly. Interviews with 40 faculty also indicated the need to formally…