In Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide, Christopher L. Caterine provides practical advice for those considering changing careers. Eryk Walczak finds this book a great read for both early-stage PhD students who might want to prepare a Plan B and more seasoned academics considering working in non-academic roles. This review originally appeared on LSE Review of Books. If you would like … Continued
Category: academic life
COVID-19 Researcher Stories: Adapting Under Adversity in Nigeria
Lockdown has presented researchers across the world with a mix of opportunities- in the form of time and new forms of connection as well as challenges: working from home, the disruption to business as usual and health and economic concerns. In this post, we hear from four researchers in Nigeria on how they creatively responded … Continued
Dealing with Rejection in Academia
In this repost, Staci Zavattaro, reflects on rejection in academia and gives 6 tips on how to manage the inevitable rejections that are part of academic life. This post originally appeared on Regions eZine. I just graduated from my doctoral program and was attending my discipline’s annual conference. That week, I had gotten several papers rejected in a row. Back […]
Don’t let your academic career determine your every move – Should early career researchers be expected to relocate regularly in order to land a permanent job?
To secure a permanent academic position, it has become an increasingly common requirement for early career researchers to work in a number of institutions, often across a number of countries. In this post, Eva Krockow weighs the benefits of an international career against the costs of constant mobility and suggests that fostering more stable working environments will ultimately prove beneficial […]
Plan S: What About Researchers?
In this repost, Robert Harington makes an appeal to Plan S leaders and funders to take to heart the needs and interests of researchers, when implementing a new generation of open access policies. These days I wake up and strenuously attempt, and spectacularly fail, to avoid the news. Across the world it seems as if we are seeing an epidemic of […]
Book Review: How to be a Happy Academic: A Guide to Being Effective in Research, Writing and Teaching by Alexander Clark and Bailey Sousa
In How to be a Happy Academic: A Guide to Being Effective in Research, Writing and Teaching, Alexander Clark and Bailey Sousa aim to support fellow academic workers at all career stages to become more efficient, successful and happier through focusing on fostering good habits over and above talent or skills. Eddy Li welcomes this insider perspective on seeing, doing and – most importantly – […]
Playing the game: academics have bought into the competition and become complicit in their exploitation
The managerialist logic that has permeated universities has had a clear impact on academic work. To Senia Kalfa, Adrian Wilkinson and Paul J. Gollan, academia has become like a game, with academics competing with each other for just a handful of permanent positions and focused completely on accumulating the capital (publications, grant income, etc.) needed to secure one. Rather than […]
Reshaping the tenure and promotion process so that it becomes a catalyst for innovative and invigorating scholarship
The metrics used to identify excellence, and on which current tenure and promotion decisions are based, have become a barrier to more exciting and innovative scholarship. Christopher P. Long suggests an overhaul of tenure and promotion practices, advocating a holistic approach in which structured mentoring plays a key role and values-based metrics that will empower faculty to tell more textured […]
“This device is licensed”: the material and immaterial bureaucracy of academic research
Derek Dunne draws attention to the hidden bureaucratic labour that is increasingly a part of academic life. Rather than see this as the “white noise” to be tuned out of everyday working practices, he calls for us to question the forms that are put in front of us demanding our acquiescence, whilst also locating potential sites of resistance. “This device is […]
More work is required to make academic “timescapes” worth inhabiting and to open up space for creative work
Is the problem with contemporary academia really one of constant acceleration? Ulrike Felt argues that focusing too much on acceleration overlooks a more complex phenomenon at work. What is needed is careful investigation of “time generators”, the key sites in academia that create binding temporal requirements and regulations. Many of academia’s recent reforms – to funding structures, assessment exercises, accountability […]