Academic mobility isn’t a new phenomenon in higher education – moving around has always been a part of being an academic. But the necessity of being mobile and flexible has increased: today, mobility is considered more of “a must” for all academics. […]
Stringing research pearls: some tips for managing your research
Navigating the endless world of knowledge and research can seem like a daunting task, especially if you are in the early phases of your research career. As early-career researchers, we usually need to […]
Staying in academia: navigating the academic career system in Germany
You have (almost) completed your PhD and you are starting to plan your future career steps. Maybe you gave the post-doctoral phase some thought even before you started it. Maybe not. For most of us, at the time when we embark on our PhDs […]
Which higher education journals have the highest “prestige”?
As Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, I like to know why authors choose to submit research to our journal. The journal publisher, Taylor and Francis, surveys authors and reports results to me […]
Lost in Space – the unsettlement of interdisciplinarity
I’ve been feeling increasingly rootless over the past few months, but in a weirdly good way. Well, mostly good. I’m bringing in loads of new ideas to my work, which is intellectually stimulating but also quite tricky as the scope of those ideas is […]
How successful scholars write and publish: ten sociologists reflect on their publication strategies
Do you ever think about what the best publication strategy is in the social sciences? Have you ever wondered how successful scholars reflect on their approaches to getting published? […]
ECHER: Past, present, and future
“Early-career” is, from whichever angle you look at it, a transitory phase in one’s academic life. It’s not even a phase we are very keen on staying in for more than we have to. After all, don’t we all work very hard to be considered early-career as short as possible?
Searching for an ideal university? “Keep, drop, create”
We often criticise universities, but do we ever pause to think what an ideal one would look like? Earlier this month we had a rare opportunity as doctoral students to participate in a “search conference” together with around 30 other higher education scholars. […]
Frames of translation: reflections from a conference trip to China
Avos, sometimes called a Russian shibboleth, is a tricky concept to translate into English, but it refers to underestimating the obstacles and overestimating your abilities since, in the end, the situation is never fully under your control. […]
Academic work, digital infrastructures, and the rise of the “bibliometric self”
The use of data instruments in performance measurement is all the rage. It seems that the continuous improvement in technology and its increasing availability has fundamentally transformed the way we think of performance-based governance mechanisms. […]