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Inclusion without structural change: what neurodiverse academics tell us about inequality in higher education

by Eleni Meletiadou

The blog is based on the recent outputs from our COST ACTION CA20137 VOICES project entitled: ‘Lived Experiences of Neurodiverse Academics and Early Career Researchers in Higher Education: Identifying Structural Barriers and Pathways to Inclusion.’

Introduction

Higher education institutions across Europe increasingly emphasise equality, diversity, and inclusion, yet neurodiversity remains unevenly addressed within academic career structures. While universities have developed policies to support disabled and neurodiverse students, far less attention has been given to the experiences of neurodiverse academics, particularly early-career researchers and women. As a result, inclusion is often framed as an issue of individual adjustment rather than institutional design.

This blog presents findings from a qualitative survey conducted as part of the work of the VOICES COST Action, which examines inequalities affecting Young Researchers and Innovators (YRIs) from a gender perspective and promotes dialogue between researchers, institutions, and policy-makers across the European research ecosystem. The project explored the lived experiences of neurodiverse academics in higher education to identify structural barriers and inform policy and practice.

The findings suggest that, despite the growing visibility of neurodiversity, academic systems continue to be shaped by narrow assumptions about productivity, communication, and career progression. These assumptions can disadvantage those whose cognitive styles or working patterns do not align with dominant norms, particularly in contexts characterised by high workload, precarity, and informal career expectations.

Academic norms and the persistence of the ‘ideal worker’ model

Participants in the survey frequently described academic work as governed by implicit norms rather than transparent criteria. Expectations related to teaching, research, administration, and collegiality were often perceived as unclear, variable, and dependent on departmental culture.

Previous research has shown that academic environments tend to reward constant productivity, long working hours, and high levels of self-management, reflecting what has been described as the ‘ideal worker’ model. These expectations can create difficulties for academics whose cognitive styles involve fluctuating concentration, sensory sensitivity, or the need for predictable routines.

Respondents highlighted challenges associated with unpredictable workloads, competing deadlines, and the pressure to remain constantly available. Conferences, meetings, and networking events were also described as demanding environments, particularly when participation required rapid communication, multitasking, or tolerance of sensory overload.

Such findings indicate that the difficulties experienced by neurodiverse academics are not simply individual challenges but are closely linked to the way academic work is organised. Consistent with the objectives of the VOICES COST Action, inequalities affecting early career researchers often arise from structural features of the research environment rather than from personal limitations.

Intersectional inequalities: neurodiversity, gender, and career stage

The survey also revealed that neurodiversity intersects with gender and career stage in ways that intensify disadvantage. Early career researchers on temporary or part-time contracts reported reluctance to disclose neurodivergence or request adjustments due to concerns about job security and professional reputation.

These findings align with existing research showing that precarious employment conditions are common in early academic careers and can discourage individuals from seeking support. When career progression depends on short-term contracts, publication output, and informal recommendations, academics may feel pressure to conform to existing expectations even when these expectations are difficult to meet.

Female participants described additional pressures related to expectations of organisation, emotional labour, and collegial behaviour, which have been widely documented in studies of gender inequality in academia. These expectations were perceived as particularly demanding in environments where workloads are high and institutional support is limited.

From the perspective of the VOICES COST Action, such findings highlight the importance of examining inequalities through an intersectional lens. Neurodiversity does not operate in isolation but interacts with gender, career stage, and employment conditions to shape academic experiences.

Inclusion policies and the gap between commitment and practice

Most respondents reported that their institutions had formal equality, diversity, and inclusion strategies. However, the implementation of these policies was often described as inconsistent. Support frequently depended on individual supervisors, line managers, or departmental cultures rather than on clear institutional procedures.

Participants noted that adjustments were typically provided only after formal disclosure, placing responsibility on individuals to identify their needs and request support. This approach can be particularly challenging for neurodiverse academics, for whom disclosure may involve perceived professional risks.

Research on disability and inclusion in higher education has shown that institutional responses often focus on individual accommodations rather than structural change. While accommodations are important, they do not address the underlying assumptions about productivity, communication, and career progression that shape academic work. The findings of this study suggest that inclusion policies may have a limited impact if they are not accompanied by changes to workload models, evaluation criteria, and organisational culture.

Implications for policy and institutional practice

The qualitative data point to several areas where institutional policy could better support neurodiverse academics and early career researchers.

Greater transparency in workload and progression criteria

Clear expectations regarding teaching, research, and administrative responsibilities can reduce uncertainty and support fairer evaluation. When criteria are implicit, those who struggle with informal norms may be disadvantaged.

Flexible and predictable working practices

Flexible deadlines, structured communication, and predictable scheduling can support a wider range of working styles without lowering academic standards. Such measures may benefit many staff, not only those who identify as neurodivergent.

Training for academic leaders

Supervisors, heads of department, and line managers play a key role in implementing inclusion policies. Training that increases understanding of neurodiversity can help ensure that support is applied consistently and fairly.

Mentoring and peer support networks

Structured mentoring programmes can reduce isolation, particularly for early-career researchers and women. Informal support networks were frequently described by participants as essential for coping with the demands of academic work.

Dialogue beyond the institutional level

In line with the aims of the VOICES COST Action, improving inclusion requires discussion not only within universities but also at national and European policy levels. Research evaluation frameworks, funding structures, and career pathways all shape the conditions in which academics work and therefore influence who is able to succeed.

Towards more inclusive research environments

The findings presented here indicate that neurodiversity in higher education continues to be addressed primarily through individual adjustments rather than structural reform. Academic career systems remain shaped by implicit norms that privilege particular working styles and disadvantage those who do not conform to them.

If universities are to meet their commitments to equality, diversity, and inclusion, neurodiversity must be considered within broader discussions of precarity, gender inequality, and the sustainability of academic careers. Creating more inclusive environments requires not only support for individuals but also critical reflection on the assumptions that underpin academic work.

As initiatives such as the VOICES COST Action emphasise, meaningful change depends on sustained dialogue between researchers, institutions, and policy-makers. Without such dialogue, there is a risk that inclusion will remain a policy aspiration rather than an everyday reality.

Higher education has the opportunity to move beyond reactive accommodations towards more inclusive structures. Doing so is not only a matter of fairness but also essential for retaining talented researchers whose contributions may otherwise be lost to systems that remain insufficiently flexible to support diverse ways of thinking and working.

Dr Eleni Meletiadou is Associate Professor (Teaching) at London Metropolitan University and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her research focuses on equity, diversity, and inclusion in higher education, with particular emphasis on neurodiversity, gender equality, digital pedagogy, and education for sustainable development. She leads the Research Group on Inclusive Learning, Transnational Education and Academic Sustainability (RILEAS) and the Gender Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (GEDI) Research Group. Her work has been recognised with the British Academy of Management Education Practice Award (2023) and includes several European and international projects on inclusive assessment, AI in higher education, and widening participation. She is an active member of COST Actions examining inequalities in the research ecosystem and the impact of digital transformation on higher education. Her research interests include organisational change in universities, inclusive curriculum design, early career researcher development, and socially just approaches to teaching and learning.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-eleni-meletiadou/


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Collegiality and competition in German Centres of Excellence

by Lautaro Vilches

Collegiality, although threatened by increasing competitive pressures and described as a slippery and elastic concept, remains a powerful ideal underpinning academic and intellectual practices. Drawing on two empirical studies, this blog examines the relationships between collegiality and competition in Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Germany. These CoEs are conceptualised as a quasi-departmental new university model that contrasts with the ‘university of chairs’, which characterises the old Humboldtian university model, organised around chairs led by professors. Hence my research question: How do academics experience collegiality, and how does it relate to competition, within CoEs in the SSH?

In 2006, the government launched the Excellence Strategy (then known as the Excellence Initiative), which includes a scheme providing long-term funding for Centres of Excellence. Notably, this scheme extends beyond the traditionally more collaborative Natural Sciences, to encompass the Social Sciences and Humanities. Germany, therefore, offers a unique case to explore transformations of collegiality amidst co-existing and overlapping university models. What, then, are the key features of these models?

In the old model of the ‘university of chairs’ the chair constitutes the central organisational unit of the university, with each one led by a single professor. Central to this model is the idea of collegial leadership according to which professors govern the university autonomously, a practice that can be traced back to the old scholastic guild of the Middle Ages. During the eighteenth century, German universities underwent a process of modernisation influenced by Renaissance ideals, culminating in the establishment of University of Berlin in Prussia in 1810 by Wilhelm von Humboldt. By the late nineteenth century, the Humboldtian model of the university had become highly influential, as it offered an organisational template in which the ideals of academic autonomy, academic freedom and the  integration of research and teaching were institutionalised.

Within the university of chairs, collegiality is effectively ‘contained’ and enacted within individual chairs. In this structure, professors have no formal superiors and academic staff are directly subordinate to a single professor (as chair holder) – not an institute or faculty. As a result, the university of chairs is characterised by several small and steep hierarchies.

In recent decades – alongside the rise of the United States as the hegemonic power – the Anglo-American departmental model spread across the world, a shift that is associated with the entrepreneurial transformation of universities as they respond to growing competitive pressures.

Remarkably, CoEs in the SSH in Germany are organised as ‘quasi-departments’ resembling a multidisciplinary Anglo-American department. They are very large in comparison with other collaborative grants, often comprising more than 100 affiliated researchers. They are structured around several ‘Research Areas’ and led by 25 Principal Investigators (mostly professors) who must agree on the implementation of the multidisciplinary and integrated research programme on which the CoE is based.

The historical implications of this new model cannot be overstated. CoEs appear to operate as Trojan horses: cloaked in the prestige of excellence, they have introduced a fundamentally different organisational model into the German university of chairs, an institution that has endured over centuries.

Against the backdrop of these two models, what are the implications for collegiality and its relation to competition? A few clarifications are necessary. First, much of the research on collegiality has focused on governance, ignoring that collegiality is also practised ‘on the ground’. Here, I will define collegiality (a) as form of ‘leadership and governance’, involving relations among leaders as well as interactions between leaders and those they govern; (b) as an ‘intellectual practice’ that can be best observed in the enactments of collaborative research; and (c) as a form of ‘citizenship’, involving practices that signify belonging to the CoE and its academic community.

Second, adopting this broader understanding requires acknowledging that collegiality is not only experienced by professors (in governing collegialy the university) but also by the ‘invisible’ academic demos, namely Early Career Researchers (ECRs). Although often employed in precarious positions, ECRS are nonetheless significant members of the academic community, in particular in CoEs, which explicitly prioritise the training of ECRs as a core objective. Whilst ECRs are committed full time to the CoE and sustain much of its collaborative research activity, professors remain simultaneously bound to the duties of their respective positions as chairs.

A third clarification concerns our normative assumptions underpinning collegiality and its relationship to competition. Collegiality is sometimes idealised as an unambiguously positive value and practice in academia, whilst competition – in contrast – is seen as a threat to collegiality. However, this idealised depiction tends to underplay, for example, the role of hierarchies in academia and often invokes an indeterminate past – perhaps somewhere in the 1960s – when universities were governed autonomously by male professors and generously funded through block grants – largely protected from competition pressures or external scrutiny.

These contextual conditions have evidently changed over recent decades: competition, both at institutional and individual terms, has intensified in academia, and CoE schemes exemplify this shift. CoE members, especially ECRs, are therefore embedded in multiple and overlapping competitions: at the institutional level through the CoE’s race for excellence; and at the individual level, through the competition for getting a position in the CoE, as well as for grants, publications, and networks necessary for career advancement.

How are collegiality and competition intertwined in the CoE? I identify three complex dynamics:

  • ‘The temporal flourishing of intellectual collegiality’ refers to the blooming of collegiality as part of the collaborative research work in the CoE. ECRs describe extensive engagement in organising, leading or co-leading research seminars (alongside PIs or other postdoctoral researchers), co-editing books, developing digital collaborative platforms, inviting researchers from abroad to join the CoE or organising and participating in informal meetings. Within this dynamic, competition is presented as being located ‘outside’ the CoE, temporarily deactivated. However, at the same time, ECRs remain aware of the omnipresence of competition, which ultimately threatens collegial collaboration when career paths, research topics or publications begin to converge. For this reason, intellectual collegiality and competition stand in an exclusionary relationship.
  • ‘The rise of CoE citizenship for the institutional race of excellence’ captures the strong sense of engagement and commitment shown by ECRs (but also professors) towards the CoE. It is expressed through initiatives aimed at enhancing the CoE’s collective research performance, particularly in anticipation of competition for renewed excellence funding. This dynamic reveals that, for the CoE, citizenship and institutional competition are not oppositional but complementary, as collective engagement is mobilised in the service of competitive success.
  • ‘Collegial leadership adapting to multiple competitions’ highlights the plurality of leadership modes, each one responding to different levels and forms of competition. At the level of professors and decision-making processes at the top, traditional collegial governance is ‘overstretched’. Although professors retain full authority, they struggle to reach consensus and to lead these large multidisciplinary centres effectively. This suggests a growing demand for new skills more closely associated with the figure of an academic manager than a professor. The institutional race for excellence thus places considerable strain on collegial governance rooted in the chair-based system. Accordingly, ECRs describe different and, apparently, contradictory modes of collegial leadership. For example, the ‘laissez faire’ mode aligns with the ideals of freedom and autonomy underpinning intellectual collegiality, but also with competition among individuals. They also describe leadership as ‘impositions’, which, on the one hand, erodes trust in professors and decision-making, but, on the other hand, intersects with notions of citizenship that compel ECRs to accept decisions, even when imposed. Yet many ECRs value and expect a more ‘inclusive leadership’ that support the development of intellectual collegiality. Overall, the relationship between collegial leadership and competition is heterogeneous and adaptive, closely intertwined with the preceding dynamics.

How, then, can these dynamics be interpreted together? Overall, the findings suggest that differences between university models matter profoundly for collegiality. Expectations regarding how academics collaborate, participate in governance and decision-making processes and form intellectual communities are embedded in specific institutional contexts.

Regarding the relation between collegiality and competition, I suggest two contrasting interpretations. The first emphasises the flourishing of intellectual collegiality and the emergence of CoE citizenship, understood as a collective, multidisciplinary sense of belonging that is driven by – and complementary to – the institutional race for excellence. The second interpretation, however, views this flourishing as a temporal illusion. From this perspective, competition is omnipresent and stands in a fundamentally exclusionary relationship to collegiality: it threatens intellectual collaboration even when temporarily deactivated; it compels academics to engage in CoE-related work they may not intrinsically value; and it overstretches traditional forms of collegial leadership, promoting managerial modes that erode trust in both academic judgement and decision-making processes. Viewed in this light, competition ultimately poses a threat to collegiality. These rival interpretations may uneasily coexist, and the second one possibly predominates. More research is needed on how organisational contexts affect the relationship between collegiality and competition.

Lautaro Vilches is a researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin and a consultant in higher education. His current research examines the implications of excellence schemes for transforming universities’ organisational arrangements and their effects on academic practices such as collegiality, academic mobility and research collaboration, particularly in the Social Sciences and Humanities. As a consultant he advises universities on advancing strategic change.


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Becoming a professional services researcher in HE – making the train tracks converge

by Charlotte Verney

This blog builds on my presentation at the BERA ECR Conference 2024: at crossroads of becoming. It represents my personal reflections of working in UK higher education (HE) professional services roles and simultaneously gaining research experience through a Masters and Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD).

Professional service roles within UK HE include recognised professionals from other industries (eg human resources, finance, IT) and HE-specific roles such as academic quality, research support and student administration. Unlike academic staff, professional services staff are not typically required, or expected, to undertake research, yet many do. My own experience spans roles within six universities over 18 years delivering administration and policy that supports learning, teaching and students.

Traversing two tracks

In 2016, at an SRHE Newer Researchers event, I was asked to identify a metaphor to reflect my experience as a practitioner researcher. I chose this image of two train tracks as I have often felt that I have been on two development tracks simultaneously –  one building professional experience and expertise, the other developing research skills and experience. These tracks ran in parallel, but never at the same pace, occasionally meeting on a shared project or assignment, and then continuing on their separate routes. I use this metaphor to share my experiences, and three phases, of becoming a professional services researcher.

Becoming research-informed: accelerating and expanding my professional track

The first phase was filled with opportunities; on my professional track I gained a breadth of experience, a toolkit of management and leadership skills, a portfolio of successful projects and built a strong network through professional associations (eg AHEP). After three years, I started my research track with a masters in international higher education. Studying felt separate to my day job in academic quality and policy, but the assignments gave me opportunities to bring the tracks together, using research and theory to inform my practice – for example, exploring theoretical literature underpinning approaches to assessment whilst my institution was revising its own approach to assessing resits. I felt like a research-informed professional, and this positively impacted my professional work, accelerating and expanding my experience.

Becoming a doctoral researcher: long distance, slow speed

The second phase was more challenging. My doctoral journey was long, taking 9 years with two breaks. Like many part-time doctoral students, I struggled with balance and support, with unexpected personal and professional pressures, and I found it unsettling to simultaneously be an expert in my professional context yet a novice in research. I feared failure, and damaging my professional credibility as I found my voice in a research space.

What kept me going, balancing the two tracks, was building my own research support network and my researcher identity. Some of the ways I did this was through zoom calls with EdD peers for moral support, joining the Society for Research into Higher Education to find my place in the research field, and joining the editorial team of a practitioner journal to build my confidence in academic writing.

Becoming a professional services researcher: making the tracks converge

Having completed my doctorate in 2022, I’m now actively trying to bring my professional and research tracks together. Without a roadmap, I’ve started in my comfort-zone, sharing my doctoral research in ‘safe’ policy and practitioner spaces, where I thought my findings could have the biggest impact. I collaborated with EdD peers to tackle the daunting task of publishing my first article. I’ve drawn on my existing professional networks (ARC, JISC, QAA) to establish new research initiatives related to my current practice in managing assessment. I’ve made connections with fellow professional services researchers along my journey, and have established an online network  to bring us together.

Key takeaways for professional services researchers

Bringing my professional experience and research tracks together has not been without challenges, but I am really positive about my journey so far, and for the potential impact professional services researchers could have on policy and practice in higher education. If you are on your own journey of becoming a professional services researcher, my advice is:

  • Make time for activities that build your research identity
  • Find collaborators and a community
  • Use your professional experience and networks
  • It’s challenging, but rewarding, so keep going!

Charlotte Verney is Head of Assessment at the University of Bristol. Charlotte is an early career researcher in higher education research and a leader in within higher education professional services. Her primary research interests are in the changing nature of administrative work within universities, using research approaches to solve professional problems in higher education management, and using creative and collaborative approaches to research. Charlotte advocates for making the academic research space more inclusive for early career and professional services researchers. She is co-convenor of the SRHE Newer Researchers Network and has established an online network for higher education professional services staff engaged with research.


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Connecting conceptual and practical dimension of employability

by Omolabake Fakunle and Helen Higson

We were very proud to have our paper accepted at SRHE’s 2023 Research Conference. This was particularly because we value our collaboration, which was born via SRHE, and our paper was about that journey. This blogpost shares highlights from our SRHE 2023 conference paper which outlined: (i) our collaboration to publication research story; (ii) the importance of SRHE in our collaborative journey; which amongst many positives for nearly a decade, links directly to (iii) our award-winning journal paper that presented a conceptual framing of employability in different global contexts.

Our collaboration to publication research story

This recent piece of work started with a joint seminar at the 2019 SRHE Conference at Celtic Manor. We gathered a group of employability researchers to explore different aspects of interrogating methodologies and approaches on employability from different disciplinary perspectives and country contexts. It was a lively session, inspiring much debate including questions from the audience, and making us realise that it was time to re-evaluate yet again the conceptions of what employability meant.  We were encouraged to suggest a follow up session, and by the time we left the room we had agreed to investigate the production of a special issue of Higher Education Quarterly (HEQ).

We discussed the initial steps in our collaboration to publication journey. Helen shared her recollections and how she persuaded Labake, as an early career researcher, that her career would be strongly enhanced by taking the lead in the endeavour. Hence, throughout the Covid-19 lockdown and beyond, Labake pitched our idea, had it accepted by the editors of HEQ, and then worked to make sure that all the contributors met deadlines, and delivered papers of the quality needed for publication.

In July 2021, our special issue entitled ‘Interrogating theoretical and empirical approaches to employability in different global contexts’, appeared online and on paper in HEQ. We were ecstatic and amazed at the success of the publication, particularly when we discovered in 2023 that our introduction paper, Fakunle & Higson (2021) and Labake’s substantial paper (Fakunle, 2021), had been Wiley’s top cited and most downloaded articles respectively (in 2021/22). Additionally, both papers and two other papers from the Special Issue were cited in Tight’s (2023) recent review and synthesis of the debate and continuing discussion around how employability is viewed in relation to the core purpose of higher education. This affirms the intellectual quality and care with which the work had been carried out. We talked about the impact for our career trajectory, and its significance as Helen entered her third decade of researching in employability, with the first 20 years charted in Higson (2023).

The importance of SRHE to this work

This second part of our paper concentrated on the role of SRHE in the triumphs mentioned above.  As we chart this contribution, we acknowledge that it is a story that many other HE researchers will recognise.  For both  of us, the SRHE has played a major and significant part in our research journeys, both individually, but in this context particularly together.

The story begins when Helen was appointed Co-Network Convenor of the SRHE Employability and Enterprise special interest group. This involved running a number of very successful research days in London, and an eventful one held in 2014 in Edinburgh, which saved Scottish colleagues some journey time. The well attended event attracted participants not only from Scotland, but also from Northern Ireland and from England, as far south at Bournemouth. The session was held at the Dovecote Studios, where we first met when Labake, then a PhD student, was working on the employability of international students. This shows the importance of these events, and the vital role of supervisors and network convenors to encourage PhD students to attend these events, which are always collegiate and inspire confidence in early career researchers. This SRHE event at Edinburgh was the starting point for the mentoring relationship and follow-up conversations at subsequent SRHE Conferences. We provide below a brief snapshot/testimonial about the efficacy of SRHE network events.

Helen’s reflections

As network convenor, I was always keen to create a community of practice for employability researchers at the Conference.  On the first night, before most of the conference had started, I always hosted a table in the restaurant.  This allowed lone researchers, new researchers, and first time conference goers to join our group in an informal setting.  This always ensured that there were friendly attenders at conference presentations, and often led to future collaborations.  A number of my best collaborators and now friendships (including with Labake), stemmed from those friendly dinners, at which we always ran out of chairs.

Labake’s reflections

I kept in touch with Helen during and after completing my PhD and my academic roles at the University of Edinburgh. I enjoyed attending several Employability events as a valued opportunity to network with colleagues from the UK and abroad and explore collaborative opportunities. This formed the basis for asking Helen to join me in contributing to the Conference seminar in 2019, and our continuing mutually beneficial collaborations. I am especially proud that one of my PhD students was accepted to present her research at the 2023 SRHE conference and is able to avail themselves of the networking opportunities!  

Our groundbreaking employability framework

Our presentation culminated with the discussion about the employability framework in our award-winning journal article published here. The framework proposes a conceptualisation of employability in 3 dimensions: outcomes, process and conceptual. The outcomes approach is centred on economic parameters based on individual competence and employment rates. We point to the dominance of the outcomes approach in the multiplicity of definitions and understandings of employability. The process approach captures the role of higher education institutions in providing and assessing employability development opportunities. We differentiated between different conceptual approaches of employability dimensions such as the dominant human capital theory (underpinning the outcomes approach), critical realism, capability and positional conflict. The framework provides conceptual clarity that addresses contesting positionalities and differing positions on what employability is, and the relevance beyond dominant outcomes approach and western-focused context.

Conclusion

We are grateful and mindful that SRHE worked the magic for us, bringing together an experienced researcher and ECR with impactful outcomes. Our story is one of many. Hopefully, our story will inspire other ECRs to reach out and make the best of the opportunities that SRHE provides. We also want to highlight how the input and support from more experienced researchers, and collaboration can make a lot of difference in academic career trajectory!

Dr Omolabake Fakunle is Chancellor’s Fellow, and Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh. She is Affiliate Faculty, Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation (CHEI), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano. Her award-winning research, teaching and consultancy includes inclusivity in internationalisation, employability, and decoloniality. She was a member of the inaugural Scottish Funding Council’s Tertiary Quality Framework Expert Advisory Group, and current member of the SRHE Governance and Appointments Committee. 

Professor Helen Higson OBE DL was Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Aston University.  She is now Professor of Higher Education Learning and Management in Aston Business School.  Helen is a Principal Fellow of Advance HE and a National Teaching Fellow.  Her recent research, policy and consultancy work includes intercultural training, developing employability and skills development, facilitating a coaching


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Working class and working in higher education?: Transition(s) from a sociology PhD

by Carli Rowell

Carli Rowell won an SRHE Newer Researcher’s Award to explore working-class early career researchers lived experiences of moving through a Sociology PhD and into the academic workforce. It makes visible the successes, hurdles, and ambivalences of this precarious and often invisible group of academics. The full report from this research award is available from the 2019 reports at Newer Researcher Awards | Society for Research into Higher Education (srhe.ac.uk)

This blog arises from a project which explores the lived experience of being working-class and moving through doctoral study into the academic workforce. It was motivated by the fact that higher education has historically existed for the working classes as a site of exclusion from participation, from knowledge production and from leadership. Despite the global massification of education, HE continues to operate as a classed pathway and bastion of classed knowledge (Walkerdine, 2021) especially so given academia’s classed ceiling. The project explored the lived experiences of 13 working-class early career researchers (ECRs) in moving through doctoral study into (and out of) the academic workforce. It sought to make visible the successes, hurdles, and ambivalences of this precarious and often invisible group of academics. I reflect here on some of the key emerging findings (in depth analysis continues) and sketch out early recommendations based on project findings.

The project was underpinned by the following research questions:

  1. In what ways, if at all, do first-generation working-class ECRs perceive their working-class background as affecting their experiences of and progression through doctoral study and into academia?
  2. How do they generate and navigate their own ‘strategies for success’ in their working context?
  3. What are the wider implications of these strategies for success, for example in their personal lives and/or their imagined futures in the academy?
  4. What can be done, if at all, by stake holders of UKHEs to address working-class doctoral students and early career researchers journey to and through a social-sciences PhD and into academia?

A Bourdieusian approach to social class was adopted. Whilst participants self-identified as coming from a working-class background and as being a first-generation (at the undergraduate level), class background and first-generation status were further explored and confirmed through in-depth interviews. All participants were UK domiciled doctoral students and ECRs across a range of university types. Initially the project sought to explore working-class doctoral and ECRs from across the social sciences, but participant recruitment soon revealed a skewedness towards the discipline of sociology. Thus, the decision was taken to adopt a disciplinary case study approach, focusing upon the discipline of sociology. In total, ten of the 13 participants were working in academia and the remaining three were working in the third sector. 12 had completed their PhD’s and one participant had made the decision to leave academia prior to completing the PhD. 12 participants identified as White British, and one participant identified as North African.

What challenges do working-class doctoral researchers and early career researchers face? How, if at all do they overcome such challenges and what can be done to support them in their journeys to and through academia?

The Important of Working-Class ‘Others’ in Academic and Navigating Funding

In journeying to the PhD receiving scholarship funding was foundational to participants’ possibility of progressing to doctoral study. All of my participants received full funding and without this they would not have been able to pursue a PhD. In addition to funding, working-class ‘Others’ (or what I have termed to be very important persons (VIPs) in academia were also central to participants experiences of successful navigating the transition to doctoral study. The VIP, often academic points of contact, who are mostly (though not always) from a working-class background served an important function as a kind of ‘gatekeeper’ to post-graduate study and academia. VIPs often sparked the notion that doctoral study was a possible pathway and provided a window into academia, demystifying academia and the postgraduate applications/scholarship process.

Participants’ accounts showed a range of barriers. Participants rejected the need to be geographically hyper-mobile in order to secure academic employment; they wanted and needed to care for family members and wished to remain connected to their working-class home and community. They spoke at length about the precarious nature of navigating the academic job market and academia per se; this alone was a key barrier to successful progression within academia. Participants also spoke about the multitude of skills and experiences they were required to demonstrate in order to navigate the academic job market. For working-class students who are the first in their family to study at university, knowing which endeavours to seek out and prioritise was a great source of confusion and anxiety. Uncovering how to play the game was not always easily identifiable.

Recommendations

This study leads to recommendations for institutions, funding bodies, and those working in academia in their recruitment, engagement and support with doctoral scholars and early career researchers from working-class backgrounds. These recommendations include, but are not limited to:

(a) schemes aimed at demystifying academia and supporting working-class aspiring doctoral researchers through their doctoral applications and funding process;

(b) funding bodies recognising the precarious financial position of doctoral students, especially so for those from working-class backgrounds and thus financially supporting doctoral students during times of ill health and exceptional circumstances and providing funding to doctoral students for the period immediately following the submission of the PhD; and

(c) Academic hiring committees and funders, postdoctoral or otherwise, should not look more favourably on those applications where the applicant holder is moving to another university, and should accept that some applicants might just prefer to stay, without having an exceptional reason such as caring commitments, or other exceptional academic reasons.

The current academic landscape is marked by precarity and rampant competition for an ever diminishing pool of academic jobs, often short-term, temporary contracts that demand geographical mobility. This in turn has significant impacts upon the knowledge being produced within and across UK universities (and globally). Working-class doctoral students and early career researchers face considerable barriers in their journeys to and through a PhD and into academia. Whilst there has been considerable debate and discussion of the gendered and ethnic makeup of UK higher education there is no equivalent commentary or critique concerned with illuminating, calling into question and critiquing the absence of working-class persons from academia. The future of UK HE, its leadership and scholarship are currently under threat. The values of diversity, accessibility and inclusivity, especially that of class diversity, that universities are quick to espouse should be at the centre of HE policy and practice, especially at the postgraduate level.

Institutions and funding bodies need to take into account, and take action to address, the specific challenges facing working-class doctoral researchers and early career academics. Working-class people should be actively encouraged and supported in their journeys to and through doctoral study and into higher education. As part of this project, a workshop aimed at demystifying the post-PhD post-doctoral funding application process and academic labour market will be run in Autumn 2022.

SRHE member Carli Rowell is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sussex. She is currently an executive member of Gender and Education Association and convenes the British Sociological Associations Social Class Study Group.


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How should early-career researchers learn about academic writing and publishing?

by Melina Aarnikoivu

In August 2019, a group of 25 early-career higher education scholars convened in a seminar room in Kassel, Germany, to talk about academic writing for an entire afternoon. We were there to help each other write better, and become comfortable with the fact that “everybody struggles with writing, everybody gets rejected”. That quote was just one of the insights that senior higher education scholars had offered us, the organisers, prior to the event via email. In total, we had received 38 responses where senior higher education journal editors and reviewers from all around the world shared their views on what makes a good, publishable article.

What I didn’t know at the time was that this writing workshop would be my last in-person academic event for the next two years. What the event and those 38 responses offered me, however, was a direction for my future research and teaching. And the question I’ve been asking ever since is: how can early-career researchers learn to write good journal articles when even senior scholars — the gatekeepers of academic writing and publishing — don’t agree on what makes a good journal article or how it comes to be?

Rules of academic writing and publishing – are there any?

In my recent SRHE conference talk, titled Rules of writing and publishing in higher education research: are there any?, I presented the preliminary results of a study that I’ve been working on since the Kassel writing workshop. In the study I explore what kind of advice senior higher education scholars provide for early-career researchers regarding academic writing and publishing, and whether these pieces of advice agree with each other. By asking these questions, my aim is to make the ‘publishing gates’ of higher education research more transparent and accessible, so that early-career researchers who want to publish in higher education research journals would not have to submit their first articles with only a “hope-for-the-best-but-be-prepared-for-the-worst” mentality.

Going through the data, however, has been quite eye-opening, as everyone seems to have their own – often very differing – views on how to write articles, what should be in them, or how to choose one’s research topics in the first place. For example, while one scholar seems to think we have to choose our journal before we have written a single word on paper, another one encourages us to first write the paper, then choose the journal. While one scholar cares a great deal about language and style, another claims they do not care about the language at all. Or, while one senior researcher says we should give up if a manuscript is rejected, others encourage us to keep trying as long as the paper is published.

While there are probably no right answers to any of these issues, the conflicting advice might seem incredibly perplexing to those who are about to publish their first papers. What an early-career researcher might ask as a result is: does the fate of my future article depend on luck — on whose desk it ends up landing? What kind of writing and research does that individual scholar in particular appreciate — or not?

There also seem to be some things that senior scholars mostly agree on, such as the well-thought-out focus of the manuscript. However, that is also a highly subjective issue: how many research questions is enough for this particular paper? What if the paper aims to do too much after all? Or, by contrast, what if the paper ends up looking like salami-slicing?

Accept the lack of rules, talk about writing, question your assumptions

What I find even more worrying than the conflicting or ambiguous advice of different individuals, however, is that many early-career researchers might not even be aware that advice is available and should be treated as no more than that. Instead, they treat their supervisors, journal editors, or peer reviewers’ pieces of advice as ‘the ultimate truth’.

What can we do, then?

Accept the lack of rules: Supervisors, mentors, and teachers should be frank with their supervisees, mentees, and students that there is no universal rulebook for ‘good academic writing’. They should acknowledge that there are differences between languages, disciplines, and individuals. What works in my Finnish academic writing, for example, might not work in English. While I appreciate my student trying out something different in their essay, the teacher next door might not be so understanding.

Talk about writing: To improve as writers and researchers, the more we talk about writing with other researchers, the better. Especially early-career researchers should be provided as many opportunities to talk about and share their texts with their colleagues and peers as possible. Moreover, they should be able to do so in a supportive and inspiring environment. In this way, they can become comfortable with others reading their work, even if it is not polished yet.

Question your assumptions: Every now and then, it would be good for any academic to stop for a moment and think how academic writing was taught to them and by whom, and how that affected their views on what ‘good writing’ entails. Would there be more room to break or bend the rules, if we had such rules in our mental academic writing toolbox? Do we welcome a constant challenge to the conventions of academic writing, or are we allergic to any kind of ‘rebelliousness’ in academic articles? Why?

Academic writing is often frustrating because it is difficult. There are no quick fixes to suddenly become an amazing academic writer and to get your papers published without hard work. While it is always beneficial to seek pieces of advice on good writing and publishing, it is equally important to remember not to take them at face value.

But that is just my advice.

Melina Aarnikoivu is a postdoctoral researcher at the Higher Education Studies Team (HIEST) at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research. She has recently received a one-year research grant from the Wihuri foundation to study academic writing practices and writing support of early-career researchers in Finland. Between 2020 and 2021, she taught academic writing at an undergraduate level.


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Gesellschaft für Hochschulforschung – the German Society for HE Research

By Richard Budd

Given that my PhD compared German and English HE, I was thrilled to be awarded SRHE funding to attend their counterpart’s annual conference in München. It gave me a chance to gen up on the hottest topics in German-speaking HE research, to catch up with a few people I already knew from a stint as a visiting doctoral researcher, and to build some new bridges. It didn’t disappoint, and the only dark cloud was that I was unable to stay for the whole event due to prior commitments.

The early career researcher day started with a workshop on publication strategies, and was mostly directed towards doctoral students who might be unfamiliar with the publishing landscape. Many of the tips such as identifying the original contribution of your paper, an eye-catching title, and listening to the editor’s /reviewers comments were (recent) old hat, although some of this I’d had to learn the hard way. Of particular interest was the array of German language journals that either focus entirely on HE or are amenable to HE-oriented pieces. A number of German academics do publish in the more familiar English language journals, but there is a great deal of interesting research that happens away from the ‘English eye’. I struggle to keep up with the volume of my ‘must-reads’ in English at the best of times, and would welcome suggestions on how to manage this (on a postcard, please). I am conscious that I somehow need to keep my finger on the German language pulse, too.

The main event of the early career researcher day was Continue reading →

Charlotte Mathieson


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A Culture of Publish or Perish? The Impact of the REF on Early Career Researchers

By Charlotte Mathieson

This article aims to highlight some of the ways in which the REF has impacted upon early career researchers, using this as a spring-broad to think about how the next REF might better accommodate this career group.

In my role at the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick I work closely with a community of early career researchers and have experienced first-hand the many impacts that this REF has had on my peer group; but I wanted to ensure that this talk reflected a broader range of experiences across UK HE, and therefore in preparation I distributed an online survey asking ECRs about their experiences and opinions on the REF 2014.

Survey overview

– 193 responses collected between December 2014 and March 2015
– responses gathered via social media and email from across the UK
– 81.3 % had completed PhDs within the last 8 years
– 41.5 % were REF returned
– 18.7% were currently PhD students
– 10.9% had left academia since completing a PhD

5 main points emerged as most significant from among the responses: Continue reading →