Motivating Individuals: Growing research from a “fragile base”

Abstract

Faculty around the world are experiencing changes in their academic work. While “traditional” universities are responding to demands for greater accountability and increased and timely outputs from research, faculty within new higher education institutions (HEIs) are undergoing a paradigm shift within three concentric circles of change. Not only do they have to alter their own academic practice, but their HEI is also undergoing a revolution at a time when higher education is itself being transformed. The article documents these changes, challenging the assumption that there is a homogeneous or “single academic profession” with a common experience of academic change, and suggests a more complex picture for faculty in new HEIs. There are three sections: (1) overview of the literature on academic work, (2) how faculty in new HEIs are learning to play the research game, and (3) strategies and policies being introduced to encourage and facilitate research.

Acknowledgements

I am particularly grateful to the participation and support of the many people in HEIs around the world who gave generously of their time, and especially to share their experiences, during the original research which was supported by the OECD Programme on Institutional Management of Higher Education while on sabbatical from DIT. I have also enjoyed comments on an earlier draft of this article given to the CHER conference in Dublin 2007 and from Svein Kyvik, Ben Jongbloed, Jussi Välimaa, Brian O’Neill, and John Donovan. All errors are mine.

Notes

1. Scotland and England were considered separately because of their different higher education systems.

2. This figure represents the number of HEIs worldwide according to the International Association of Universities.