This study examines the historical role preparation experiences of professional staff and academics in a managerialised university field. Semi-structured interviews were used to identify the impact of these experiences on the individual's ability to 'play the game' of the managerialised university field. The Bourdieusian concepts of habitus, doxa…

Purpose: The concept of distributed leadership (DL) has been widely advocated within higher education (HE). Yet, there have been few empirical investigations and little theory development outside Western contexts to date. This study presents a unique conceptualisation of DL and tests it empirically in India. Design/methodology/approach: This study…

Several studies on research misconduct have already explored and discussed its potential occurrence in universities across different countries. However, little is known about this issue in Spain, a paradigmatic context due to its consolidated scientific evaluation system, which relies heavily on metrics. The present article attempts to fill this…

A growing practice of engaging students as partners (SaP) has been conducted to nurture values-based pedagogical relationships. Yet, SaP is contested with little known about how Chinese students understand their relationships with teachers in a sector shifting toward student-centred approaches. To advance the collective understanding of SaP…

Students as partners (SaP) is an approach which aims to include students and staff in partnership in a number of settings across higher education. This article is a comparative exploration of SaP in relation to universities in Australia and Japan, through the lens of Matthews' (2017) five propositions for SaP. Published in 2017, the propositions…

Traditionally, professorial recruitment has been controlled by scholars themselves selecting the best qualified candidates as a new member of the academic community according to scientific criteria. Recent studies have, however, documented that recruitment has become increasingly influenced by managers and HR personnel who approach professorial…

This case study reflects on a project that utilised student-staff partnerships to explore how best to prepare staff for collaboration in such partnerships. Eight student researchers worked together across four higher education institutions in the United Kingdom, conducting interviews with 41 participants, including both staff and students. The…

This article explores gendered day-to-day lived experiences of (relatively) marginalised teaching-only academic staff on insecure contracts through the lens of space and place. It stems from a collaborative auto-ethnography focusing on the experience of two UK early-career academics on temporary contracts (at the time of this research) who occupy…

In order to achieve a university status, a teaching-focused private Malaysian University College promoted collaboration as an institution-wide strategy for developing the research capacity of staff. Enhancing collegiality was key to this strategy since resources for building research capacity were insufficient. Limited research exists on the role…

This article reports on findings of an online survey about academic instruction librarians' conceptions and experiences of teacher agency in relation to their instructional work, and, more specifically, on the role of librarian-faculty relationships in these conceptions and experiences. The research study is informed by an ecological model of…

This article provides an account of the undermining of collegial governance at the University of Alberta in relation to the restructuring of the university in 2020 by the senior administration and board on advice provided by the Australian consultancy firm, the Nous Group. The current president of the university has publicly promoted the…

Drawing on a case study of media technology, this article addresses theory-practice conflict in an educational work setting. This conflict is expressed in employment contracts and career opportunities and in how professional identity is made. We demonstrate how ideas about practical and theoretical knowledge are negotiated in the academic career…

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) or pedagogic research (PedR) has become an international movement that encourages academics to use research-informed approaches to understand and enhance their teaching. However, the definition and understanding of SoTL/ PedR have been ambiguous, impacting career progression, orientation of scholarship…

To date, research on elite interviews has primarily focused on political or business settings in European and Anglo-American contexts. In this study, we examine the procedures involved in conducting elite interviews in academic settings, drawing on fieldwork with 53 senior scholars at 10 universities across five regions of northern China. We…

This article presents initiatives undertaken by the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine (GHSM) at King's College London (KCL), exploring avenues to decolonise higher education institutions (HEI). HEI must integrate anti-racism agendas, challenge the European-centric academic knowledge domination, and dismantle power asymmetries. During…