The effectiveness of academic research enterprise depends on several factors including talented and interconnected scholars, adequate and dependable resources, and quality research. These elements need to function in harmony in order to result in research knowledge that adds value to society. Given that research capacity and innovation are…

Academics working in higher education institutions often take part in research activities as part of their role and are often under pressure to publish papers and source grant funding. In addition, academics going through the peer review process often experience negative feedback, criticism, and rejection on a regular basis. In this initial,…

This article reports on a study in which journal publication performance of Applied Linguistics and TESOL (AL/TESOL) academics in the Group of Eight (Go8) Australian universities was examined for each academic rank (Lecturer to Professor) and across apparent genders (females and males). Journal publication performance was defined in terms of…

The publish or perish adage is alive and well for early career academics (ECAs), who are under increasing pressure from higher education institutions for improved research performance. This paper explores the way in which ECAs respond to the managerial imperatives of one Australian regional university; specifically, a meta-reflexive lens was used…

The pressure to publish or perish or, more recently, to be visible or vanish, marginalises a culture of critical reading and reflection that has historically been the province of book reviews. Today, book reviews are roundly rejected by academic bureaucrats as unimportant, easy to write and hence, easy to get published, mere summaries, uncritical…

The last 20 years have brought major workload changes for academics globally, with the feeling that an academic in today's global higher education industry has three full-time jobs (research, teaching and service). Following recent Government reforms, the Australian higher education sector has been forced to redefine itself in a more commercial…

We extended the research on autonomy-supportive teaching to universities and examined the relationships between autonomous motivation to teach and autonomy-supportive teaching. Autonomously motivated university instructors were more autonomy-supportive instructors. The freedom to make pedagogical decisions was negatively correlated with external…

Academic writing groups aim to improve the quality and/or the rate of academic publications. In this article, the authors reflect on a writing group with academic and non-academic members that evolved over two years to uphold a deeper and arguably spiritual purpose. The group commenced with the aim of increasing its members' publication rates, but…

This paper reports findings from a study that focused on the experiences of research-intensive academics in relation to the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Framework. Interviews with academic staff at different career stages and across all academic faculties followed completion of a short survey in which respondents compared their…

The feedback provided to authors by reviewers as part of a double-blind peer-review process was examined for two Australian conferences, one special international edition book and six international special edition journals (originating in the UK). The research sought to identify consistency of decision-making and the effectiveness of feedback for…

There is increasing impetus for higher-degree-by-research students to publish during candidature. Research performance, including higher degree completions and publication output, commonly determines university funding, and doctorates with publishing experience are better positioned for a career in softening academic labour markets. The PhD by…

Over the past thirty years universities have increasingly extended their offerings of vocationally oriented degrees and have recruited into academe, practitioners from the professions. This paper reports on a qualitative study that investigated the experiences of 20 professionals-turned-academics in Australia; their expectations of academe and how…

The outcomes of educational systems continue to lag far behind expectations at all levels, primary, secondary, and tertiary. Meanwhile, the sheer amount of educational research published in refereed journals has expanded enormously. There is an obvious disconnect between the educational research papers published in professional journals or…

Academics are expected to write for publication and meet publication targets in research assessment processes. These targets are set by national bodies and institutions, and they can be daunting for academics at the start of a research career. This article reports on an intervention designed to address this issue, writer's retreat, where academics…

Race matters in the classroom when you are a minority female faculty member. This chapter discusses the emergence of the adaptive female academic of color who, while teaching in several countries, balances a happy work and family life. (Contains 3 notes.)