How do university systems' features affect academic inbreeding? Career rules and language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain

Author's accepted manuscript.Available from 19/01/2023.This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Seeber, M. & Mampaey, J. (2021). How do university systems' features affect academic inbreeding? Career rules and language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Higher Education Quarterly, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12302. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.Studies on academic inbreeding have mostly focused on institutional inbreeding and its negative effects, whereas little research has explored its causes. We identify current explanations of the macro‐, meso‐ and micro‐level factors that sustain academic inbreeding as well as research gaps. We address a main research gap regarding what macro‐level factors contribute to academic inbreeding, by analysing systems’ norms and rules regulating access to senior academic positions and teaching language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, the largest public university systems of the European Union. The analysis reveals that career rules designed to guarantee quality may have unintended effects in terms of academic inbreeding. Most importantly, the habilitation procedures pose greater challenges to international candidates and often increase barriers between disciplines as well. In some disciplines and regions, language requirements contribute substantially to academic inbreeding.acceptedVersio

Mathematical modelling and numerical bifurcation analysis of inbreeding and interdisciplinarity dynamics in academia

We address a mathematical model to approximate in a coarse qualitative the interaction between inbreeding-lobbying and interdisciplinarity in academia and perform a one and two-parameter numerical bifurcation analysis to analyse its dynamics. Disciplinary diversity is a necessary condition for the development of interdisciplinarity, which is being recognized today as the key to establish a vibrant academic environment with bigger potential for breakthroughs/innovation in research and technology. However, the interaction of several factors including institutional policies, and behavioural attitudes put significant barriers on advancing interdisciplinarity. A “cognitive rigidity” may rise due to reactive academic lobby behaviours favouring inbreeding. The proposed model consists of four coupled non-linear Ordinary Differential Equations simulating the interaction between certain types of academic behaviour and the rate of knowledge advancement which is related to the level of disciplinary diversity. The effect of a control policy that inhibits inbreeding-lobbying is also investigated. The numerical bifurcation analysis reveals a rich nonlinear behaviour including multistability, sustained oscillations, limit points of limit cycles, homoclinic bifurcations as well as codimension-two bifurcations and in particular Bogdanov–Takens and Bautin bifurcations

The characteristics of Portuguese management academics and their fit with teaching accreditation standards

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the quality and accreditation of management education by examining the fit between the characteristics of current management academics in Portugal and recognised accreditation standards. For purposes of comparison, the authors use both general Portuguese teaching accreditation standards and specific international standards for management education. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyse indicators of staff career positioning, tenure status, full time vs part-time, age, degree qualifications, field of training, level of academic inbreeding, internationalisation, research activity, professional activity, and the number of hours taught per week. The authors also examine the relationship between them, in light of accreditation standards, for all academic staff teaching in management degrees submitted for compulsory accreditation by the Portuguese accreditation agency. Findings – The reality found in this study shows gaps between the actual attributes of management academics and what can be considered appropriate attributes, according to the general consensus found in the literature and which is duly mirrored in common “qualified faculties” accreditation standards by Portuguese and international standards (AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS). Research limitations/implications – The findings relate to the Portuguese situation and the analysis developed should be extended to other contexts. Also, while the data, which were collected through a census, has a wide national scope, it only covers one academic year. Practical implications – This work has policy setting implications for degree accreditation and for developing capacity during the transitional periods when universities implement the mandatory minimum standards. It can also help universities to benchmark themselves against their peers as a diagnostic tool for elaborating improvement plans. Social implications – The massification of higher education has led to legitimate concerns about the quality of the services provided, and consequently accreditation procedures were devised to restore trust. However, policy makers must be aware of the impacts of their actions, namely the effects of degree accreditation, as their goals need to be achieved with the minimum negative impact on academic work. Originality/value – The authors work sheds light on the characteristics of those who teach management and how they align with the current accreditation policies that affect academia globally and, in the process, presents empirical evidence from Portugal, which is at a relatively early stage in the accreditation process

Are the strategic research agendas of researchers in the social sciences determinants of research productivity?

This study analyzes the association between the strategic research agendas of researchers in the social sciences and their research performance. Based on a worldwide sample of 604 researchers, this study assesses whether researchers’ strategic research agendas are predictors of both short-term (last 3 years) and long-term career publications and citations, after controlling for relevant literature-informed determinants of research productivity. The results show that, in a short-term perspective, research agendas have a limited association with productivity and visibility. Solely the research agendas strategically oriented towards publishing and those collaborative in nature have positive associations with research productivity and visibility. This changes when a long-term perspective is considered. Over the course of a career, research agendas are significantly associated with number of publications and citations. Research agendas oriented towards publishing and collaboration, and those focused on a single field of knowledge, prestige gain and discovery have a positive effect on career research performance, while those research agendas that are overspecialized, dispersed over several fields of knowledge and topics, and influenced by a mentor have opposite associations. This study also finds that prolific research productivity shapes one’s strategic research agenda: the more one publishes, the more one is bound to have a strategic research agenda that is focused on prestige, discovery, a further drive to publish, engagement in a multitude of topics to research, and pursuing multidisciplinary and collaborative research. This effect is driven by an accumulation of publications, not citations. These findings highlight how strategic research choices interact with the individual performance of researchers in the social sciences in performativity-oriented research landscapes.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Spatial Mobility in Elite Academic Institutions in Economics : the Case of Spain

Using a dataset of 3,540 economists working in 2007 in 125 of the best academic centers in 22 countries, this paper presents some evidence on spatial mobility patterns in Spain and other countries conditional on some personal, department, and country characteristics. There are productivity and other reasons for designing a scientific policy with the aims of attracting foreign talent (brain gain), minimizing the elite brain drain, and recovering nationals who have earned a Ph.D. or have spent some time abroad (brain circulation). Our main result is that Spain has more brain gain, more brain circulation and less brain drain than comparable large, continental European countries, i.e. Germany, France, and Italy, where economists have similar opportunities for publishing their research in English or in their own languages. We suggest that these results can be mostly explained by the governance changes introduced in a number of Spanish institutions in 1975-1990 by a sizable contingent of Spanish economists coming back home after attending graduate school abroad. These initiatives were also favored by the availability of resources to finance certain research related activities, including international Ph.D. programs.This is the fourth version of a Working Paper in this series with the title “Governance, brain drain, and brain gain in elite academic institutions in economics. The case of Spain”, published in December 2017. Carrasco and Ruiz-Castillo acknowledge financial support from the Spanish MEC (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad) through grants No. ECO2015-65204-P and ECO2014-55953-P, respectively, as well as grants MDM 2014-0431 from the MEC, and MadEco-CM (S2015/HUM-3444) from the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid to their economics department