The increasing dependence on knowledge as a driver of societal development during the twenty-first century has placed the governance of academia in a state of transformation. Increasing pressure for academia to direct the production, proliferation, and utilisation of academic knowledge towards the perceived needs and interests of government, industry and interests groups have manifested themselves in a diverse set of conditions for funding of education and research. For academics in general, and for early career researchers in particular, the result is an increasing dependence on external funding. In response, many universities have taken steps to introduce restrictions on form, content, and publication of research – as well as what types of employments are made available for researchers in the first place.

This study explores the relationship between employment security and reliance on external funding in Finland and Sweden – two countries that have recently adopted tenure-track models. The exploration is based on material from the APIKS survey regarding duration of employment contracts, exposure to expectations, and sources of funding. Based on this analysis, we discuss whether tenure can effectively provide a healthy degree of independence and academic freedom in a funding landscape characterised by a high degree of competition for research funding.

The results of the study provide insights into how the transformation of conditions for academic work interact with fundamental values of academia, and open avenues for further research into how academics deal with the pressures of modern career structures.

Collaborative practice among teachers, where teachers collaborate around their teaching practice, is known to optimise student learning in primary and secondary schools, where they are encouraged to create shared conceptions of vision, purpose and means. In higher education, however, studies on teachers working as teams and abandoning traditional norms of isolation and individualism around teaching are scarce. This study examines law teachers’ perceptions about teaching collaboration and the value of the collaborative process, as well as how and to what extent their beliefs are reflected in workplace practices. The study adopts a mixed method approach with a survey questionnaire and follow-up interviews with course directors at a large research university in Sweden. The findings show a mismatch between the espoused values and tacit assumptions regarding collaborative practice in relation to teaching, and they are discussed in relation to systems theory and literature on teaching teams and collaborative practice in higher education. The study provides important guidance for future leaders of higher education who are interested in the development of teaching and learning.

Academics have complex and competing identities. They are part of a global community of scholars within their field or discipline, with its own particular myths, ideologies, cultures, languages, and rules of conduct. They are also part of a philosophical community with shared ideas about the nature of knowledge and the world, where the subject matter takes more of a backseat. In addition, they are part of a national context – sometimes even several – as citizens and residents, a local and regional context as members of society, and an institutional or departmental context as colleagues. With the emergence of the knowledge society, both the number and variety of contexts that an academic is expected to relate to have increased significantly.

This paper explores two aspects of this circumstance: one is the dominant locales of academic identity, and the other is the role of job security in driving that dominance. Using data from the APIKS survey, the paper examines the relative importance of affiliations with the academic discipline, the department, and the institution respectively for academics in participating countries – gauging the balance between global and local environments for the importance of identity formation in different national contexts. Drawing on insights from organisation theory, where job security has been found to be a strong determinant of organisational commitment, the paper analyses the effect of the duration of employment contracts for the distribution between attachment to the global, institutional, and departmental contexts. Does secure employment foster a stronger sense of belonging to the local environment due to long-term commitment, or does it enable gradual entrenchment in a specialised field that strengthens ties to the global community – and how is this relationship affected by the national context?

The results of the study provide insights into how and where academic communities are formed, as well as practical guidance for leadership functions at higher education institutions regarding how employment policies may be used as tools for building resilient and cohesive local cultures and environments. The study opens avenues of further research into how academics perceive the relationship between the formation of their academic identities and the practical circum-stances of their working conditions.

The COVID-19 pandemic required higher education institutions to rapidly transition to Emergency Remote Instruction (ERI) with little preparation. Discussions are now underway globally to learn the lessons of COVID-19 and to use this knowledge to shape the future of learning science in higher education. In this study, we examined the experiences of instructors and students to ERI in three universities across three continents-America, Europe, and Australia. We measured the instructional strategies used by instructors including assessment types, and interaction opportunities during and outside class schedules. We also measured the learning challenges experienced by students including planning, distractions, technology, learning resources, their views on educational quality and what characterized quality interactions during ERI. Our findings suggest that most instructional strategies used by instructors changed little during ERI, although the nature of instructor and student interactions during class relied more heavily on technology. Students reported significant learning challenges which included distractions from their physical and social media environments and access to technology. Both instructors and students reported that interactions with each other and their peers were concerningly low, albeit similar to pre COVID-19 pandemic levels. There were differences in the perceptions of instructors and students on whether instructor-student interactions were better or worse online. Common among all universities, there was a large proportion of students reporting mental health and work-related stress. Lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic include ensuring more support for instructors to implement effective and equitable pedagogies and an increased recognition of the importance of practicals, and the social, interactive and hands-on aspects of learning science in higher education. We predict that the incorporation of active learning pedagogies and strategies which increase student engagement and foster a sense of belonging will be ongoing global challenges for learning science in a post COVID-19 campus.

The aim of this study was to explore university teachers’ perceptions of creative teaching and other factors that may influence academics’ efforts to teach creatively in higher education in Sweden. A qualitative case study was employed, interviewing 14 university teachers in three focus group interviews. The results show that the university teachers’ perceptions of creative teaching differed slightly, yet were interconnected. They perceived creative teaching as an ability to engage students in learning, to solve problems in challenging teaching situations and introduce innovation or novelty into their teaching. The results also show that apart from personal attributes (e.g., imagination), environmental factors (e.g., departmental structure and culture) play an important role in enabling creative teaching practices. 

The increasing dependence on knowledge as a driver of societal development during the twenty-first century has placed the governance of academia in a state of transformation. Increasing pressure for academia to direct the production, proliferation, and utilisation of academic knowledge towards the perceived needs and interests of government, industry and interests groups have manifested themselves in a diverse set of conditions for funding of education and research. For academics in general, and for early career researchers in particular, the result is an increasing dependence on external funding. In response, many universities have taken steps to introduce restrictions on form, content, and publication of research – as well as what types of employments are made available for researchers in the first place.

This study explores the relationship between employment security and reliance on external funding in Finland and Sweden – two countries that have recently adopted tenure-track models. The exploration is based on material from the APIKS survey regarding duration of employment contracts, exposure to expectations, and sources of funding. Bases on this analysis, we discuss whether tenure can effectively provide a healthy degree of independence and academic freedom in a funding landscape characterised by a high degree of competition for research funding.

The results of the study provide insights into how the transformation of conditions for academic work interact with fundamental values of academia, and opens avenues for further research into how academics deal with the pressures of modern career structures.