Tag Archives: academia

Thriving at different stages of an academic career

Professor Morten Huse discussed making an impact at different stages in the scholarly life cycle in his second talk for Birkbeck’s School of Business, Economics and Informatics.

On Tuesday 15 March, Birkbeck’s School of Business, Economics and Informatics was delighted to welcome back Professor Morten Huse for the second talk in a series discussing ‘How to become and thrive as an impactful scholar.’

The series, organised and chaired by Dr Muthu De Silva, Assistant Dean (Research), aims to develop Birkbeck’s scholarly community and to support academic colleagues in their research endeavours. The second talk, ‘Thriving at different stages of an academic career’ draws on insights from chapter 9 of Morten’s book ‘Resolving the crisis in research by changing the game’.

Morten encouraged attendees to consider their academic career as a life cycle, reflecting on his own experience of being affiliated with many different universities and the lessons learned along the way. He reflected on some key philosophies that have guided his academic career:

  • ‘Ritorno al passato’ – the need to reconsider the modern approach to scholarship.
  • ‘From POP (publish or perish) culture to a sharing philosophy’.
  • ‘Life is too short to drink bad wine’ – we don’t have unlimited time, so it is important to prioritise what matters most.

What is true scholarship?

Morten commented: “It is easy to think that we are measuring scholarship by publications,” arguing that, as early as the 1990s, academics were already feeling pressurised to publish in certain journals. This has resulted in ‘hammer and lamp syndrome’, where scholars address problems that are already under the lamp, i.e., where data is already available, instead of seeking out difficult problems, as this is an easier route to getting published. Similarly, Morten explained: “If you have a hammer, you see the world as a nail and will look for the easiest way to getting published.”

Reflecting on Boyer (1996), Morten argued that scholarship is not what scholars do, but who they are. When aiming for excellence in research, the goal should reach beyond getting published to thinking about the impact research is having. According to the European Research Council, excellence in research involves:

  • Proposing and conducting groundbreaking and frontier research
  • Creative and independent thinking
  • Achievements beyond the state of the art
  • Innovation potential
  • Sound leadership in training and advancing young scientists
  • Second and third order impact.

Defining your scholarly ambition

Morten noted that academic careers can look different for everyone and that scholarly ambitions are personal and will vary. Career paths can take a teaching, administrative or research route and reach could vary from local, national, to global.

Morten reflected: “It’s easy not to do the proper reflections, integrations and scholarly enquiry. It’s easy not to make a contribution to developing the scholarly community. It’s easy not to give priority to doing something for society. In reality, the scholarly life cycle is not just about getting published; there is so much more that is needed.”

He shared an image of what the scholarly life cycle could look like, enabling senior scholars to give back to junior colleagues:

Graph showing the different stages of an academic career.

We would like to thank Professor Huse for a thought-provoking presentation and discussion. The next event in this series will take place in May, where we hope to have the opportunity to bring our community together in person. Details to follow soon on the Department of Management events page.

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How to become and thrive as an impactful scholar 

Birkbeck’s School of Business, Economics and Informatics welcomed Professor Morten Huse for the first in a series of talks on how to conduct rigorous, impactful research.

At a time when academics face increasing and competing demands on their time, how can researchers ensure that they are conducting theoretically rigorous and practically impactful research? 

On Monday 15 November, the School of Business, Economics and Informatics welcomed Professor Morten HuseProfessor Emeritus at BI Norwegian Business School (Oslo) to deliver the first in a series of talks entitled ‘How to become and thrive as an impactful scholar’. The talks draw on reflections from Morten’s award-winning book: ‘Resolving the Crisis in Research by Changing the Game’. 

The session was chaired by Dr Muthu De Silva, Assistant Dean (Research) in the School, who welcomed Professor Huse and colleagues to the event. 

Morten began by sharing his motivations for writing the book that forms the basis of this series, which he described as an “introspective journey”. The book began as part of an ERC Advanced Research Grant Application exploring a sharing philosophy in academia and the concept of engaged scholarship. 

Morten introduced the idea of a “scholarly ecosystem”; a holistic view of academia that encompasses the institution, the community, its audience, messages and communication channels. In particular, he highlighted the importance of the community and transferring from a “publish or perish culture into true scholarship”. 

The key elements in the sharing philosophy are:  

  • Caring for each other 
  • Open innovation 
  • Impact driven 
  • “Life is too short to drink bad wine” 

Open innovation 

Morten argued that open innovation is a holistic process, in which individuals’ scholarly lives cannot be separated from their private identity. It is about the integration of head, heart and hands. 

He explained: “I think we all agree that scholarship goes beyond learning the tricks of the trade. Still, I’m seeing that the most popular sessions in conferences are about how to learn to publish, how to learn the tricks of the trade, more than really getting into the research.” 

Reflecting on his experience at Witten/Herdecke University from Chapter 7 of the book, Morten discussed the importance of open dialogue and contributions from across the academic community to create a communal experience. 

During his time at Witten, Morten began to define himself as a mentor and to use a policy of “starting with the heart”, discovering that the head and the hands would soon follow. 

An impact-driven approach 

Morten shared some examples from Chapter 8 of his book to show the importance of an impact-driven approach. 

Referencing his work on the ‘getting women on boards’ research agenda during the 1980s and 1990s, he explained: “We wanted to be open and share, in that way learning so much more than when we were just protecting things for our own credit. We could risk that somebody worked faster than us in publishing and getting credit: what mattered was that the important things were understood. In that period, we were not afraid of sharing with each other what we were doing, because we were learning so much more and so much faster. “ 

Polymorphic research 

Morten defines polymorphic research as “alternative ways of thinking and doing research.” This involves avoiding formulaic methods as shortcuts to publication and instead pursuing impactful research by challenging assumptions, methods, interpretations and how research is communicated beyond publications to make a change in business and society. 

An example of this type of research is the ‘champagne method’: action research featuring interaction and co-creation between the actor and the researcher. The champagne method involves a holistic approach and requires trust, positive energy and continuous reflection. It represents the integration of research, teaching and action. 

“Life is too short to drink bad wine” 

Throughout the event, the talk returned to the catchphrase “Life is too short to drink bad wine”, which embodies Morten’s philosophy that researchers should spend their time on the projects that will be truly meaningful, with colleagues who share their passion. How to achieve this type of research and the scholarly journey will be explored in-depth in upcoming sessions in this series. 

The presentation was followed by discussion from delegates, which further explored the impact of individualistic vs communal cultures and how to scale-up an open innovation and communal approach. 

Places on session two of this series on thriving in different stages of an academic career are available to book now. 

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Arts Week 2017: “Doing and thinking: methods in practice-based research”

Dr Maria Kukhareva, Educational Developer at the University of Bedfordshire reflects on the interaction of creativity and academia following a workshop as part of Birkbeck Arts Week 2017.creativity-academiaAs an interdisciplinarian (both by background and by own curiosity) I seek opportunities to be amazed by the way different disciplines and approaches interact, the conflict and tension borne out of this process, and the turbulent energy and questions it has potential to generate.

I recently participated in the ‘Doing and Thinking’ workshop during Arts Week, which gathered an exciting and diverse crowd of practicing artists, researchers, and artist-researches – both Birkbeck’s own and external enthusiasts, like me.

Here, I broaden the focus of the workshop and turn to the discourse around creativity, rigour and scholarship in higher education – and what it means for the creative practitioners and researchers, as well as the wider academic community.

“Is it alive or is it ref-able?”

What the workshop discussion demonstrated very quickly and relatively clearly, is that there seems to be a vast and deep ocean between the mysterious continent inhabited by the creative practitioners, and the equally mysterious land of “this is how things are done in academia”.

The ocean was represented by a heap of colourful cards with research (and life?) related words on our tables. As we were shuffling through them, we realised we could not agree on the meanings, values and emotions of some seemingly common words, for example:

impact (think: theatre performance versus academic publication)
serendipity and intuition as a driving force (think: visual arts versus systematic research)
discomfort and doubt (think: open creative process versus evaluation outcomes)

In fact, words and language in general continued to be the cause of frustration, namely the incompatibility of creative output (a painting, a book, a film) and the academic language accompaniment (a thesis).

One could almost imagine how creativity and its magic, so necessary for any artist’s existence, breaks into pieces on encountering the academic expectation. As if to become an academic scholar, an artist needs to give up a part of their soul in exchange for the gifts of rigour, systematic inquiry and strictly formatted self-expression and self-representation. As if the fruits of your labour can either be ‘alive’ or ‘ref-able.’

But… is this really the only way to cross the ocean?

“Follow your nose”

Let’s view creative practice – whether you are a professional artist, early researcher or an educator in any given field – as something you NEED. Whether it’s where you experiment, or where your intuition, or some other undefined drive pushes you to create news things. It’s where a part of your soul lives; it’s something that fuels your daily activity. It’s what inspires your signature pedagogy, your authorial voice and what gives it life – as demonstrated effectively by Emma Bennett, Katherine Angel and Catherine Grant.

If this is what your creative practice does, then not only does it not go against the ‘traditional’ academic activity, with its rigour, systematic approach, structure, format and language – rather, creative practice makes the academic activity possible and interesting, from teaching to publishing.

The messy, unstructured creativity with a mind of its own, should be preserved and nurtured, rather than ‘re-trained’ when entering the world of traditional academic boundaries and standards. As Thomas Fisher has pointed out, creativity can be a rigorous process.

In other words – ‘it’ needs to be alive to be ref-able.

I would like to invite the reader to consider the following questions:

  • How and where do your practice and research activity co-exist?How disparate or how close are these two preoccupations? Do they fuel or hinder each other?
  • Which one of these (research or practice activity) offers more scope for creativity?
  • How does your creative and experimental activity drive your signature approach?
  • And lastly, how can we preserve and nurture our creativity, while we are developing our academic identities and careers?

On that note, I am off to read Katherine Angel’s book!

Contact Maria Kukhareva:
@maria_kukhareva
University of Bedfordshire profile

 

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The Networked Academic: Social Media and your Research Identity

This post was contributed by Ceren Yalcin, Nelly Ali and Mayur Suresh, interns at the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research.

Twitter, Facebook, Academia.edu, Youtube, Pinterest, Delicious, Foursquare and many more…The list of available digital platforms is long, but what is the value of social media for academics?

Dr Scott Rodgers, lecturer in Media Theory at Birkbeck College, spoke yesterday about what academics can do with and in social media. He suggested that we should think of social media, a networked media, not as just as a form of ‘networking’. Rather than looking at it as an arena in which we make contacts and disseminate our work and view the work of others, he suggested we look at social media as a different sort of academic environment that develops its own intertia and channels the production of knowledge. The structural logic of social media enables different methods and forms of academic knowledge. In his talk Dr Rodgers presented a variety of popular social media platforms and discussed what sort of academic life each one of these seemed to produce.

The speaker pointed out several things that make social media different from ordinary sites of knowledge production. First that social media is persistent, in the sense that there is automatic recording of whatever you post and this stays online for a long time. Second, replicability. Meaning that once something is posted online, people can, almost instantaneously, make copies and further post it. This leads to the third characteristic: scalability. By posting and reposting by multiple users, there is the collective amplification of material that is posted online. And lastly, searchability. The fact that material that is posted online is persistent, allows for it to be searchable.

When the speaker asked the audience to comment on their own use of social media, one participant pointed out that her activities on Twitter resulted in a successful, international research co-operation. Others stated that they found Academia.edu especially useful as it allows users to share papers and to receive feedback on work in progress. However, there were also some mixed feelings towards social media amongst the participants. One participant said that tweeting during a conference might be good publicity for the event but she found that it also made her less concentrated and distracted from the actual conference talks. Another interesting account came from an academic who pointed out how ‘addictive’ social media can be and how it can prevent doing other and more important work. Further, the discussants commented on the conflicts online profiles may cause. Here, a few participants expressed concern that their work and personal personae may meet, potentially causing embarrassment (we’ve all been there!).

Dr Rodgers pointed out some of the concerns and hopes he had for a networked academia. Some of the concerns included the fragmentation of writing (how do you get a theoretical argument to fit into a tweet?), the need to get as much posted as often as possible, and the view that being logged into these new forms was just another form of academic labour – that in addition to publishing and speaking, maintaining an online persona was another things academics, particular early career researchers, needed to do to. On the plus side, he hoped that new media would engender less formalized forms of academic expression, more honest and generous academia, and a (differently) publicly engaged academia.

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