Transitions in Researcher Education and Careers

The growing scope and quality of the exchanges between research, researchers, and various professional and societal actors push for, but also enable, new forms of researcher transitions between institutional, professional, and societal contexts. While academic careers, supervision and PhD studies have gained some attention in research, the perspective we hope to bring by writing this book is that of transitions, i.e., dynamic movements, changes and (non) continuities related to researcher careers and researcher education. We aim to synthesize research literature about the various and diverse forms of transitions in researcher education and careers. We further aim to identify theories and concepts of temporality and change that underlie the ways we conceive of transitions in researcher education and careers. We also identify institutional, educational, and pedagogical implications of transitions and transitioning in researcher careers and education. By transitions, we envision a variety of changes, moves, (dis)continuities, and progressions. We elaborate on these below. The many different and multi-sided institutional and societal expectations on research and researchers contribute to increased transitions in researcher education and careers. Early-career researchers may enter universities from one professional context to do their PhD and return into (perhaps a different) professional context again. PhD scholarships are increasingly funded by external stakeholders who may have a say in the focus and aims of the research, and even take part in the practices of researcher education through co-supervision and partners in the research itself. The growing scope and quality of the exchanges between research, researchers, and various professional and societal actors push for, but also enable, new forms of researcher transitions between institutional, professional, and societal contexts. Transitions within the institutional context alone occur ongoing as well. Being an MA degree holder moving into doctoral education and trying to form a new identity as researcher and to find one’s own academic voice. Transitioning in the post-PhD career into short term contract employments as postdoc or research assistant, while trying to land a more permanent position as lecturer. Also important are the transitions during mid-career academic life when moving into a position as senior lecturer (associate professor), or even professor, with new responsibilities and increasing demands of research funding, output, supervision, and leadership. Transition may be temporal and spatial. During the time in the lives of academics, we may even transition between various stages in our own personal lives as well. Very tangibly, academic work has transitioned between physical and virtual spaces in the past couple of years. The increased mobility in researcher education and careers cause transitions between various national and cultural contexts, perhaps even in one single academic career trajectory. Leaving one’s home (country, field) and finding one’s feet in a new and different institutional, national, and perhaps also cultural context put demands on the (young) researchers both academically, socially, and personally. This way seen, academic, social, and cultural contexts may become inextricably linked and not always easily communicated to new colleagues (and supervisors). Researchers, today, are often on the move – nomadically – between one disciplinary, institutional, national, or cultural context towards another for the next position in an increasingly nomadic academic career trajectory. In this book, authors have been inspired by these various transitions in researcher education and careers. Chapters include literature overviews, theoretical explorations and empirical research organised along three main themes, namely Transitions in the PhD, Transitions in Post-PhD careers, and Mid and late career transitions and Supervision. Each section views transitions from a number of perspectives, illustrating the variety of theoretical approaches taken on PhD education, academic careers, and supervision.