In this article, I draw mainly on an analysis of my research experiences in science and higher education. My aim is to construct a conceptual argument that will help explain some of the evident complexity of the higher education field and inform future developments. I propose that the study of higher education is an open-access discipline with the…

The study of higher education can seem extraordinarily complex because what counts as knowledge is contestable and the higher education research community is, like Hemingway's Paris, a moveable feast. A lack of epistemological precision and field uncertainty is partly due to the fact that those who study higher education tend to work in higher…

This paper draws on the experiences of 20 academic developers as they examine the proposition that the organisation and work of academic development in higher education is fragmented. Academic development was seen to have neither the status of a field nor a profession, and there was recognised tension between an institutionally focused service…

This article is based on the experiences of 25 PhD students at a New Zealand university who came to do research and soon found themselves taking on substantial teaching loads. Teaching was highly valued and it helped students develop their professional identity as they broadened their subject knowledge and practised a disciplinary research…