Purpose: This study aims to explore the range of sustainability-related discourses by the stakeholders within a particular Finnish Higher Education Institution (HEI); interaction between the discourses and the context of the HEI; and the extent to which different understandings of sustainability cause challenges for the implementation of the…

In universities, being mobile and international has become ever more important for academics' career prospects. This article explores junior and other insecurely employed researchers' experiences of geographical mobility in relation to their personal life, career, employability and value as scholars. The aim is to discover the gendered strategies…

This study explores the nature of reciprocal commitment in academic careers. The article is based on a survey conducted in autumn 2013 among fixed-term employees at eight major universities in Finland (N = 810). The analysis is focusing on researchers who have a doctoral degree and who are working on a fixed-term contract at their university (n =…

Despite the increased recognition of the role that professional agency plays in work-related learning, little is known about what supports it. Based on current theoretical notions, the first purpose of this paper is to show that professional agency is closely intertwined with work-related learning. The second purpose is to introduce some main…

EARLI SIG 24, Researcher Education and Careers (SIG-REaC), was founded because increasing interest has emerged within the EARLI community into understanding different aspects of doctoral and post-PhD researcher educational and career development. This special issue brings together the outcome of our first scholarly discussion at the SIG-REaC…

The late 20th century was an era of social, economic, technological, and political change, resulting in significant shifts in the perception of enlightenment, knowledge, and education. The impact of these changes have become quite apparent in higher education where there is now mounting pressure for faculty to deliver high quality education to an…

Language centres in higher education are facing new challenges as they plan curricula for an increasingly diverse student body and undertake new tasks in support of the multiform internationalisation of universities. Continuing professional development clearly needs to be taken to a new level, and one way of doing this is to include research in a…

This study analyzed whether research collaboration patterns differ across higher education systems based on maturity of the systems, their language, and their geographical region. This study found that collaboration patterns differ across higher education systems: academics in developed systems are more collaborative than their colleagues in…

The high value accorded to the research-based development of education in higher education communities means that researchers in the field have an important role in determining the foci of such efforts. However, it is important to ask whether higher education research is providing answers that satisfy practical educational needs. In this study,…

Managerialism and neoliberal changes and demands influence the work and family lives of academics differently in different positions and contexts. In this article, I explore how Finnish academics on short fixed-term contracts have been treated, and how they interpret recent changes and their effects on their work and private lives. I ask how the…

Finnish teacher education has been higher academic education since 1979. Thus, all primary school teachers graduate as Masters and they conduct an MA thesis. For this research 23 teachers were interviewed in order to determine their conceptions of reflection, teacher research and their future research intentions. These teacher students worked…

The article examines the modes of research training in two Finnish academic research centres, where research is project based, application oriented and externally funded. In particular, the article asks what duties, skills and qualities are considered appropriate for people in different positions (PhD student, post-doctoral researcher,…

How home background and gender influence selection for higher education, and especially for researcher training, in Finland was studied for 106 degree recipients in 1985. Among licentiates and PhDs, there are fewer from working-class backgrounds and more from white collar backgrounds than at other levels of higher education. (SLD)

This study explores variation in postgraduate students' and supervisors' conceptions of research. Based on earlier work, a Conceptions of Research Inventory (CoRI) was trialled on a mixed sample of postgraduate students and supervisors (n = 251). Exploratory factor analyses of resultant data yields a five-dimensional empirical model, the…

Based on findings from national and international evaluations, this article discusses the extent to which goals and reality meet in Finnish teacher education, noting that teacher research produces important information that supports teacher education and asserting that teacher education should be anchored not only in research but also in the…