Based on a study on academic career paths of PhD graduates in Switzerland this paper is concerned with the individual and institutional factors that affect transnational academic mobility in the postdoctoral period. It will be argued that the institutionalization of geographic mobility in academic career paths through research funding institutions and universities have gendering and stratifying effects. Complex formations related to gender, partnership, children and dual career constellations, as well as to social class and academic integration are resulting in inequalities in the accumulation of international cultural and social capital.Keywords: geographic mobility, academic mobility, transnational mobility, academic career, gender, social origin, dual career, gender, family ties This is an electronic version of the accepted article published in Leemann, Regula Julia (2010). Gender inequalities in transnational academic mobility and the ideal type of academic entrepreneur?, in: Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 31 (5) IntroductionDespite having achieved a significant improvement in the equality of men and women in academic life over the last decades, in all European countries and beyond women are having difficulties getting ahead in research careers (European Commission 2009). The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of possible reasons for the under-representation of female academics at higher career levels by focusing on an up until now rather unlit topic: the demand to be geographically mobile while pursuing an academic career. For this purpose I will tackle the question how the demand to be readily mobile and to gather research experience at a research institution abroad has different implications for female and male careers and how social conditions and constraints like partnership, family and dual-career constellation shape transnational academic mobility of young researchers in gender-specific ways and which additional factors like social origin, academic integration or social origin influence the opportunities to be mobile.In answering these questions I will refer to data of young researchers pursuing an academic career gathered in the context of a study commissioned by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) to investigate the main reasons for the disproportionate loss of women from the academic career path (metaphorically termed the 'leaky pipeline') and the role of the SNSF for dis(integration) of female academics (Leemann & Stutz, 2008).

This study investigates whether occupational training networks enable the selection of apprentices to be less discriminatory. Training networks are a new organisational form of VET that is becoming increasingly widespread in Switzerland, as well as in Germany and Austria. In the Swiss model, an intermediary lead organisation recruits the candidates. It also attends to the apprenticeship itself and effects a placement of the young adults with the training network companies every year anew. The study is based on the sociology of conventions, which allows organisational mechanisms of selection in training institutions to be understood and the dangers of discrimination harboured therein to be appreciated. Based on a case study of a medium-sized training network, the study shows how this form of organisation permits a fairer selection, i.e. one that is gauged more by performance and less by social attributes of the applicants, as compared to selection processes in single SMB.

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In training networks, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises pool their resources to train apprentices within the framework of the dual VET system, while an intermediary organisation is tasked with managing operations. Over the course of their apprenticeship, the apprentices switch from one training company to another on a (half-) yearly basis. Drawing on a case study of four training networks in Switzerland and the theoretical framework of the sociology of conventions, this paper aims to understand the reasons for the slow dissemination and reluctant adoption of this promising form of organising VET in Switzerland. The results of the study show that the system of moving from one company to another creates a variety of free-rider constellations in the distribution of the collectively generated corporative benefits. This explains why companies are reluctant to participate in this model. For the network to be sustainable, the intermediary organisation has to address discontent arising from free-rider problems while taking into account that the solutions found are always tentative and will often result in new free-rider problems.

The project of establishing a European community since World War II has been further advanced by adding - besides the four freedoms of free movement of goods, persons, services and capital - a fifth freedom – the free circulation of researchers, knowledge and technology – that intends to promote community building at the level of higher education and research and by creating of a European Research Area (ERA). Based on a study of academic careers of postdocs in Switzerland and secondary data, the paper aims to analyse the key governing principles implied in the standard of transnational academic mobility of ‘human capital’ as well as the experiences of individual researchers in coordinating their interests and lives in this context. We refer to the theoretical framework of the economics of conventions and regimes of engagements by Boltanski and Thévenot. We show that the policies, values and norms of the ERA and the standard of geographic mobility are, at their core, based on four conventions – industry, market, project and fame. This arrangement forces researchers to establish themselves as academic self-entrepreneurs in the knowledge market. In consequence, the mobility requirement of the ERA governance regime makes it difficult for individuals to engage in an individual plan, in familiarity and in exploration.

n Les réseaux d'entreprises formatrices : une nouvelle forme d'apprentissage en Suisse.Les réseaux d'entreprises formatrices constituent un modèle du système de formation professionnelle en alternance suisse. Petites et moyennes entreprises peuvent ainsi mutualiser la formation des apprentis. Quelles raisons poussent les entreprises à participer à ce nouveau type d'organisation ? Quels conflits et tensions naissent au sein de ces réseaux ? Les analyses s'appuient sur quatre cas de réseaux et sur la théorie de l'économie des conventions. Ces réseaux naissent d'une pluralité de motifs de participation, source d'insatisfaction dans les entreprises et de conflits dans les réseaux tout au long du parcours de formation.

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