Academic Systems and Professional Conditions in Five European Countries

Abstract

Despite the tendency to create a European Higher Education and Research area, academic systems are still quite different across Europe. We selected five countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway and the UK) to investigate how the differences have an impact on a number of aspects of the working conditions of academic staff. One crucial aspect is the growing diversification of professional activity: reduction of tenured and tenure tracked position, the growing number of fixed-term contracts for both teaching and research, including the growing recruitment of academic staff from external professional fields. These changes are connected with the changing functions of higher education systems and signal the growing openness of higher education institutions to their outside social and economic environment. To understand these trends one has to take into consideration the different degree in which systems distinguish between teaching and research functions. A second aspect has to do with career paths, their regulation, their length and speed. Here, the history of recruitment and career mechanisms in different countries are of particular importance because the different systems went through different periods of change and stability. Also connected to career is the willingness and the opportunity to move from one position to another, both within and outside the academic world. A third aspect deserving attention that is connected to mobility is the professional satisfaction among academic staff in the five systems considered.

Academic Work in Canada: the Perceptions of Early‐Career Academics

“…As can be expected, these changes are not restricted to the Anglophone world and are played out in other jurisdictions. In their examination of academic working conditions in five European countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway and the UK) using the CAP data, Cavalli and Moscati (2010) concluded that the growing diversification of professional activity has resulted in the reduction of tenured and tenure track positions, a growing number of fixedterm contracts for both teaching and research and a growing uncertainty amongst academics regarding long-term stability, all of which has resulted in decreased dissatisfaction amongst faculty members in the five nations.This emerging hierarchy amongst academic staff is compounded by long-term downward trends in academic salaries within some countries (Robinson, 2005). As Finkelstein contends, 'the notion of academics as a "cohesive group" united by a common pre-service socialisation experience will become increasingly limited in its application to a shrinking core' (Finkelstein, 2010, p. 153).…”

From a diversifying workforce to the rise of the itinerant academic

“…It also arises from an increasing separation of teaching and research activity, and the targeting of income streams to specific activities (Whitchurch and Gordon 2013a, b;Courtois and O'Keefe 2015;Lama and Jouille 2015;Locke et al 2016). Such trends have also been identified in Canada, the USA, Australia, and Europe (Coates and Goedegebuure 2010;Cavalli and Moscati 2010;Jones et al 2012;Musselin 2013;Finkelstein et al 2016;Kezar and Maxey 2016;Kim 2017). Thus, in the USA, as is now the case in the UK, less than 50% of academic staff have contracts that formally include both teaching and research.…”

Demystifying academics to enhance university–business collaborations in environmental science

“…65-89 % of university scientists, depending upon country, have a prime interest in research rather than teaching (Abreu et al, 2009;Cavalli and Moscati, 2010). However, 'Teaching' is not optional (Sect.…”

“…Academic systems vary by country (Cavalli and Moscati, 2010;Coates et al, 2009). However, in general, tenure with its guaranteed job security (Adams, 2006) has declined (e.g.…”