Abstract
The COVID-19 crisis has given us a new, unprecedented impetus for thinking about the imperative of mobility in research. Travel and co-presence are widely accepted as being essential to career progression and promotion in academic life. Academics with fewer opportunities to travel find themselves at a significant disadvantage. COVID-19 and related public health measures have significantly limited the ability to be physically co-present in academia. Addressing obligations of co-presence in a less mobile world allows us to think concretely—and empathetically—about how to improve and extend virtual networking opportunities to those who have been marginalised with respect to research mobility. It also allows us to reflect on the role of reduced mobility and locality in how we think about and enact research. This article is informed and inspired by insights from research addressing academic mobility. I describe and discuss two prospects to productively work towards a new academic modus operandi characterised by limited opportunities for mobility. Furthermore, I highlight those issues and components that will require capacity building and a greater allocation of resources within the research system. In addition, I sketch out some pressing issues and questions for research mobility studies in a less mobile age going forward.
Highlights
The COVID-19 crisis has given us a new impetus for thinking about the central place of mobility in the academic modus operandi, or the various practices that sustain academic work
Mobility and physical proximity are distinctive features of academic life [1,2], with travel and co-presence accepted as being essential to career progression and promotion [3,4]
Along with the significant disruption and hardship this public health crisis has visited on our everyday lives, it offers incentives for the research community to imagine, and actively design, a future academic modus operandi characterised by a more sustainable, equitable and societally relevant research system
Summary
The COVID-19 crisis has given us a new impetus for thinking about the central place of mobility in the academic modus operandi, or the various practices that sustain academic work. The (past) modus operandi could be characterised as reflecting an imperative for mobility in research. Along with the significant disruption and hardship this public health crisis has visited on our everyday lives, it offers incentives for the research community to imagine, and actively design, a future academic modus operandi characterised by a more sustainable, equitable and societally relevant research system. In the conclusion, I call for continued critical engagement with the possibilities for a new academic modus operandi in a less mobile, less networked time
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