What impedes and enables flourishing among early career academics?

Abstract

Early career academics face a rapidly changing higher education sector and too little is known about what helps them flourish in the profession. This paper responds to that gap by reporting research undertaken in a single or intrinsic case study of one Australian university. We invited participation from a full cohort of 1019 academics in one large College. Of those, 41 early career academics or ECAs and 45 more senior academics or MSAs engaged in a 50-question survey. Of those, 18 ECAs and 16 MSAs who had flagged interest then completed an in-depth interview. We learned about: ECAs’ work; what they and MSAs think impedes and enables that work; work-life balance; and experiences of mentoring and career development. We also asked for their perspectives on the future. We found remarkable agreement across the two cohorts that mirrors concerns expressed in a growing, internationally significant literature. Members of both cohorts appealed for strengthened organisational and sectoral commitments to caring career pathways and sought more certainty in challenging times. Our findings led us to conclude that academics have high hopes that universities and those in higher education policy settings can address work overload; enhance professional development across all duties; make leaner systems and processes; have more realistic expectations about research; and better value academics’ profound commitments to higher education. Those findings accord with other results reported in comparable jurisdictions around the world and add weight to an increasingly compelling case to recentre and refocus on people in university organisational cultures and practices.