INCHER Colloquium November 27, 2024: Disciplinary cultures and academic careers in Germany: Insights from four subject areas

Lecturer: Dr. Johanna Witte, TU Dortmund, Zentrum für HochschulBildung (zhb), Dortmund

Abstract:
While disciplinary cultures in academia have been studied for quite some time, there has been little systematic examination of how the different ways of researching, collaborating and publishing relate to the career development of early-career researchers. This lecture highlights key results from a qualitative, comparative study based on interviews in four academic fields in German higher education: history, biology, business administration and electrical engineering. While academic excellence is the shared benchmark for academic success across disciplines, there are persistent differences in research cultures, which, in conjunction with the general move to project- and performance-based funding and different opportunities on the non-academic labor market, lead to very different experience and risk profiles of young academics in the four disciplines. The underlying mixed-methods study was undertaken at the Bavarian State Institute of Higher Education Research and Planning (IHF) in the context of the National Report on Early Career Researchers (BuWiN) 2021, jointly with Maike Reimer and Thorsten Lenz.

Johanna Witte currently is guest researcher at the Center of Higher Education at TU Dortmund University, Germany. Before, she was Senior Researcher at the Bavarian State Institute for Higher Education Research and Planning (IHF) in Munich, Germany; and Managing Director of the Journal "Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung". She currently is an expert member of the Tertiary Education Committee of the German Science Council, developing recommendations for future personnel structures for the German higher education and science system. She also worked at the think tank and consultancy Center for Higher Education Development (CHE) in Guetersloh, Germany. She holds a Masters degree in Economics from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, an MA in International Education from the University of Sussex in England, and a PhD in Public Policy from the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies(CHEPS) at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Johanna Witte was member of the Executive Committee of the European Higher Education Society (EAIR), and is member of the Editorial Board of the journal "Tertiary Education and Management". She spent extensive periods working and studying abroad, among others in India and Thailand. She has worked on a broad range of topics in higher education research, such as the change of higher education systems, curriculum reform, and academic careers. Methodologically, her focus is on qualitative and evaluation research, preferably in comparative perspective.

The INCHER lectures in winter semester 2024 are hybrid events.
If you wish to participate via Zoom please register at koch@incher.uni-kassel.de