Challenges and Options: The Academic Profession in Europe

This volume explores the various issues that have impact on the academic career of professionals in European Higher Education. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are now traversed by profound uncertainties and are more challenged than ever on quality issues, in its conceptual nature and in the extension and amendment of its mission. The first part of book deals with the challenges and issues in the higher education academic career. It discusses, amongst others, the influence of European policies and changes, the cultural differences in academics’ preferences for teaching or research, the increasing inequality in academics’ working conditions and the changing nature of academic strategy in the transformational world of higher education, which holds implications for academic structures, work and careers.The second part analyzes the findings of a national study on satisfaction of academics in the Portuguese higher education, carried out at the Centre for Research on Higher Education Policies (CIPES).The third part of this book offers a comparative analysis on a number of national European case studies, focusing on the changing relevance and increasing expectations around the academic career. The concluding chapter of the volume argues if the academic profession is merely an artificial term that has to do with a heterogeneous range of occupations or if there are important common elements of the academic profession across European Higher Education systems.