Prelims

Half Title Page

Building Communities in Academia

Series Title Page

Surviving and Thriving in Academia provides short, accessible books for navigating the many challenges, responsibilities and opportunities of academic careers. The series is particularly dedicated to supporting the professional journeys of early and mid-career academics and doctoral students but will present books of use to scholars at all stages in their careers. Books within the series draw on real-life examples from international scholars, offering practical advice and a supportive and encouraging tone throughout.

Series Editor: Marian Mahat, The University of Melbourne, Australia

In this series

Achieving Academic Promotion

Edited by Marian Mahat and Jennifer Tatebe

Getting the Most Out of Your Doctorate: The Importance of Supervision, Networking and Becoming a Global Academic

Edited by Mollie Dollinger

Coaching and Mentoring for Academic Development

By Kay Guccione and Steve Hutchinson

Women Thriving in Academia

Edited by Marian Mahat

Academic Resilience: Personal Stories and Lessons Learnt From the COVID-19 Experience

Edited by Marian Mahat, Joanne Blannin, Elizer Jay de los Reyes, and Caroline Cohrssen

Academic Mobility and International Academics: Challenges and Opportunities

By Jasvir Kaur Nachatar Singh

The Impactful Academic: Building a Research Career That Makes a Difference

By Wade Kelly

Thriving in Academic Leadership

Edited by Sharmila Pixy Ferris and Kathleen Waldron

Supervising Doctoral Candidates

Edited by Chris Rolph

Title Page

Building Communities in Academia

Edited by

Melina Aarnikoivu

University of Groningen, The Netherlands

And

Ai Tam Le

Deakin University, Australia

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2024

Editorial matter and selection © 2024 Melina Aarnikoivu and Ai Tam Le.

Individual chapters except chapter 6 © 2024 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Chapter 6, Invitation to an online coffee! Exploring how informal academic communities support early-career researchers' professional growth and wellbeing copyright © 2024 Vesna Holubek and Henna Juusola, is Open Access with copyright assigned to respective chapter authors. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited.

This work is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence.

Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these works (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83797-503-7 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-500-6 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-502-0 (Epub)

Dedication

We would like to dedicate this book to everyone who is building communities wherever they go, often behind the scenes, motivated by sheer care, and without any extra incentives or rewards. Your work is invaluable, and it matters.

List of Figures and Tables

About the Editors

Melina Aarnikoivu is the Coordinator of the PhD Academy at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her background is in applied linguistics and higher education studies. In her research, she has studied doctoral education, peer-mentoring and academic writing and publishing. In whichever role she has worked, she is always trying to bring people together to create more supportive, inspiring and equitable workplaces where early-career professionals, in particular, can feel welcome.

Ai Tam Le is a Lecturer in Higher Degree by Research (HDR) Development at the Researcher Development Academy at Deakin University, Australia. Ai Tam's research interests include the academic profession, doctoral education and disciplinary cultures. Through her research and work in the graduate research space, she has been interested in exploring ways to cultivate a more nurturing, vibrant and enriching academia.

About the Contributors

Saule Bekova is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Graduate Research School of the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Her current research centres on the doctoral student experience and the representation of doctoral education in media. Her broader research interests encompass the quality of supervision, diversification of doctoral programs, student well-being and student success.

Oscar Funeskog works at a children's emergency psychiatric ward. He studied behavioural sciences for his Bachelor's degree and followed up with courses in existential philosophy and guidance. He later turned to the International Master’s in Educational Research (IMER) programme at Gothenburg University, Sweden, for his Master-level studies where he focused on theoretical implementation and proof of concept in regard to theories of learning. He is currently searching for a PhD position and eventually a research career.

Andrew G. Gibson is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy of Education at the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He's also the Co-director of the Cultures, Academic Values in Education (CAVE) Research Centre. His research interests are in philosophy of education and philosophy more widely, in order to find ways to combine these to look critically at higher education – and to try to do something about improving it too.

Samuel Holt is a Teacher at the International High School Göteborg Region (IHGR), where he has over 10 years teaching experience in Psychology, Theory of Knowledge, Philosophy and English. He completed his Master's thesis for the IMER programme at Gothenburg University, Sweden, in 2023 where the main research focus was the use of phenomenography to examine the understanding, perceived importance and treatment of ungraded school subjects. This is an interest he hopes to pursue further at a PhD level.

Vesna Holubek is a higher education researcher currently working on her PhD research at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Finland. Her PhD project examines teaching and learning cultures in transnational higher education. Vesna's research interests include internationalisation, discourses and communities in higher education.

Henna Juusola is a higher education researcher at the Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Finland. In her current postdoctoral research project, she explores how international educational collaboration in Finland and Sweden is coping with the COVID-19 and war in Ukraine. Her research interests cover international higher education, youth political participation and interplay with agencies and institutions.

Tseen Khoo is a Senior Lecturer in Research Education and Development, La Trobe University, Australia. She researches in the field of critical university studies and has published on early-career researcher experiences, digital academic identities and racial diversity issues. Tseen and Jonathan O'Donnell created and manage the research development and research culture blog, The Research Whisperer. They published Getting Research Funded: Five Essential Rules for Early Career Researchers (with Phil Ward) in 2023.

Mee Joo Kim is a Doctoral Candidate at the College of Education at the University of Washington-Seattle, USA. Her research experiences encompass a broad range of topics such as examining instructional outcomes in undergraduate engineering education, crafting measurement scales for university campus environments, exploring political identity formation of immigrant youths and conducting adaptation capabilities assessments for pre-K children. Her ultimate goal is to conduct research that matters for expanding educational opportunities for everyone. Her current research interests include nontraditional students in higher education as well as academic motherhood.

Amoni Kitooke is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Educational Work at the University of Borås, Sweden and the Department of Educational Sciences, Lund University. He is part of the Studies in Professional Education and Training for Society (SPETS) Research School, collaboratively run by the University of Borås, Lund University and Chalmers University of Technology. His research investigates if, how and under what circumstances teacher education nurtures and/or enacts a praxis of preparing teachers to value, draw on and involve local community resources in their work and the implications for education and society.

Martina Lazarevska is Doctoral Researcher in Education at the Department of Education and Special Education at the University of Gothenburg. She is interested in research concerning adult education and learning. Her doctoral research is planned to explore how knowledge in education for sustainable development (ESD) is constructed and implemented in the context of Swedish Municipal Adult Education. An overarching goal of her research is to explore and understand the extent to which adult education is responsive to social problems.

Yuqi Lin is an Educational Researcher and Edutech Entrepreneur. Before heading to the business world, she worked as a Research Officer and Research Coordinator in Monash University, and University of Melbourne, Australia. She has been an active member in the community, representing international students at multiple organisations, co-authoring articles on Australian mainstream media. Her research works are published in international peer-reviewed journals, focusing on internationalisation and globalisation of higher education.

Charity Meki-Kombe, PhD, a Senior Lecturer and Acting Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies at Mulungushi University, Zambia, transitioned to academia from a postdoctoral role at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. With a PhD in Educational Management Law and Policy, her research centres on policy implementation and intervention outcomes, and higher education, with a bias towards doctoral education. Additionally, she actively contributes to examining gender-related issues, reflecting her dedication to fostering inclusive practices.

Sinéad Murphy is an Independent Researcher focused on Arabfuturism, theories of world literature and principles and practices of community-building. She also works and writes collaboratively as part of the interdisciplinary research collective Beyond Gender. She holds an AHRC LAHP-funded PhD in Comparative Literature from King's College London. She has publications forthcoming with Routledge and Palgrave, and her writing can be found in places like Science Fiction Studies, Strange Horizons, Wasafiri and The Literary Encyclopaedia. She currently works as Policy Engagement Coodinator at University College London Public Policy, UK.

Juuso Henrik Nieminen is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong and a Banting Fellow at Ontario Tech University, Canada. He is also an Honorary Fellow at Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE), Deakin University, Australia, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Eastern Finland, Finland. Dr Nieminen studies educational assessment from social, cultural and political perspectives. He has particularly focused on the matters of inclusion, diversity and equity in assessment.

Jonathan O'Donnell is the Lecturer, Early and Mid-career Researchers for the Researcher Development Academy at Deakin University, Australia. He is currently completing a PhD on researchers who crowdfund.

Jing Qi is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies in the RMIT University, Australia. Her interdisciplinary research orientation is broadly concerned with internationalisation of education. Jing has worked in universities in Australia and China since 2003, designing and delivering teaching in education and languages. Jing publishes in the areas of doctoral education, transnational education, teacher education and blended/digital education.

Robyn Ruttenberg-Rozen is an Assistant Professor at Ontario Tech University, Canada. Dr Ruttenberg-Rozen explores the tensions and possibilities of inclusive pedagogies in K-16 STEAM education for typically underserved, linguistically and culturally diverse, and exceptional populations of learners and their teachers.

Taina Saarinen is a Research Professor and Director at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research at the University of Jyväskylä. Her research career has consisted of several choices that have appeared as missteps or mistakes at the time but proved interesting and important routes afterwards. Her current false starts include working together with researchers at different career stages and dabbling with crisis leadership, academic well-being and MadLibs as methodology.

Baktygul Shabdan is a Lecturer and Research Associate in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. She co-edited ‘Dynamics of Speaking and Doing Religion’ (TUP, 2022) with Deepak Kumar Ojha and authored ‘Born Kyrgyz, Raised as Russians and Buried as Arabs: Negotiating Childhood and Personhood in Kyrgyzstan’ (TUP, 2023). She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan and India. Her research encompasses the anthropology of childhood and personhood, the anthropology of Islam, Sufism, digital religion and medical anthropology.

Mayya Sundukova, PhD, is a Neuroscientist at a health research institute in Spain, narrative coach and consultant. Mayya studied narrative therapy and community work to combine mentoring, community engagement, open science and policy skills to improve the research culture. Mayya founded the Rekombinational initiative and co-founded (with Olya Vvedenskaya) the Warenje scientific community building initiative. Other interests include creative and performing arts, therapeutic writing and parenting.

Lifutso Tsephe is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Gender Justice, Health, and Human Development at the Durban University of Technology, South Africa. Holding a PhD in Education Management, Law and Policy from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, her research interests are evident in her work for her MA and PhD. Additionally, her publications on African women in higher education underscore her commitment to exploring issues related to gender equality, human development and social justice.

Olga (Olya) Vvedenskaya, Dr med. Dr rer. nat., is a Scientific Communications Officer at a biotech company in Germany. Olya is a co-founder of Dragonfly Mental Health, sci.STEPS mentoring programme and Warenje scientific community-building initiative. Olya believes in accessible education and healthcare for all and actively works on this vision. She uses her organisational skills to create and support various value-oriented projects and initiatives. Other interests include outfit as art, painting, DIY projects, video games and dogs.

Sally Windsor is an Associate Professor in Pedagogical Work in the Department of Pedagogical Curricular and Professional Studies. Currently, Windsor teaches in an Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Master's programme and the International Master’s in Educational Research (IMER) programme at Gothenburg University, Sweden. Sally's research interests include sustainability education in schools, social sustainability, Indigenous knowledge for sustainability and mentoring and induction. Her research on teacher education and professional teacher learning aims to understand the processes that lead all teachers, regardless of age or subject discipline, to engage in ‘praxis’ – meaningful action based on a commitment to the good for humankind, and to encourage/enable their students to do the same.

Gaoming Zheng is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Higher Education, Tongji University, China. Additionally, she is an affiliated researcher and doctoral graduate of the Higher Education Group at the Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Finland. Her research spans various areas, including doctoral education, the academic profession, international higher education, Europe-China higher education cooperation and institutional logics.