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This paper aims to explore the support experiences of 381 PhD students within the humanities and social sciences from three research-intensive universities in Denmark (n = 145) and Finland (n = 236). The study investigates the cross-cultural variation in the researcher community support and supervisory support experiences, factors associated with their support experienced and the perceived support fit.

The study used a mixed methods design, both quantitative analyses and qualitative analyses (open-ended descriptions) were used.

The results showed that students in both Danish and Finnish programs emphasized researcher community support over supervisory support. The Danish students, however, reported slightly higher levels of researcher community support and experienced lower levels of friction than their Finnish counter partners. The results also indicated that the only form of support in which the students expressed more matched support than mismatched support was informational support.

The results imply investing in a stronger integration of PhD students into the research community is beneficial for the students’ progress. Building network-based and collaborative learning activities that enhance both instrumental and emotional support and a collective form of supervision could be further developed. The possibility of Phd student integration in the scholarly community is likely to lead to more efficient use of finacial and intellectual resources in academia and society more broadly.

This study offer a unique contribution on doctoral students’ academic and socialization experiences in terms of explicationg the sources of support, support forms and support fit among Danish and Finnish doctoral students. Both invariants and socio-culturally embedded aspects of support experience among the students were detected.

This study aims to advance the understanding on individual variations in PhD candidates’ personal interest in their doctorate and supervisory and research community support, and several individual and structural attributes potentially having an impact on the profiles.

The authors explored the interrelationship between personal interest – social support profiles, and nationality, gender, research group and study status and the risk of dropping out. A total of 768 PhD candidates from a research-intensive university in Finland responded to a modified version of the cross-cultural doctoral experience survey. Latent profile analysis was used to explore the individual variations in PhD candidates’ interest and support from the supervisor and research community.

Three distinctive PhD interest-social support profiles were detected; the high interest–high support profile (74.4%, n = 570), the high interest–moderate support profile (18.2%, n = 140) and the moderate interest–moderate support profile (7.4%, n = 56). The profiles exhibited high to moderate levels of research, development and instrumental interest. Individuals in the high interest–moderate support and in the moderate interest–moderate support profiles were more prone to consider dropping out from their PhD than in the high interest–high support profile.

The results indicate that by cultivating PhD candidates’ interest and providing sufficient supervisory and the research community offers a means for preventing candidates from discontinuing their doctorate. Hence, building a supportive learning environment that cultivates a PhD candidate’s personal interest is likely to reduce high dropout rates among the candidates.

Doctoral students’ ill-being in terms of stress, exhaustion and high levels of mental health problems has been well documented. Yet, the well-being of doctoral students is more than the absence of these negative symptoms. The number of studies exploring the combination of positive and negative attributes of doctoral students’ well-being is limited. Therefore, this study aims to focus on exploring individual variation in doctoral students’ experienced engagement and burnout across two distinct socio-cultural contexts in Finland and in South Africa.

A total of 884 doctoral students from Finland (n = 391) and South Africa (n = 493) responded to the cross-cultural Doctoral Experience Survey. The data were quantitatively analyzed.

Altogether four distinctive engagement–burnout profiles were detected, including engaged, engaged–exhausted, moderately engaged–burnout and burnout profiles. Differences between the Finnish and South African students were identified in profile emphasis. The profiles were also related to several study progress attributes such as drop-out intentions, time-to-candidacy and satisfaction with study.

This study provides new understanding on doctoral students’ well-being by focusing on both positive and negative attributes and exploring doctoral students’ discrepant profiles with a cross-country design.

This study aims to explore the complexities of methodological, ethical and emotional challenges of studying sensitive and vulnerable communities online from the perspective of simultaneously being a researcher and a research subject. The point of departure for these explorations consists of the author’s past and ongoing studies of the role and use of a closed grief support group on Facebook for bereaved parents – a community of which the author is a member. The aim is not to provide ready solutions for “how to do ethics,” but rather to contribute to the collective and ongoing work initiated by the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), among others, and to recognize the necessity of ethical pluralism, cross-cultural awareness and an interdisciplinary approach.

This is an explorative study, drawing on an (auto)ethnographic case study. The case serves as a point of departure for discussing the complexities of methodological, ethical and emotional challenges of studying sensitive and vulnerable communities online from the perspective of simultaneously being a researcher and a research subject.

Being a researcher and a research subject rolled into one, as it were, presents both opportunities and challenges. To conduct responsible research from both these perspectives pose high demands on the researchers’ ethical as well as emotional capacities and responsibilities. Hopes and expectancies of the community under study might put the researcher into a dilemma, ethical aspects of anonymity and informed consent might have to be reconsidered as well as emotional challenges of engaging in and with sensitive research, all of which makes for a complex balancing act. Ethics and methods are inextricably intertwined, so are the emotional challenges of conducting sensitive research intermingled. Studying vulnerable individuals and closed communities online highlights the necessity for case and context sensitive research and for flexibility, adaptivity and mindfulness of the researcher. It also highlights the importance of discussing and questioning theoretical, methodological and ethical developments for studying everyday life practices online.

The challenges encountered in this case study contribute to the experientially grounded approach to research ethics emphasized in AoIR’s ethics guidelines. This case offers an opportunity to explore and discuss complex issues arising from the researcher’s insider position in a closed group devoted to the sensitive topic of supporting bereaved parents. Further, it highlights the necessity for research to be case and context sensitive as well as for the researcher and the research design to be flexible and adaptive. Research on vulnerable communities also heightens the demands of ethical responsibility of the researcher and the research process.

For many Indigenous nations globally, ethics is a conversation. The purpose of this paper is to share and mobilize knowledge to build relationships and capacities regarding the ethics review and approval of research with Indigenous peoples throughout Atlantic Canada. The authors share key principles that emerged for shifting practices that recognize Indigenous rights holders through ethical research review practice.

The NunatuKavut Inuit hosted and led a two-day gathering on March 2019 in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, to promote a regional dialogue on Indigenous Research Governance. It brought together Indigenous Nations within the Atlantic Region and invited guests from institutional ethics review boards and researchers in the region to address the principles-to-policy-to-practice gap as it relates to the research ethics review process. Called “Naalak”, an Inuktitut word that means “to listen and to pay close attention”, the gathering created a dynamic moment of respect and understanding of how to work better together and support one another in research with Indigenous peoples on Indigenous lands.

Through this process of dialogue and reflection, emergent principles and practices for “good” research ethics were collectively identified. Open dialogue between institutional ethics boards and Indigenous research review committees acknowledged past and current research practices from Indigenous peoples’ perspectives; supported and encouraged community-led research; articulated and exemplified Indigenous ownership and control of data; promoted and practiced ethical and responsible research with Indigenous peoples; and supported and emphasized rights based approaches within the current research regulatory system. Key principles emerged for shifting paradigms to honour Indigenous rights holders through ethical research practice, including: recognizing Indigenous peoples as rights holders with sovereignty over research; accepting collective responsibility for research in a “good” way; enlarging the sphere of ethical consideration to include the land; acknowledging that “The stories are ours” through Indigenous-led (or co-led) research; articulating relationships between Indigenous and Research Ethics Board (REB) approvals; addressing justice and proportionate review of Indigenous research; and, means of identifying the Indigenous governing authority for approving research.

Future steps (including further research) include pursuing collective responsibilities towards empowering Indigenous communities to build their own consensus around research with/in their people and their lands. This entails pursuing further understanding of how to move forward in recognition and respect for Indigenous peoples as rights holders, and disrupting mainstream dialogue around Indigenous peoples as “stakeholders” in research.

The first step in moving forward in a way that embraces Indigenous principles is to deeply embed the respect of Indigenous peoples as rights holders across and within REBs. This shift in perspective changes our collective responsibilities in equitable ways, reflecting and respecting differing impetus and resources between the two parties: “equity” does imply “equality”. Several examples of practical changes to REB procedures and considerations are detailed.

What the authors have discovered is that it is not just about academic or institutional REB decolonization: there are broad systematic issues at play. However, pursuing the collective responsibilities outlined in our paper should work towards empowering communities to build their own consensus around research with/in their people and their lands. Indigenous peoples are rights holders, and have governance over research, including the autonomy to make decisions about themselves, their future, and their past.

The value is in its guidance around how authentic partnerships can develop that promote equity with regard to community and researcher and community/researcher voice and power throughout the research lifecycle, including through research ethics reviews that respect Indigenous rights, world views and ways of knowing. It helps to show how both Indigenous and non-Indigenous institutions can collectively honour Indigenous rights holders through ethical research practice.

The purpose of this action research study was to design, implement and evaluate interventions that enhanced the induction program for new teachers in a P-12 school district. At the outset, we hoped the study would provide new teacher support resulting in improved teaching practices, increased job satisfaction and/or increased teacher retention among the target population. With this in mind, our research question was: What structures and supports from a school-university partnership facilitate capacity-building among university teacher education faculty, school and district leaders, mentor teachers, and new teachers in the context of an induction program?

This study used an intervention-centered mode of action research methodology that aims to make systems-level change. This type of action research intends to solve real organizational problems with a focus on conducting “research in action” rather than “research about action” (Coghlan and Brannick, 2014, pp. 5–6). This approach necessitates that data collection and analysis are iterative processes, occurring throughout the research process, instead of solely at the end stages of the research process. Our action research process used Coghlan and Brannick’s (2014) action research cycle model. The cyclical four-step process includes constructing (verifying the problem in the local context), planning action, taking action and evaluating action. Facilitated by the interim director of a Professional development schools (PDS) partnership in the Southeastern United States, a team of co-researchers which included three university teacher education faculty and four school district administrators used action research methodology to create systemic change that enhanced the district’s induction program. We collected data through multiple qualitative methods, including surveys, focus groups, observations and interviews during the course of three action research cycles. These data and our theoretical framework (complex adaptive systems theory and social network theory) informed two major interventions that supported new teachers during the challenging first year of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

The interventions and the research process were mutually beneficial for both institutions and contributed to professional learning and growth at the individual, group and system levels. The three major findings described include: (1) engaging in collaborative action research is mutually beneficial for both schools and universities; (2) induction programs benefit from university resources; (3) learning communities build all educators’ professional capacity.

Our research recommendations are: (1) more research is needed on the benefits of school-university partnerships to induction programs; (2) school-university partnerships should leverage action research to improve systems; (3) within school-university partnerships, the connection between collaborative leadership and sustainability requires further research. One limitation was that this study was conducted in a single school-university partnership context involving a large public university and a mid-sized public school district that had a well-established partnership. More induction-centered research is needed in different types of school-university partnership contexts that have varying levels of longevity and partnership structures.

Our recommendations for practice include (1) school-university partnerships should leverage collaborative learning communities to catalyze individual, group and systems-level learning and change, and (2) school-university partnerships must prioritize induction support to strengthen the teaching profession.

Since Hunt’s (2014) literature review on induction support in PDS partnerships, very few empirical studies have been conducted in this research area. This study, which examined induction support in a PDS partnership over a two-year period, makes a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on induction teacher support in school-university partnership contexts. Facilitated by the interim director of a PDS partnership, a team of co-researchers, which included three university teacher education faculty and four school district administrators, used action research methodology to create systems-level supports that enhanced the district’s induction program.

This exploratory case study adds to the growing literature on leaders and leadership development in communities experiencing poverty in the global south. It explores how leadership is conceptualized among community-identified leaders in Muñoz, Dominican Republic. Drawn from semistructured interviews, the eight participant narratives provide insight into potential approaches for developing local leadership capacity that may help combat generational poverty. The recommendations from this study highlight the need to support the development of human capital using an anticolonial framework. The recommendations are especially relevant for leadership groups preparing to work or currently working in the nonprofit sector. By knowing how to better support the development of localized leadership within communities of poverty, external nonprofit agencies— particularly those from the global north—can better support communities and mitigate the risk of perpetuating colonial dynamics and power structures.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into publication practices from the perspective of academics working within four disciplinary communities: biosciences, astronomy/physics, education and history. The paper explores the ways in which these multiple overlapping communities intersect with the journal landscape and the implications for the adoption and use of new players in the scholarly communication system, particularly open-access mega-journals (OAMJs). OAMJs (e.g. PLOS ONE and Scientific Reports) are large, broad scope, open-access journals that base editorial decisions solely on the technical/scientific soundness of the article.

Focus groups with active researchers in these fields were held in five UK Higher Education Institutions across Great Britain, and were complemented by interviews with pro-vice-chancellors for research at each institution.

A strong finding to emerge from the data is the notion of researchers belonging to multiple overlapping communities, with some inherent tensions in meeting the requirements for these different audiences. Researcher perceptions of evaluation mechanisms were found to play a major role in attitudes towards OAMJs, and interviews with the pro-vice-chancellors for research indicate that there is a difference between researchers’ perceptions and the values embedded in institutional frameworks.

This is the first purely qualitative study relating to researcher perspectives on OAMJs. The findings of the paper will be of interest to publishers, policy-makers, research managers and academics.