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The purpose of this paper is to examine researchers’ motivations to publish by comparing different career stages (PhD students; temporarily employed postdocs/new professors; scholars with permanent employment) with regard to epistemic, pragmatic, and personal motives.

This qualitative analysis is mainly based on semi-structured narrative interviews with 91 researchers in the humanities, social, and natural sciences, based at six renowned (anonymous) universities in Germany, the UK, and the USA. These narratives contain answers to the direct question “why do you publish?” as well as remarks on motivations to publish in relation to other questions and themes. The interdisciplinary interpretation is based on both sociological science studies and philosophy of science in practice.

At each career stage, epistemic, pragmatic, and personal motivations to publish are weighed differently. Confirming earlier studies, the authors find that PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in temporary positions mainly feel pressured to publish for career-related reasons. However, across status groups, researchers also want to publish in order to support collective knowledge generation.

The sample of interviewees may be biased toward those interested in reflecting on their day-to-day work.

Continuous and collective reflection is imperative for preventing uncritical internalization of pragmatic reasons to publish. Creating occasions for reflection is a task not only of researchers themselves, but also of administrators, funders, and other stakeholders.

Most studies have illuminated how researchers publish while adapting to or growing into the contemporary publish-or-perish culture. This paper addresses the rarely asked question why researchers publish at all.

This paper is written to add to current knowledge of the views of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discipline early career researchers (ECRs) about creativity. It aims to explore their understandings of and attitudes towards creativity, as well as their perceptions of which environmental factors facilitate creative research. By discussing the findings in the context of earlier work, the paper seeks to challenge developers to re‐examine current practice in developing creativity by suggesting a broader and deeper approach than is currently often taken.

The paper reports on a qualitative study which collected data from semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with STEM researchers. A thematic analysis was performed on the data.

This research demonstrates that young researchers have a complex range of perceptions of creativity, and that negative attitudes towards it are common in the STEM environment. Three key environmental facilitators of creativity were also uncovered which are: a positive research environment; sufficient constructive communication; and time and space to be creative. It is argued that more emphasis should be placed upon optimising the environment for creative work to occur.

Whereas most previous work has focussed on experienced scientists, this paper outlines the complex and important issue of creativity in the context of STEM ECRs. It offers those who wish to support such researchers an accessible summary and recommendations of how to improve practice in the development of creativity. In particular, the paper argues that placing a greater emphasis upon optimising the environment will enhance the impact of creativity development efforts.

Several frameworks have been developed to map and document scientific societal interaction and impact, each reflecting the specific forms of impact and interaction that characterize different academic fields. The ReAct taxonomy was developed to register data about “productive interactions” and provide an overview of research activities within the social sciences and humanities (SSH). The purpose of the present research is to examine whether the SSH-oriented taxonomy is relevant to the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines when clarifying societal interactions and impact, and whether the taxonomy adds value to the traditional STEM impact indicators such as citation scores and H-index.

The research question was investigated through qualitative interviews with nine STEM researchers. During the interviews, the ReAct taxonomy and visual research profiles based on the ReAct categories were used to encourage and ensure in-depth discussions. The visual research profiles were based on publicly available material on the research activities of the interviewees.

The study provided an insight into how STEM researchers assessed the importance of mapping societal interactions as a background for describing research impact, including which indicators are useful for expressing societal relevance and impact. With regard to the differences between STEM and SSH, the study identified a high degree of cohesion and uniformity in the importance of indicators. Differences were more closely related to the purpose of mapping and impact assessment than between scientific fields. The importance of amalgamation and synergy between academic and societal activities was also emphasised and clarified.

The findings highlight the importance of mapping societal activities and impact, and that societal indicators should be seen as inspiring guidelines depending on purpose and use. A significant contribution is the identification of both uniformity and diversity between the main fields of SSH and STEM, as well as the connection between the choice of indicators and the purpose of mapping, e.g. for impact measurement, profiling, or career development.

The work sheds light on STEM researchers' views on research mapping, visualisation and impact assessment, including similarities and differences between STEM and SSH research.

This paper seeks to understand the strategic behaviour of researchers when producing knowledge in two scientific fields – nanotechnology and social sciences.

The author conducted semi-structured interviews with 43 researchers to analyse the needs for strategic interdependence (resource-sharing) and for organisational autonomy (decision-making) in knowledge production. When aligned, these two concepts form three modes of behaviour: mode1, mode2 and mode3.

The empirical study results show that, besides well-studied differences in various publications, there are large behaviour differences between social science and nanotechnology researchers. While nanotechnology researchers’ behaviours are mostly in mode3 (sharing resources; highly autonomous), social science researchers’ behaviours tend to be in mode1 (highly autonomous; no need to share resources).

This study delivers an understanding of the differences in the strategic behaviours of researchers in different scientific fields. The author proposes managerial interventions for research managers – university and research group leaders.

While most studies that compare scientific fields look at knowledge production outcomes, the author analyses conditions that differentiate these outcomes. To this end, the author compares individual researchers’ behaviours in different fields by analysing the need for collaboration and the need for autonomy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore belonging in relation to postgraduate wellbeing in the light of renewed concerns about the mental health and wellbeing this group of learners. It attends to postgraduates’ subjective wellbeing, identifying ways in which this is intertwined with a sense of belonging. Belonging is situated in relation to the social domains of postgraduate experiences. This paper seeks to contribute in-depth understandings of postgraduate experiences, to make recommendations for practice and to identify fruitful paths for further theorisation and research.

Two qualitative data sets situated in UK higher education are drawn on here: firstly, longitudinal qualitative data entailing 33 narrative interviews and written reflections of doctoral researchers were collected as part of a phenomenological study of doctoral learning. Secondly, interview data from 20 postgraduates (including masters, professional doctorates and PhD researchers) were collected as part of mixed method qualitative case study research into postgraduate wellbeing. Postgraduate participants were based in the social sciences, humanities, arts and professional disciplines at a cross-section of UK higher education institutions. Data were analysed thematically with a focus on interconnections between wellbeing, learning and belonging.

A sense of belonging arose as a key contributing factor to postgraduate wellbeing. Belonging emerged as multi-faceted, interlinking with spatial, relational and cultural factors which are likely to be experienced in different ways and degrees depending on positionalities. Experiences of belonging and non-belonging are understood as produced through academic cultures and structural inequities. They also pertain to the uncertain, in-between position of postgraduate learners. For postgraduates, and doctoral researchers especially, reaching a sense of belonging to academia was a profoundly important aspect of their journeys. Conversely, lack of belonging is linked with poor mental wellbeing and engagement with studies.

This paper engages with the neglected social domain of wellbeing. Attending to subjective perceptions of wellbeing enabled nuanced understandings of the links between wellbeing and belonging. It identifies spatial, relational and cultural dimensions of postgraduate belonging, contributing an understanding of how feelings of non-belonging manifest, how belonging might be nurtured, and how this potentially contributes to postgraduates’ wellbeing.

This paper aims to identify the documented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on early career researcher (ECR) activity, development, career prospects and well-being.

This is a systematic literature review of English language peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2021, which provided empirical evidence of the impact of the pandemic on ECR activity and development. The search strategy involved online databases (Scopus, Web of Science and Overton); well-established higher education journals (based on Scopus classification) and references in the retained articles (snowballing). The final sample included 11 papers.

The evidence shows that ECRs have been affected in terms of research activity, researcher development, career prospects and well-being. Although many negative consequences were identified, some promising learning practices have arisen; however, these opportunities were not always fully realised. The results raise questions about differential effects across fields and possible long-term consequences where some fields and some scholars may be worse off due to priorities established as societies struggle to recover.

There is a need for revised institutional and national policies to ensure that sufficient measures are implemented to support ECRs’ research work in a situation where new duties and chores were added during the pandemic.

This paper provides insights into the impacts of the initial societal challenges of the pandemic on ECRs across disciplines that may have long-lasting effects on their academic development and well-being.

Prior studies identified a need for further comparison of data-sharing practices across different disciplines and communities. Toward addressing this need, the purpose of this paper is to examine the data-sharing practices of the earthquake engineering (EE) community, which could help inform data-sharing policies in EE and provide different stakeholders of the EE community with suggestions regarding data management and curation.

This study conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 16 EE researchers to gain an understanding of which data might be shared, with whom, under what conditions and why; and their perceptions of data ownership.

This study identified 29 data-sharing factors categorized into five groups. Requirements from funding agencies and academic genealogy were frequent impacts on EE researchers’ data-sharing practices. EE researchers were uncertain of data ownership and their perceptions varied.

Based on the findings, this study provides funding agencies, research institutions, data repositories and other stakeholders of the EE community with suggestions, such as allowing researchers to adjust the timeframe they can withhold data based on project size and the amount of experimental data generated; expanding the types and states of data required to share; defining data ownership in grant requirements; integrating data sharing and curation into curriculum; and collaborating with library and information schools for curriculum development.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which learning gained through participation in three research methods workshops funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council networking grant was applied in practice.

Data were collected by online survey and focus group from individuals who participated in the Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project workshops in 2011/2012. The survey data were coded and analysed manually, as were the transcribed focus group discussions.

Following the conclusion of the DREaM project the participants at the core of the network applied their learning from the workshops to innovate in the workplace and to develop information services, with evident impact on end-users of library and information services. The strongest impact of the DREaM project, however, was found in reports of widened opportunities for the researcher and practitioner cadre members, many of which arose from collaborations. This provides evidence of a second proven strategy (in addition to the provision of research reports in practitioner publications) for narrowing the library and information science (LIS) research-practice gap: the creation of researcher-practitioner networks.

Collaborative interactions between academic researchers and practitioners bring benefits to both network participants themselves and to the wider communities with which they interact. These are likely to be applicable across a range of subject domains and geographies.

Network grants are valuable for furnishing learning that may be applied in practice, and for bridging the research-practice gap.

In LIS and other domains that suffer from a research-practice gap (e.g. teaching, social work, nursing, policing, management) the bringing together of researchers and practitioners in networks may address problems associated with misunderstandings between the two communities, and lead to improved services provision.

This study provides an evaluation of network development that goes beyond simply reporting changes in network topology. It does so by assessing the value that network relationships provide to individuals and groups, extending knowledge on mechanisms of collaborative interaction within research networks. It is also the first detailed study of the impact of a UK research council networking grant.

The purpose of the study is to find out the trends of web‐based information seekers at Sambalpur University, India since the internet is more helpful than the library in the present electronic era.

The study is based on the case study method. A structured questionnaire was distributed among the relevant researchers at Sambalpur University in order to ascertain their web searching habits.

The application of is ever increasing – to the extent that people believe that electronic material will eventually replace the traditional library and users need not go there to find and collect the information they need. The study revealed, however, that in one Indian university, traditional library and printed materials are still more effective to researchers than web‐based information and resources.

This is an original case study on web‐based information retrieval trends of university researchers. This paper will help web researchers to obtain a clear‐cut picture of the information seeking and retrieval trends of the researchers of an Indian university which will serve as a role model for the universities of the Third World.

The growing prominence of disaster research has also prompted vibrant discussions about the motivation and ethical conduct of disaster researchers. Yet, the individual researchers' aspirations and aims, together with the challenging and changing circumstances under which one undertakes disaster research have received relatively scant attention. Drawing on the author’s personal experience of becoming a disaster researcher under the unexpected humanitarian crisis following the 2015 Nepal earthquakes, this paper seeks to contribute to the debates surrounding the role of reflexivity and ethical sensitivity in doing disaster research under the climate of uncertainty.

The paper draws on the author’s reflections and vignettes to highlight the author’s experience of becoming a disaster researcher, and my trajectory of navigating the complex terrain of fieldwork.

The paper underscores how the process of becoming a disaster researcher was closely intertwined with and shaped by my concerns and care for the disaster-affected communities. The paper argues that doing contextually relevant and ethically sensitive research is not a static target. It demands constant reflexivity and improvisation, in response to the unpredictable real-world conditions of disasters. Instead of aiming to tame such uncertainty, disaster researchers may benefit from appreciating and embracing uncertainty as a major facet of its epistemological distinctiveness.

The paper contributes to the ongoing efforts in advancing methodological reflection and innovation in disaster research. In so doing, the paper is expected to aid early-career researchers who are often faced with ethical and practical dilemmas of doing fieldwork.