Are evaluations in academia national or global? A cross-national study on evaluations in academic recruitment processes in Europe

UNIVERSITIES: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

SPEAKER: Jens Jungblut, University of Oslo

Studies on academic recruitment processes have demonstrated that universities evaluate candidates for research positions using multiple criteria. However, most studies on preferences regarding evaluative criteria in recruitment processes focus on a single country, while cross-country studies are rare. Similarly, we know only very little about perceived barriers to hiring the preferred candidates. While studies have documented how fields evaluate candidates differently, those differences have not been deeply explored, thus creating a need for further inquiry. This paper aims to address this gap and investigates whether academics in two fields across five European countries prefer the same criteria to evaluate candidates for academic positions. Moreover, we also investigate what kind of barriers academics identify that prevent them from hiring the best candidates in their field. The analysis is based on recent survey data drawn from academics in economics and physics in Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the UK. Our results show that the academic fields have different evaluative cultures and that researchers from different fields prefer specific criteria when assessing candidates. We also found that these field specific preferences were to some extent mediated through national frameworks such as funding systems. Similarly, we also found both national and field differences regarding perceived barriers in recruitment.

Jens Jungblut works as an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. Prior to this, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University and at the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER) at the University of Kassel. He received his PhD from the University of Oslo. Jens’ main research interests include party politics, policy-making, and public governance in the knowledge policy domain (higher education and research), organizational change in higher education, and the role of (academic) expertise in policymaking.