ABSTRACT
This chapter provides important context on the social, economic and political changes that shape and shift the purpose, organisation, and function of the contemporary university institution. It provides an overview of the shifts that have occurred in higher education (HE) in the last few decades. Dis-incentivising originality, the commercialisation of HE can undermine a key purpose of learning and scholarly exploration: the development of intellectual capacity, critique and development for the benefit of society. The chapter gives a contemporary focus on what life in academia is like for an early career academic and how one can survive and thrive in this environment. A move towards performance management, bureaucratisation and job insecurity has further consequences for the early career academic depending on the academic discipline and intellectual areas of pursuit, as different disciplines have different 'outputs' both in terms of volume and frequency. The chapter also presents an overview of this book.
