ABSTRACT
Greater uncertainty in higher education environments has led to a significant shift in the positioning of individuals in relation to institutional structures, which can no longer be assumed to offer the security and protection that may have been anticipated when an individual was appointed to a faculty post. There were indications from both studies of a breakdown of the concept of a homogeneous workforce, with entrants from professional practice, media, business and industry at different stages of their careers, having loyalty to practice settings outside higher education, and more individual approaches to their futures. The fragmenting of linear career routes was illustrated by the fact that once within higher education, significant numbers of individuals were departing from their discipline or practice to work on different programmes and/or in different faculties. Furthermore, although rank-and-file respondents in the HEA study were evenly distributed across arts/humanities, social science and science disciplines, only half were teaching and researching in their mainstream ‘subject of origin’. People were also prepared to move in and out of higher education to gain relevant experience, and some had a portfolio that involved working part-time in higher education and part-time for another employer:
So, managing a portfolio of doing … different pieces of work for different employers, at different points in time.
(mid-career, research-only faculty) There could therefore be significant drift from the original discipline with the result that non-linear career paths were being forged, often arising from professional contacts or emergent interests, in ways that were in themselves considered developmental. In order not to find options closing, individuals could be faced with choices and judgements about, for instance, whether to pursue pure, disciplinary research, applied research that was impact- and commercially-oriented, or research that was more oriented towards the public good. Those later in their careers often attributed any success they had had to the availability of an informal mentor, internal or external to the institution.