Explaining postdoc internationalization at US universities
By Marielk. This guest entry is written by Dr. Brendan Cantwell who is currently employed as an assistant professor at the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University. His current research interests include higher education organization, governance and policy, with focus on comparative education, political economy and theory.
Since the 1990s over 50% of all postdoctoral researchers (‘postdocs’) working at universities in the United States (US) have been temporary visa holders, or ‘international’. This makes postdocs the most internationalized group at American universities.
The fact that over 50% of postdocs are international is especially striking when compared to student enrollments; international students accounted for only 3.7% of total enrollments in the US during the 2011/2012 academic year. Why, then, do most postdocs come from abroad?
Over parts of the past five years I have studied the employment of international postdocs, primarily in the US but also in the United Kingdom. One of my objectives was to understand why so many researchers work as postdocs abroad. I began this research qualitatively by interviewing international postdocs and their supervisors. I examined the experiences of international postdocs, the role international postdocs play in the production of knowledge, and the process by which postdocs become employed internationally. From these studies I drew two main conclusions. Read more...
12 Doctoral and 2 Postdoctoral positions available in the UNIKE project
UNIKE, Universities in the Knowledge Economy is an Initial Training Network (ITN) funded by FP7 – Marie Curie Actions, has announced that 12 PhD positions and 2 post-doc positions in the 6 European Universities that are part of the ITN. Participants from all countries are encouraged to apply, with a variety of possible disciplinary backgrounds, but the focus of the projects is on higher education.The overarching question for the project is: What are the changing roles and scope of universities in emerging global knowledge economies and regions? The core themes are focused around three work packages, and the PhD projects have the following assigned broad topics, but the applicants are expected to write a project proposal based within the framework of the theme.
Work package 1, ‘Concepts and theories’
- PhD project: ASEM meetings and HE ‘policy travel’ from Europe to Asia (Bristol University, UK, supervised by professor R. Dale)
- PhD project: Internationalisation of higher education in centres and peripheries (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, supervised by professor P. Zgaga)
- PhD project: Conjunction of Chinese and Western educational traditions in the design and teaching of Sino-Danish Centre courses (Copenhagen Campus, Aarhus University, Denmark, supervised by professor S. Wright)
- PhD project: Academic values between globalisation and globalism (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, supervised by professor P. Zgaga)
- PhD project: Models of doctoral education (Copenhagen Campus, Aarhus University, Denmark, supervised by professor S. Wright)
- PhD project: Mapping the field of higher education industries, and choosing case studies (Bristol University, UK, supervised by professor S. Robertson)
- PhD project: Audit culture and the Industries of ranking (Copenhagen Campus, Aarhus University, Denmark, supervised by professor S. Wright)
- PhD project: Think Tanks and Academic Entrepreneurs in the Production of Knowledge (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France, supervised by professor J.-L. Derouet and reader R. Normand)
- Post-doctoral project: New landscapes of publishing and knowledge dissemination (Bristol University, UK, supervised by professor S. Robertson)
- Post-doctoral project: Academic entrepreneurialism, civil society and democracy (Copenhagen Campus, Aarhus University, Denmark, supervised by professor S. Wright)
- PhD project: Impact of governance changes on the educational categories and internal life of universities (University of Porto, Portugal, supervised by professor A. M. Magalhães)
- PhD project: Alternative forms of university ownership, finance and organisation (Roehampton University, UK, supervised by professor R. Boden)
- PhD project: Governance through Autonomy – A context-rich comparative study (University of Porto, Portugal, supervised by professor A. M. Magalhães)
- PhD project: Management and gender (Roehampton University, UK, supervised by professor R. Boden)
Application deadline Sunday 3 February 2013 at 17:00 CET
More information about the PhD and post-doc positions, application procedures and requirements here (pdf) and on the project website.
