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Academic careers are complex, diverse, and increasingly competitive. Building on previous research on selection criteria for admission to early research careers, this research expands the analytical focus to examine attributes requested in job ads at each stage of an academic career. Our data, extracted from a European job platform, draws on over 40 different disciplines, 3000 universities, and 60 countries. We developed a taxonomy from the selection criteria data and analysed 40,819 advertisements for all stages combined and posted in 2016-2021. We analysed the most prevalent and salient attributes listed in academic job ads to determine the most important attributes in the five most represented countries and disciplines, and changes by stage and across the academic career lifespan. We find that degree and achievements play a principal role in academic recruitment at each stage of career, mobility is key to progression in senior roles, teaching gains importance towards professoriate, and senior academics need to be equipped with skills and/or experience in fundraising, curriculum, and outreach. The insights inform policy and practice for institutional researcher development, capabilities framework development, human resources, and academic recruitment, and provide guidance for academic career planning and development.

Despite an increasingly competitive academic market, more and more people are seeking a PhD degree. While significant research focuses on skill attainment during PhD candidature and at PhD exit, we know little about the skills that might be present at PhD entry. We developed a data-driven taxonomy and conducted logistic regressions to analyse selection criteria (listing skills, qualifications, and personal attributes) of 13,562 PhD advertisements posted in 2016-2019 on Euraxess, a European recruitment platform for researchers. We analysed the most prevalent attributes sought for PhD admission, country-based and discipline-specific differences, and changes over time. We find that many of these admission attributes include diverse and transferable skills. Specifically, cognitive, interpersonal skills and personal attributes are trending upwards, and PhD requirements vary significantly by country, discipline and year of posting. We highlight the attributes requested by top 5 countries and top 5 disciplines, and show changes over time. The insights provide guidance for practice, specifically to PhD applicants, early career researchers, and those who support career development. We discuss PhD programmes' alignment and policy implications for pre-doctoral education, redesign of PhD assessment, and improved training provision for students and supervisors.

As student enrolments grow and student diversity increases in many areas of higher education, faculty face challenges to support and ensure individual student learning and development. At the same time, active and experiential approaches to learning are recognized for their potential to develop autonomy and critical thinking, among other valuable skills. However, such approaches are challenging to implement at scale and alter the educator's role from a directive one to a more facilitating role. This article reports on a questionnaire with 66 business academics at a large Australian metropolitan university that examined teaching experiences at scale and identified perceived barriers and enablers of experiential learning in large classes. Academics reported their lived experiences of teaching at scale and revealed the need to recognize teaching practice as a highly networked and distributed activity. In experiential learning, and particularly in large classes, the locus of control for learning shifts to the student, leading to feelings of disorientation and disempowerment. We make several recommendations for teaching development, faculty, and future research.

In the neoliberal university, how do doctoral candidates (PhDs) and early career academics (ECAs) experience time? This analysis brings together two qualitative studies in Australian universities: interviews with 64 PhD candidates, and a survey of 522 ECAs on teaching and research experience, and identity and career development. The data is analysed using Ylijoki and Mäntylä's (2003. "Conflicting Time Perspectives in Academic Work." "Time & Society" 12 (1): 55-78. doi:10.1177/0961463X03012001364) categories of academic time: scheduled, timeless, contracted and personal. Reading Derrida's "Specters of Marx" (1994) enables us to extend this framework to include deferred time. We argue that the dominant affect of deferred time is anxiety. As political subjects of the university, following Derrida's line of argument, participants are in a deferred state of waiting for academic careers that are yet to come.

It is commonly believed that the doctorate prepares students for academic careers. While there is wide ranging literature about the development of doctoral students as researchers, preparation for the other aspects of academic careers, e.g. teaching, is mostly absent from the discussion. This qualitative longitudinal study investigated the shift from doctoral identities to academic identities using narrative inquiry. It examined the narratives of 15 doctoral students from two large Australian universities, who were approaching thesis submission and who aspired to academic employment. Two contrasting stories illuminated in-depth accounts of how academic identities were developed and experienced. Students defined their identities and assessed their academic development in relation to their perceived 'market value' in academia. To increase their employability, they engaged in university teaching and focused on strategic networking. Students regarded researcher development as the main focus of the doctorate as being insufficient for an academic career. This paper argues that doctoral education needs to facilitate student agency, encourage synergies between teaching and research, and support non-academic work experiences to strengthen researcher identity development.

Research experiences are prominent in universities' undergraduate programmes across Australasia and are known to produce a variety of positive outcomes for students, educators, and universities. While there is growing research focused independently on undergraduate research and the role of assessment in higher education, how undergraduate research is assessed is not well understood. This paper reports on a scoping study and illuminates current assessment strategies and best practices in undergraduate research at universities in Australia and New Zealand across 17 disciplines. It offers empirical evidence and reflections based on a mixed-methods study involving 54 survey responses and 4 interviews with academics who engage in best practice. We explore what gets assessed and how, the main purpose of assessment, what drives undergraduate research assessment, and what criteria are used. Contributions and implications for undergraduate research assessment practice are discussed and key principles for design proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Becoming a researcher is one of the roads travelled in the emotional, social, and intellectual process of PhD journeys. As such, developing a researcher identity during doctoral study is a social undertaking. This paper explores instances and practices where doctoral students identify as becoming researchers. Based on interviews with 30 PhD students from two Australian metropolitan universities, this paper presents students' experiences of moments when they feel like researchers. The paper finds identification as a researcher occurs early on in the PhD, and such instances are underpinned by external and internal validation of the student as a researcher. Validation is gained "through research outputs" ("mainly publications"), "doing research," and "talking about research." Such experiences are often mundane, occur daily, and constitute personal, social, informal, and formal learning opportunities for researcher development. Supervisors are largely absent as students draw on multiple individuals on and off campus in assuming a researcher identity.

How can universities ensure that strategic aims to integrate research and teaching through engaging students in research-based experiences be effectively realised within institutions? This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative study exploring academics' perceptions of the challenges and barriers to implementing undergraduate research. Academics were asked about perceived constraints and enablements, how they defined undergraduate research, the forms of undergraduate research used, and they were encouraged to provide examples. Perceived constraints included particular institutional policies and structures, academics' mindsets and lack of skills and questions of time and money. It was found that different definitions of undergraduate research lead to different practices and varying opportunities for further development. This paper presents different forms of engagement in undergraduate research allied to these different definitions and it draws on interviewees' ideas about what has been enabling in their context to suggest possible strategies for institutions to move forward.