'Are you crazy? Why are you going to Poland?' Migration of Western Scholars to Academic Peripheries.

• Scholars born in global centers decide to move to Poland enticed by a specific job offers. • A personal relationship between a Western foreign-born academic and a Pole is another common scenario. • Westerners with a specific research interest in Polish culture also move to Poland. • Work in the periphery is often associated with limited career perspectives in the country of origin. • Westerners report financial and language difficulties, cultural shock, mental differences. In this article, we discuss the issue of migration of highly qualified academics who developed in the Western education system and decided to work in Poland. While the migration flows between global centres and aspiring higher education systems are increasing, the flow of academics to the peripheries remains largely under-researched. Poland is certainly not the centre of knowledge production, but its peripheral status should be further theorized. Polish universities are unable to compete with their Western counterparts. Thus, the first research question of this paper is: Why do scholars educated in Western Europe and Northern America decide to work in the peripheries? The second one is, how do they adapt to the working conditions that are significantly different from what they were used to? This paper presents the results of nationwide research carried out among foreign-born academics working at Polish universities. The interviews (in-depth biographically-focused interviews) concerned their motivation to move to Poland, their career paths, research productivity, the perception of Poland as a place to live, future plans, among other topics. The overarching framework for this paper is the 'employment lifecycle' theory introduced by John Lavelle (Lavelle, 2007). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]