Rebuilding Higher Education by Combating Researcher Isolation

To build new and better higher education systems, it is vital to consider all aspects of systems in the recent past. Measures should be taken to identify and address deficiencies, of which academic isolation and the prevalence of a silo mentality is a prominent example. The central question of this paper to be answered is how to effectively combat academic isolation. While an individual in solitude has a positive experience when alone, isolation resulting in loneliness is an uneasy feeling of being unwillingly detached from others. Education institutions, faculties, colleges or communities of practice as well as individuals can experience isolation, whether it is self-imposed or enforced by discriminatory measures. Highly specialized groups may isolate themselves, and so can experienced academics be unwilling to share ideas and so deny others to benefit from their expertise. During an analytical literature survey, which generated valuable observations and findings from scholars worldwide, some of the most prominent reasons for and effects of this phenomenon emerged. The analysis, into which personal experience was also factored, lead to proposing cooperative research and interdisciplinary research as effective ways to breach harmful silo forming amongst researchers, and combat academic isolation. [For the complete Volume 21 proceedings, see ED629259.]