Past conferences

Portugal, Aveiro, March 2-4, 2022

Portuguese team organises a hybrid conference on "The academic profession moving forward: gender equality and/or early career researchers". The objective of this conferences is to support the development of collaborative, comparative papers on a common theme that will become the core elements of a Springer “Red Book” volume. The theme for the conference is the general work situation and the working conditions in academia.

1. Selection processes: What are the minimum requirements to enter into the academic career? Which criteria and/or processes are in place to enter into and to advance within the academic profession?
2. Duration and socialisation: How are academics socialised into academic work (including how they are trained and mentored) and which pathways lead to top of the career ladder? How does doctoral training differ? What is the impact of doctoral training on career progress?
3. Career advancement: To what extent are the higher education systems based on internal labor markets (where promotion takes place from junior to more senior ranks within the same institution, such as in tenure and promotion systems, or, in the more extreme form, through inbreeding), or in external labor markets (where senior appointments are made by competitive processes, and upward progression within a career frequently involves moving positions and institutions)?
4. Work remuneration: How are labor costs determined along different career stages? These dimensions are particularly relevant since they allow us to identify clusters of academic labor markets that could provide a rational for comparing data.

Turkey, Istanbul, 7-9 December 2022

Turkey APIKS Team virtually organized the 4th APIKS Conference "Internationalization in Higher Education" and hosted audience from more than 20 countries. During the conference, 15 country teams presented 16 case studies, including two from Japan. While many Asian country teams largely discussed the role of foreign degree holders in the internationalization strategies both at the institutional and national level, the South Korea team underlined the increasing hegemony of foreign degree holders, particularly from well-known US universities, in their national HE system. By European cases, different country teams mentioned the importance of European connections, as well as mobility and exchange programmes, in the internationalization strategies of their HEIs. As an interesting topic, the German team discussed the internationalization aspects in the metrified HE systems through their national case. Two country cases from the Latin America informed our audience about the factors supporting academics to engage more with internationalization activities, while categorizing academic staff as cosmopolitan vs. local academics. The Sweden team then introduced a new typology on academic profession by the line from nationalist towards internationalist academic staff, while the Portugal team enlarged the discussion on engagement activities and internationalization initiatives academics participated in from their home country or external mobility. As a native-English speaking country, the Canada team discussed by their results showing the importance of home-based internationalization for Canadian academics. The Kazakhstan team, as an interesting case, presented how strong advisory support from overseas universities can enhance the internationalized characteristics of young universities as well as national HE systems. Beyond all these interesting cases, our audience also had chances to listen the keynote speeches from globally well-known researchers. While Prof. Anthony Welch, University of Sydney, Australia, discussed “the internationalization of HE and international polarization”, Prof. Rachel Brooks, University of Surrey, UK, shared her research experience on international student population and argued the changing roles of academics in a multicultural HE environment. Moreover, the conference generated opportunities for APIKS meetings to discuss general issues, data management, coming conference plans, as well as publication initiatives. All in all, by means of various questions and discussions on internationalized HE during the sessions and also on further steps of APIKS project, the conference became a highly fruitful medium for APIKS members to exchange their research outcomes as well as develop new contacts with various country members.

Lithuania, Vilnius, 19-21 August 2020

The APIKS Vilnius conference ”Management and Governance” took place on August 20-21, 2020 at Vilnius University. It was organized in Lithuania organized by the APIKS team Lithuania. The focus of the conference was management and governance of higher education. On the first day, a workshop and a collaborative working group session working with the APIKS data were organized for early career colleagues. Papers from 16 countries were presented. Conference web-site.

Finland, Espoo, 30-31 January, 2020

"Role of the Academic Profession in the Knowledge Society" seminar took place on 30-31 January 2020 at Espoo, Finland and it was organised by the Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian and Norwegian APIKS teams and Hanaholmen – the Swedish-Finnish Cultural Centre. The purpose of the seminar was to bring together key perspectives of unions, administration and scholars and thus refine analytical comparative knowledge. On Thursday, 30 January, keynote lectures and panel discussions about current trends in academia and scenarios for the future of the academic profession and higher education in Northern Europe took place, and on Friday, 31 January, the seminar proceeded with the scholarly workshops.

Germany, Kassel, 25-27 August 2019

The second APIKS conference was organized by the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER), at the University of Kassel, Germany. From 25-27 August 2019 more than 40 participants from 19 different countries shared and compared their empirical findings about academics’ societal engagement – also referred to as knowledge and technology transfer. The joint work resulted in the formation of working groups focusing on the differences between hard (natural and technological sciences) and soft sciences (humanities and social sciences), the influence of academics’ socialization on academics’ societal engagement, and national differences of the understanding of academics’ societal engagement as contribution to the economy, as social service etc.

Japan, Hiroshima, 4-5 March 2019

The Research Institute for Higher Education of Hiroshima University, Japan, in collaboration with Professor Akira Arimoto's research project funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, organized an international conference, entitled "An International and Comparative Study of Academics’ Teaching and Research Activities in the Knowledge Society: Main findings from the APIKS project", on 4-5 March 2019 in Hiroshima Garden Palace. Altogether about 60 participants, including 50 project team members from 20 countries in Asia, Europe, North America and South America participated in the conference.