Early career development in academia has received increased attention in recent years due to demographic change and the need to recruit the best graduates for careers in higher education. The growing need for efficient teaching methods in higher education and new ways of learning and teaching as a result of digital media show the need to educate future academic teachers appropriately. Reports in the UK and Germany (Mills et al., 2006; Tippelt et al., 2004) show for both countries that the support for the present generation of young academics is not sufficient and might endanger the development of various disciplines, particularly in times of expanding student numbers (Ertl, 2005). In both countries, there are a number of politically-driven initiatives aimed at improving the situation. However, these initiatives are usually not based on a systematic analysis of the structures in which induction into academia takes place. For instance, they often neglect non-financial barriers in pathways into academia. The apparent lack of data and underpinning research in this area motivated researchers from the University of Oxford, Department of Education, and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Department of Education, to initiate an international collaboration to undertake research work in the field of early career development in higher education. Three interdependent research areas are considered particularly relevant: 1) Employment and career structure 2) Doctoral studies 3) Academic practice and environment In addition to discussion of the co-operation on the issue of early career development in higher education, the round table will also present a proposal for a study within the third focus mentioned above. This area encompasses the way in which academic practice and the working environments contribute to, or hinder, induction into academia. Within this broad area, one focus of investigation is the use of digital media: Communication in the fields of research and teaching largely depends on media. Therefore, media literacy is strongly interwoven with academic success and the implementation of multivariate didactic methods. Despite of massive financial investment in e-learning both in the UK and Germany the output is seen as meagre (Garret, 2004; Solbach, Spiegel 2006). One explanation could be that the investment has not met the needs of academics. Research does not take the two fields of gaining media literacy into account systematically enough: Technological know-how, which is an important objective of digital media education, and competence in ways of presenting information, which is mainly gained in the process of academic development. These two sides represent the institutional and cultural conditions for the development of media literacy. The comparative investigation in the UK and Germany proposed here will describe these particularities. The heuristic assumption of the investigation into media literacy is that there is an emerging international culture of scientific communication, which has to be learned by young academics, but which is not a subject of media education in higher education. This round table will present initial work and future plans of the research group. The discussion in the round table format will allow the group to generate feedback from other researchers working in this field. Contributors: Chair: Prof. David Phillips, University of Oxford: Comparative Research in Higher Education Discussant: Prof. Dr. Rudolf Tippelt, Universität München Dr. Hubert Ertl, University of Oxford: Pathways into Academia - an outline of an emerging research area Prof. Dr. Manuela Pietraß, Universität der Bundeswehr München: Media Competence of Young Acades. A Comparative Study in Germany and the UK

The work of the Anglo-German Educational Research Group is based on the assumption that a comparative perspective is required for research into certain social phenomena that are embedded in complex systemic structures. For our overarching research area, pathways into academia, the comparative approach is helpful in terms of identifying barriers that are system-specific as opposed to barriers that are more universal in nature (for instance, barriers applicable to disciplines across national borders); a difference that seems to be decisive in developing strategies to reduce barriers to academia in an effective way (Phillips, Schweissfurth, 2006). The comparative approach seems also necessary in order to capture the impact of cross-national developments such as the formation of a European Area in higher education (Bologna Process) on induction into academia. For the studyof media literacy of young academics (see above) we propose to use a qualitative approach (interviews, reception studies and media analysis) to investigate the particular needs and demands of media use in academia from a bottom-up perspective.

This round table aims to outline a broad area of research identified by the members of the Anglo-German Educational Research Group. Early career development in higher education is regarded as a timely issue in the UK and Germany and the round table will provide us with the opportunity to discuss its relevance and particular connotations in other national contexts with educational researchers from around Europe. The round table will explore opportunities of conducting comparative research in this area collectively. Our proposal for investigating the media literacy of young academics will identify ways in which media education and academic socialization can be interwoven to support young academics in their careers in higher education.