The latest statistical series about the Spanish Higher Education System show, on the one hand, a clear trend towards the aging of university teaching staff and, on the other, a slow but permanent renewal of staff. The aging of the teaching staff due to the hiring and budget containment policies of recent years, as well as the own university staff demographic development, has promoted and evidenced the existence of different generations in the same Higher Education Institution in terms of chronological age (Edge, Descours & Frayman, 2016). Although this reality is not exclusive to educational institutions (Keeble-Ramsay & Armitage, 2019), according to the latest data available from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, corresponding to the 2019-2020 academic year, 52.22% of university faculty is over 50 years old, a figure that rises to 84.29% if we include teachers over 40 years of age. Currently, four different generations coexist among university professors: Baby Boomers (born between 1949 and 1968), Generation X (born between 1969 and 1980), Generation Y or Millennials (born between 1981 and 1993) and Generation Z (born between 1994 and 2010).

All generations have different qualities, skills, and cultural references, although the promotion of collaboration and learning, in this case intergenerational, between all members of the organization can promote synergies and very significant levels of personal, group and organizational development.

Intergenerational learning is not something new or exclusive to 21st century organizations. In fact, this type of learning is the basis for the development of our society. Throughout history, intergenerational learning has taken place in very diverse contexts (eg, families, groups, workplace) and through disparate procedures.

Traditionally, the processes associated with intergenerational learning and relationships have been approached from sociology, as a way to improve inclusion, combat or reduce stereotypes or promote positive attitudes towards others (eg., Newman & Hatton-Yeo, 2008), or from didactics, for the design of training programs in which young people learn from the experience and knowledge of older people, improving their academic performance, improving their self-esteem and behavior or increasing their life aspirations. In view of the importance of intergenerational learning, there are several studies that try to define the conditioning factors of intergenerational learning among teachers in their work context. Thus, for example, Polat & Kazak (2015) identify the lack of communication as one of the fundamental barriers. Along these same lines, the promotion of positive intergenerational relationships that avoid or reduce prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes based on age are essential to significantly promote intergenerational learning. Leadership (Kazak & Polat, 2018) or explicit support from management are other main conditioning factors identified in these previous studies.

Therefore, considering the importance of intergenerational relationships as an essential variable for the existence and promotion of intergenerational learning, as well as the little existing research on this issue in university work environments, the objective of this article is to explore the existing intergenerational relationships between university teachers, specifically, during the exercise of their research tasks.

This research has been conducted as part of the project “Intergenerational University and Learning – PRUNAI” (ref. PID2019-107747RB-I00), founded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. The project aims to analyze intergenerational learning processes in the different functions of university teaching staff. To achieve this goal, as we have mentioned, it also tries to describe and understand relationships that are established between the teaching staff of different generations in universities. In this paper we focus on the latter specific aim (i.e., describe the relationships established between the teaching staff of different generations in universities). The fieldwork was conducted between February and May 2021 and consisted of applying an online self-administered questionnaire (adapted from the Workplace Intergenerational Climate Scale of King & Bryant (2017) to a representative sample of Spanish university teachers (N=2247). It is a questionnaire that allows measuring the attitudes and perceptions of organizational members about other colleagues of different ages in their workplace. The questionnaire is made up of 20 items grouped into five subscales: lack of generational stereotypes (LGS), positive intergenerational affect (PIA), intergenerational contact (IC), workplace generational inclusiveness (WGI) and workplace intergenerational retention (WIR). All items are constructed based on a Likert scale of seven points of agreement/disagreement, except in the case of CI, where we use a frequency scale. The participants come from the different universities that have been selected considering their presence in the main rankings as a usual indicator of institutional quality. The independent variables used in this study are teachers’ age, gender, academic rank, professional experience, and knowledge field. The dependent variables are lack of generational stereotypes, positive intergenerational affect, intergenerational contact, workplace generational inclusiveness and workplace intergenerational retention. To accomplish the objectives of this research, a descriptive analysis is developed based on the subscales considered (i.e., lack of generational stereotypes, positive intergenerational affect, intergenerational contact, workplace generational inclusiveness and workplace intergenerational retention) in relation to the research function of teachers.

The participating faculty is mostly male (52.2%), with a mean age of 47 years (sd=12.1), 17 years of experience as a university professor (sd=12.4) and a contract as full professor (34.1%). The descriptive analysis carried out reveals how relevant and gratifying it is to interact with other colleagues of more advanced ages in the framework of their research activities. However, if we focus on the intergenerational contact dimension in informal settings we can find the lowest scores, with means ranging from m=4.51 (sd =1.84) and m=3.38 (sd=2.01). In the comparison of the assessments made by the different generations, we observe that the generation Y or Millennials is the one that shows lower values in the intergenerational affect and workplace generational inclusiveness dimensions compared to the other two generations. The workplace intergenerational retention dimension is the one that shows the greatest variety of criteria depending on the generation from which it is expressed. The elders tend to feel that the young want to displace them, while the young think that they are not given the consideration they deserve by the elders. We cannot say that the answers are surprising, each generation lives with its own fears and desires and, sometimes, older or younger people can represent a threat between the various generations. Undoubtedly, if the trend is corroborated, actions should be sought within the research groups and institutions to alleviate the mistrust that could be created, especially among the youngest, who are the ones with worst perception of the intergenerational climate.

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