Session Information
99 ERC SES 07 L, Research in Higher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
Studies on early-career researchers (ECRs) as an emerging field of higher education research has gained an increasing attention in the past 20 years (McAlpine & Amundsen, 2018). Traditionally, cross-border mobility is commonly believed to promote academic success and is regarded as an unconditional good. However, with the underlying neoliberal influence and the changing landscape in the internationalisation of HE, literature has revealed a more complex picture of international mobility with conflicting outcomes. Literature highlights a diverse range of motivations driving ECRs to engage in international mobility. Career advancement, access to cutting-edge research facilities, and collaboration opportunities emerge as prominent factors (Teichler, 2004; Horta, Jung, & Santos, 2020; Poole & Xu, 2022); while fierce competitions juxtapose with the positive discourse lead to normalized or even coerced practices of international mobility among ECRs that may lead to risks such as increased precarity and the loss of social capital (Ackers, 2005; Bauder, 2020). Despite the flow of ECRs from Global South to Global North, which still remains as a major mobility pattern, a growing inclination of returning mobility to their home countries in the Global South has been noticed. Studies have discussed the benefits and challenges brought by the mobility experience for the returning ECRs, however limited research has been done to reveal how they negotiate with macro structures through exercising agency. Therefore, a nuanced understanding of rationales and experiences behind the different mobility patterns of staying or returning is needed. As context matters for comparative analysis, China and UK are chosen as the two research sites for this study. UK is the top destination in Europe while China being the largest sending country in the non-EU region not only for students but also for international staffs at HEIs (OECD, 2022; HESA, 2022). This study aims to understand the stay/return rationales and experiences among Chinese ECRs in the UK and those who have returned to China, specifically, the author asks:
RQ1. In the context of China and UK, what roles do structural factors play in attracting, recruiting, retaining, and developing of international ECRs?
RQ2. For Chinese ECRs with a UK PhD degree, what factors influence their stay/return decisions of international mobility?
RQ3. For internationally trained Chinese ECRs in UK and returned to China, how do they navigate through their academic career and personal life trajectories?
a) What are the similarities and differences in their exercise of agency?
b) How do the different contextual structures shape their exercise of agency?
This study adopts Glonacal Agency Heuristic as the conceptual framework (Marginson & Rhoades, 2002). Glonacal stands for global, national and local, the three interconnected levels in the process of globalization of higher education. This heuristic pinpoints six nods on each level, including people individually or collectively as agencies in 1) polities, 2) economies, and 3) higher education, and 4) organizations and entities in/of governmental and non-governmental agencies, 5) economics agencies and markets, and 6) educational and professional agencies. The nods form a set of three hexagons, indicating the direct or indirect reciprocal interplay between forces of different levels. It is adopted in this study particularly for its power in conceptualizing agency representing both entities and organizations at global, national and local level, and people’s ability to exercise agency. National level and individual agency will be the main focus for this study, with only some necessary discussions on the practice of institutions based on data analysis, since in the context of both UK and China, national policies play a much prominent role in attracting and recruiting internationally trained ECRs.
Method
This empirical study reconciles ontological Critical Realism and epistemic relativism through comparative case study. Critical Realism offers a philosophical foundation for understanding reality as multi-layered, with observable events influenced by underlying structures and generative mechanisms. Epistemic relativism informs the significance of a context-based interpretation of individuals’ experience. It allows the current research to combine empirical investigation with critical analysis to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the mobility of ECRs and address the interconnection between structure and agency. Following the stance of ontological Critical Realism and epistemic relativism, I intend to adopt the qualitative method of comparative case study (CCS) to investigate my research questions (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017). The two countries, China and the UK, are the two cases for examining stay/return mobility of Chinese ECRs. Its approach to horizontal comparisons (between the two cases of UK and China) and vertical comparisons (across organisations and individuals within one case) also aligns with my conceptual framework. I intend to adopt documentary analysis, website analysis, semi-structured interview, and focus group to address my research questions. For documentary analysis, the UK and China’s major policies pertaining to the attraction, recruitment, retaining, and developing of ECRs at national level will be analyzed. Documents from mainly the immigration department, education bureau, and national academic organisations will be analyzed. Website analysis mainly focuses on the academic organisations at national level. I intend to investigate the vision and mission statements of academic organisations such as UK Research and Innovation and National Natural Science Foundation of China. It is conducive to identify the major forms of supports such as funding opportunities and training programmes that open to international ECRs. By cross-case comparisons, potential structural enablements and constraints influencing the development of ECRs might be identified. In the current study, ECRs are defined as academics who are within ten years of completing their doctorates. For interview and focus group participants of ECRs in the UK, it will include postdocs and other academic staffs with Chinese nationality who are not recipients of funding opportunities that require their return to China; for interview and focus group participants of ECRs in China, it will include postdocs and other academic staffs who returned to China with a UK doctorate. Nvivo will be used for coding and thematic analysis.
Expected Outcomes
This research aims to explore the motivations and decision-making process influencing the international mobility of ECRs, examining their experiences and the intricate relationship between contextual structures and their agential practices within the evolving landscape of internationalization in HE. More specifically, the study delves into the interplay of national structural constraints and opportunities for UK-trained Chinese ECRs. It unveils the complex factors influencing their choices, including staying in the host country, returning to China, or even re-expatriating to the Global North, and sheds light on the challenges faced by ECRs within the neoliberal-influenced HE systems of both the UK and China. This study contributes to the literature on the internationalisation of HE with a particular focus on the mobility of ECRs. The critical discussions on the rationales of the flow of ECRs from Global North to Global South and the opposite, together with a systematically examination of its influence on the experience of ECRs could reveal the emerging dynamics within the changing landscape of international academic mobility. Though financial gains offered by the talent recruitment programs in China may still be one of the largest reasons for the return of ECRs, it is expected to discover other cultural, social, and political factors that support their long-term development in China, or on the contrary, that prompt their plan to re-expatriate in the future. While for Chinese researchers in the UK, the financial aspects may have lost its attractiveness in retaining ECRs, but it might not be the only concern of returnees in China and stayer in the UK. It is also expected to find the practice of agency to form a transnational space where they are not fully “accultured”, but are collectively acting to create a more diverse and dynamic academic community in both the host and home countries.
References
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