COST Actions are policy-driven, interdisciplinary research networks aimed at fostering scientific excellence, inclusiveness, and pan-European cooperation across all fields of science. They are designed to facilitate access to international research networks, particularly for scholars affiliated with less research-intensive countries designated as Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITCs) (COST Association, 2026). Despite these formal inclusiveness policies, official statistics published by the COST Association indicate that leadership positions within COST Actions remain unevenly distributed, mirroring enduring asymmetries across the European research space (Alom Bartrolí, 2023; Choquez-Millan et al., 2024).

Drawing on Bourdieu’s Theory of Social Practices, this study approaches COST as a field (i.e., a structured social space governed by specific rules, hierarchies, and struggles over valued forms of capital). Within this field, leadership positions may neither be obtained nor exercised and experienced equally by leaders from different countries, as particular dispositions, resources, and forms of recognition may privilege some researchers over others. In other words, leadership opportunities and experiences within COST networks are closely tied to access to different forms of capital, such as symbolic capital (e.g., academic reputation and visibility), social capital (e.g., embeddedness in influential transnational networks), cultural capital (e.g., linguistic competence and familiarity with dominant norms), and institutional capital (e.g., affiliation with prestigious universities or research systems) (Bourdieu, 2011), as these forms of capital are unequally distributed across national contexts. Therefore, COST Actions may exhibit leadership dynamics that reproduce stratification within European science by reinforcing the advantages of actors already in strong positions, despite the COST Association’s inclusivity policies.

While prior research has documented disparities in leadership representation, there remains a limited understanding of how such inequalities are experienced by those who occupy leadership roles (Koch et al., 2024), particularly leaders affiliated with higher education institutions in less research-intensive countries. This study addresses this gap by examining the experiences of Turkish-affiliated scholars who have held leadership positions (e.g., Action Chairs, Action Vice-Chairs, Management Committee members) within COST Actions. By foregrounding Turkish COST Action leaders’ narratives, this study examines how inequalities in leadership are experienced, normalized, negotiated, or contested within international research networks.

This interpretive phenomenological study explores how scholars affiliated with Turkish higher education institutions experience leadership and power within COST Actions. Accordingly, it focuses on participants’ lived experiences of leadership, inequality, and opportunity within international research networks, and on how these experiences are perceived, interpreted, and given meaning by the researchers themselves. Participants were selected among researchers who have held leadership positions in COST Actions. This focus allows for an in-depth examination of leadership from the perspective of those formally positioned within the network’s decision-making structures. Data were collected through face-to-face and online semi-structured interviews. The interview protocol was designed to elicit participants’ leadership trajectories, perceptions of opportunity and advantage, and experiences of power relations within COST Actions. Questions addressed various forms of capital, including the role of personal and professional networks, academic status, institutional and national reputation, and economic conditions in shaping access to leadership roles. Participants were also invited to reflect on informal norms of leadership, decision-making dynamics, and whether contributions from different actors were valued equally within the network. All interviews were audio-recorded with informed consent and transcribed verbatim. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, following an iterative process of coding and interpretation. Initial coding focused on identifying recurring themes related to leadership experiences, asymmetries, and network dynamics. In subsequent stages, themes were interpreted through Bourdieusian concepts such as habitus, capital, field, doxa, and hysteresis. This analytical strategy enabled the study to move beyond individual-level explanations and situate leadership experiences within broader networked power relations.

This ongoing study is expected to show that leadership inequalities within COST Actions persist despite the COST Association’s inclusivity strategies, largely due to asymmetries in different forms of capital. While individual researchers’ characteristics matter, these inequalities appear to be more strongly related to the institutions and countries with which researchers are affiliated. In Bourdieusian terms, doxa and hysteresis emerge as key concepts for understanding these findings. Doxa refers to the taken-for-granted assumptions within a field that make existing hierarchies appear natural or legitimate. The findings are likely to demonstrate that COST’s inclusive discourse operates as a form of doxa, rendering unequal leadership outcomes as natural, merit-based, or inevitable. At the same time, participants frequently describe moments of dissonance between official commitments to inclusiveness and their lived experiences within the network. The concept of hysteresis (i.e., the lag between changes in formal structures and the persistence of internalized practices) helps explain this tension, as leadership dynamics shaped by unequal capital distribution often persist even when formal strategies are introduced to promote equity. By centering the experiences of Turkish COST Action leaders, the study provides empirical insight into how power operates within international research networks from the perspective of researchers located in an ITC context. The findings highlight the need for policy interventions that go beyond structural access and address the informal practices and evaluative norms through which leadership and legitimacy are constructed.

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