NDLI: Unsustainable Growth, Hyper-Competition, and Worth in Life Science Research: Narrowing Evaluative Repertoires in Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scientists’ Work and Lives

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Unsustainable Growth, Hyper-Competition, and Worth in Life Science Research: Narrowing Evaluative Repertoires in Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scientists’ Work and Lives

‘Excellence’ and Exclusion: The Individual Costs of Institutional Competitiveness

Learning Experience and Socio-Cultural Influences on Female Engineering Students’ Perspectives on Engineering Courses and Careers

Toward a Reactionary Science? : Richard Whitley, Jochen Gläser (eds.), Organizational Transformation and Scientific Change: The Impact of Institutional Restructuring on Universities and Intellectual Innovation, (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 42) Emerald, 2014

Minerva : Volume 54, Issue 1, March 2016

Unsustainable Growth, Hyper-Competition, and Worth in Life Science Research: Narrowing Evaluative Repertoires in Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scientists’ Work and Lives

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Fochler, Maximilian Felt, Ulrike Müller, Ruth
Copyright Year	2016
Abstract	There is a crisis of valuation practices in the current academic life sciences, triggered by unsustainable growth and “hyper-competition.” Quantitative metrics in evaluating researchers are seen as replacing deeper considerations of the quality and novelty of work, as well as substantive care for the societal implications of research. Junior researchers are frequently mentioned as those most strongly affected by these dynamics. However, their own perceptions of these issues are much less frequently considered. This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the interplay between how research is valued and how young researchers learn to live, work and produce knowledge within academia. We thus analyze how PhD students and postdocs in the Austrian life sciences ascribe worth to people, objects and practices as they talk about their own present and future lives in research. We draw on literature from the field of valuation studies and its interest in how actors refer to different forms of valuation to account for their actions. We explore how young researchers are socialized into different valuation practices in different stages of their growing into science. Introducing the concept of “regimes of valuation” we show that PhD students relate to a wider evaluative repertoire while postdocs base their decisions on one dominant regime of valuing research. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for the epistemic and social development of the life sciences, and for other scientific fields.
Starting Page	175
Ending Page	200
Page Count	26
File Format	PDF
ISSN	00264695
Journal	Minerva
Volume Number	54
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	15731871
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2016-03-04
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Life sciences Valuation Impact factor Growth Competition Academic socialization Metrics Evaluation Early-stage researchers Research careers Postdoc Educational Philosophy Philosophy Social Sciences Sociology of Education Higher Education
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Education

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Unsustainable Growth, Hyper-Competition, and Worth in Life Science Research: Narrowing Evaluative Repertoires in Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scientists’ Work and Lives

Unsustainable Growth, Hyper-Competition, and Worth in Life Science Research: Narrowing Evaluative Repertoires in Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scientists’ Work and Lives

Transnational Mobility and International Academic Employment: Gatekeeping in an Academic Competition Arena

Stuck in the Middle: Doctoral Education Ranking and Career Outcomes for Life Scientists

Career satisfaction of postdoctoral researchers in relation to their expectations for the future

Career satisfaction of postdoctoral researchers in relation to their expectations for the future

Cross-national variations in postdoc precarity: An inquiry into the role of career structures and research funding models

Science and Engineering Doctoral Student Socialization, Logics, and the National Economic Agenda: Alignment or Disconnect?

Postdoctoral Life Scientists and Supervision Work in the Contemporary University: A Case Study of Changes in the Cultural Norms of Science

Unsustainable Growth, Hyper-Competition, and Worth in Life Science Research: Narrowing Evaluative Repertoires in Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scientists’ Work and Lives

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