Universities face a collegiality crisis that threatens research quality and democracy
A major review of academic workplace culture reveals that collegiality—the foundation of university operations and scientific integrity—is under strain from competing institutional pressures. Researchers identify institutional trust, field-level dynamics, and communication as critical blind spots that policymakers and university leaders must address to preserve academic freedom and social contribution.
Originaltitel: "Outroduction": A Research Agenda on Collegiality in University Settings
<p>Collegiality is the modus operandi of universities. Collegiality is central to academic freedom and scientific quality. In this way, collegiality also contributes to the good functioning of universities’ contribution to society and democracy. In this concluding paper of the special issue on collegiality, we summarize the main findings and takeaways from our collective studies. We summarize the main challenges and contestations to collegiality and to universities, but also document lines of resistance, activation, and maintenance. We depict varieties of collegiality and conclude by emphasizing that future research needs to be based on an appreciation of this variation. We argue that it is essential to incorporate such a variation-sensitive perspective into discussions on academic freedom and scientific quality and highlight themes surfaced by the different studies that remain under-explored in extant literature: institutional trust, field-level studies of collegiality, and collegiality and communication. Finally, we offer some remarks on methodological and theoretical implications of this research and conclude by summarizing our research agenda in a list of themes.</p>