Page 68 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

66 CHAPTER 3
experience per se is not sufficient: they only favour work experience in certain universities and countries and not others. A focus group respondent argued that not all universities in a foreign country are considered good places to work. Here, the findings show how committee members work with the room for interpretation created by meso-level criteria. The data revealed that committee members value work experience in the USA most because the “system”, “culture” and “way of working” are considered entirely different there. Respondents also mentioned England and Germany as countries to yield valuable work experience. Thus, the practice here is not if internationalisation plays a role in recruitment and selection but what type of internationalisation. This study shows that this results in the exclusion of applicants who obtained postdoc experience in less prestigious institutes or peripheral countries. This creates inequalities among early-career researchers based on committee member’s preference for ‘leading’ institutions. This exclusionary practice only surfaces when the formal criterion that hints at a universal idea of international experience is confronted with the narrow criterion applied by committee members. Also, it shows how internationalisation and excellence are intertwined when excellence is dependent on only a selection of valued countries and universities.
In contrast to formal policies, English and Dutch language proficiency were not mentioned as important criteria in the selection of assistant professors. One interview respondent referred to the criterion of Dutch language proficiency as one of the formal criteria to get tenure. None of the committee members made a reference to English language proficiency, implying this is taken for granted in selection procedures, possibly because committee members assume that all applicants are fluent in English due to the perceived international character of their field.
Social sciences. A number of years as a postdoc in an international setting – as is required within the Natural Sciences department – seems no prerequisite in the Social Sciences department. Most likely, this is due to the fact that in the Natural Sciences, the postdoc position is a necessary step on the academic career ladder, whereas in the Social Sciences, this is more rare (Bessudnov et al., 2015). The analysis reveals that interview respondents considered international experience a non-decisive criterion in the selection of tenure-track assistant professors. For them, international work experience is more an additional benefit than a necessity. Thus, they consent with department policy; however, it shows a discrepancy with university policy that prescribes foreign experience as a selection criterion.
In the focus group, one respondent made the criterion of international experience salient, after which, she negotiated the criterion with another respondent.