Page 104 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

102 CHAPTER 4
Our data show that committee members throughout the various countries require that young researchers go abroad for a period of time early in their careers. Even though internationalisation has become increasingly important in all countries under study, in more than half of the departments we studied, this has not led to formalized criteria with regard to international mobility. In Belgium, Slovenia, Iceland, and the Dutch SSH department, international work experience is not a formal selection criterion, but committee members do consider it an important criterion in the selection of early-career researchers. In most institutions committee members connect international mobility to candidates’ perceived excellence. So next to precarious working conditions and limited prospects of a stable academic career, early-career researchers are expected to spend part of their employment across country borders. This might further their precariousness even more as moving abroad comes with (additional) instability as well as personal risks (Richardson & Zikic, 2007).
A committee member in the STEM department in Iceland argues that going abroad is “sort of an unwritten rule”. When this requirement remains tacit, as is the case in most departments, applicants can suffer from this lack of transparency by being rejected for not fulfilling the criterion. Icelandic SSH research participants confirm that international mobility of staff trained at their university is considered important and perceived as a qualifier, however it is not a decisive criterion.
Overall, we find that the criterion of international mobility is more pronounced and more decisive in the STEM departments. In the Dutch STEM department, international postdoc experience is a formal selection criterion for assistant professor positions. The recruitment protocol articulates this criterion as: “Some years of postdoc experience, also abroad”. In Switzerland it is an institutional obligation for candidates who received their PhDs from that same university to have spent at least one year abroad during their postdoc. In Italy, a formal criterion for assistant professorships is to have spent at least one year of doctoral or post-doctoral research abroad, yet, candidates who lack this experience are also considered for assistant professorships.
Because in most countries the criterion of international mobility is not formalized or specified, uncertainties and ambiguities emerge in the criterion’s application. This leaves room for committee members to select candidates based on their interpretations of the concept.
Because they’re clear but not detailed criteria, it’s obvious that there are interpretative sensitivities of various types. I’ll give you a banal example. We all agree that international activity is important, but what is meant by international