In Search of Lost Time. The Academic Profession Under Pressure

Building on my research strands from the past years on HE reforms in Europe and the dynamics of Europeanization, privatization as well as the growing emphasis on the competitiveness of HEI and scholars, the paper discusses academic time from the perspective of social scientists. Acknowledging the diversity of positions and conditions under which political scientists practice their profession according to the domestic contexts, I argue that time – which can be conceptualized both as a professional experience and as a (scarce) resource – invites us to reflect on the evolution of the academic profession. Taking into account the commonalities and persisting diversity within the profession, I point to some points of tension linked to the issue of time. My first hypothesis is that research time has become a scarce resource. While in some contexts ‘time is money’, i.e. available funds enable academics to ‘buy’ their research time, in other contexts money and time may be antinomic (when academics are forced to accept second jobs or when they spend a considerable amount of time applying for grants). My second hypothesis is that there are conflicting temporalities in the academic profession and that the growing pressure to devote time to new, demanding tasks (tracking students’ employability, fundraising, administration etc.) threatens the essence of the academic profession, which is unconceivable without research time.