Invisible academics and the challenges of being an independent scholar
This blog was kindly authored by Dr Charlotte Fawcett, former HEPI Policy Intern.
For many academics, their institution may feel like a source of frustration: conflicting and unclear working policies; mandated annual training; and requirements for how much time to spend in the office. However, as researchers unaffiliated with an academic institution have found, it is much easier to publish research attached to a university than to be without one.
What is an academic? The Oxford English Dictionary includes the following definition of an academic:
A member of a university or college, now spec. a senior member, a member of a university or college’s teaching or research staff. Also in a weakened sense: a person interested in or excelling at pursuits involving reading, thinking, and study.
This demonstrates the importance given to an institutional affiliation when defining academics, thus excluding those who are independent scholars.
An independent scholar is defined as someone who conducts scholarly research outside universities and traditional academia. Being an independent scholar can result in a multitude of issues, from a lack of access to academic resources to problems accessing research funding. The former can include an inability to access physical spaces, such as laboratories, as well as digital spaces, with online research articles behind paywalls. All of this impacts the independent scholar’s ability to conduct research. Ironically, to access the Oxford English Dictionary definition above, an institutional login was required.
Additionally, independent scholars who are interested in conducting surveys or other research with human participants may face limitations in receiving ethics approval, something which can restrict where findings may be published in academic literature. Independent scholars may also struggle without the added benefit of institutional credibility.
The term independent scholars can cover a broad range of individuals conducting research, including museum and gallery curators; archaeologists working in the field; professional services staff; and even members of the public. Some of these individuals may have access to institutional services through collaborations or partnerships, whilst others do not. There is therefore a wide range of differing experiences under the umbrella of independent scholars.
The question then is, why has academic research been restricted to universities? One reason is logistical – having physical research spaces such as libraries and laboratories together in proximity allows researchers to streamline the academic process. However, there are also considerations of accountability – academics may be funded by public money and are therefore required to produce output demonstrating the use of such money. The Research Excellence Framework (REF), which assesses research excellence, can also be used as an accountability measure, demonstrating the quality and impact of institutional research and its value for money.
If an institution or organisation was created to allow independent scholars access to some of the benefits of universities but also ensured accountability, would this give independent scholars an equal standing to those who are institutionally affiliated?
Similar programmes have existed before in other sectors – the Lonely Goat running club was launched to bring together solo runners into a shared community. The set-up of this group also gives them dedicated spaces at the London Marathon, allowing the group to take part on equal standing with other running clubs. Since 2016, the Olympics have also had the Refugee Olympic Team, allowing displaced individuals to compete in the Olympics. This gives them the ability to continue to compete in sporting events to the highest level, despite not being affiliated with a specific country.
The Lonely Goat running club emerged organically through a grassroots, community-led effort, whereas the Refugee Olympic Team was established through a top-down initiative led by Olympic President Thomas Bach. These examples demonstrate that successful independent communities can be created through either approach.
Although this principle has previously been applied to sporting events, it could be used in other contexts, including academia, by establishing a body that independent scholars can become affiliated with, giving them equal rights and responsibilities to those working at academic institutions.
Establishing a home for independent scholars and ensuring that they are considered on equal footing encourages more inclusivity in research, allowing a more diverse group of individuals to be recognised for their contributions to research, including community participants.
Universities have historically been the primary home of academic research because they provide shared infrastructure, resources, and accountability mechanisms tied to public funding. But can independent scholars achieve equal standing through alternative models that offer similar support and oversight outside traditional institutions? Although questions remain about how this could be established, sporting models demonstrate how collective structures can legitimise and enable participation for unaffiliated individuals and point toward new possibilities for recognising and supporting independent scholars.
Comments
Rachel says:
I really enjoyed reading this post Charlotte. You’ve captured many of the challenges that I experience as a former academic now working in edtech, but still engaging with the colleagues in the sector to undertake academic research – and seek to get it published.
I’d not identified myself as an ‘independent scholar’ before, but I think it perfectly captures what I do. I’d be happy to join a Lonely Goat equivalent!
Reply
Jonathan Alltimes says:
There main two loci of authority in academia. One is the right for teaching and awarding qualifications, while the other is right for approving new knowledge. The first is licenced by the State and the second is controlled by the social norms of learned societies, both can be traded. There is no such thing as an independent academic for the purpose of awarding qualifications. Teaching can be sold as private tutoring. Independent researchers may join learned societies and so agree with their social norms. Independent teachers and researchers are not required to publish in order to impart knowledge. Publishing research is s social norm originating with the Transactions of the Royal Society (a club) and its exchanges of foreign letters via its secretary, which eventually became controlled through committees. The university is a socially normative structure partially substituting for the function of the learned society, the learned society being a club for specialists connected to the universities, but not exclusively academics and mlnearly all academics are members of at least one. The point about access to resources is true, the original resources being the teachers themselves, manuscripts in libraries, and lecture rooms, and halls of residence. The university and the learned society both control their authority and power, which they will not relinquish, as it provides the capability to trade. A community of independent researchers is then a potential competitor. Telecommunications and computerization partially overcomes the publishing barrier and private tutoring overcomes the teaching barrier, but the qualification awarding barrier, the social norms barrier, and the other resource barriers remain.
A scholar is an old-fashioned word for a student and now has other meanings.
Reputation.
Reply
Margot Finn says:
For UK-based researchers in Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences disciplines within 10 years of receipt of their PhD (or equivalent) excluding career breaks, regardless of employment status, this support network already exists. It’s the British Academy’s Early Career Research Network (5th anniversary this September) with over 9,500 members. There are 9 regional clusters across the UK, training opportunities, funding etc. Details here: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/early-career-researcher-network/ See also the (separate) resources of the School of Advanced Study, University of London, which receives UKRI funding.
Reply
Dr John Milliken says:
Charlotte Fawcett’s description of independent scholars points towards a growing and largely unrecognised group within higher education: academic orphans.
These are scholars who may retain their qualifications, expertise, professional networks and commitment to teaching and research, but who have lost the institutional home through which academic participation is normally enabled and legitimised. They may be retired academics, independent researchers, practitioner-scholars, people with caring responsibilities, those displaced through redundancy or restructuring, or scholars who have chosen to work beyond conventional university employment.
Academic orphans do not cease to be academics when their institutional affiliation ends. Yet they may lose access to libraries, journals, research databases, ethics approval, funding opportunities, professional networks and even the institutional email address through which scholarly credibility is increasingly signalled.
The problem is therefore not simply one of access. It represents a structural weakness in the academic ecology. Universities currently perform two functions which have become unnecessarily fused: they employ academics, and they legitimise academic activity. The loss of the first should not automatically result in the loss of the second.
A credible national body for academic orphans could provide recognised scholarly affiliation, library and database access, proportionate ethics review, research-integrity oversight, mentoring, peer-review communities and routes into collaborative research. It could also provide the governance and accountability needed to reassure funders, publishers, participants and partner organisations.
There is a further opportunity which should not be overlooked. Academic orphans include experienced teachers as well as researchers. Many possess decades of accumulated expertise in curriculum design, assessment, supervision, mentoring, professional education and institutional leadership. This is a considerable national resource which could support universities, further-education colleges, widening-participation providers, community organisations and early-career academics.
The central question is therefore not whether independent scholars should be granted occasional or charitable access to existing institutions. It is whether a mature higher-education system can create a recognised institutional architecture through which academic orphans can exercise both the rights and responsibilities of scholarly membership.
Departure from a university should not mark the end of academic contribution. It should represent a transition into another form of participation within a broader national academic ecology.
Academic orphans have not lost their capability. They have merely lost their institutional home.
Reply
Add comment