Across the higher education sector, research and teaching staff are increasingly contending with shifting funding landscape, engaging with multiple disciplines, publishing cross-disciplinary research, and uncertainty about potential career pathways. Against this backdrop of significant changes, how might scholars, particularly at early stages of their academic careers, respond to these changes and what might meaningful forms of mentorship, collaboration, and support look like in an unsettled academic landscape? Our recent panel discussion, held on 18 Feb 2026, brought together early career and senior scholars to reflect on these and other challenges of navigating academic work today. The panel included Adam Badger (Newcastle University), Karen Gregory (University of Edinburgh), and Nelson Oppong (University of Edinburgh). The three panellists brought a wide mix of disciplinary backgrounds, career trajectories and institutional experiences to what emerged as a thoughtful and grounded conversation about navigating the shifting landscape of academia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A central theme of the discussion was interdisciplinarity \u2014 navigating the pressures and tensions it poses for early career scholars. Panellists reflected on how the first degree is often assumed to define a scholar\u2019s disciplinary identity but stressed that this need not be a limiting factor. What matters more is cultivating a research vision, building on the initial passion and questions that draws one to research. This is developed over time and interdisciplinary work can be enriching and productive but may also sometimes feel like a \u201cbottomless pit\u201d if pursued without direction. The key is not to attempt to be well-versed at everything at once, but to demonstrate how one\u2019s research makes connections with insights or concepts from different disciplines and how they are being brought back into \u2014 and contributing to \u2014 a particular field. Holding onto one\u2019s research curiosities and passion, while building a coherent vision over time, is essential to making interdisciplinarity sustainable and meaningful. This work may not always fit into pre-existing boxes but might be worth translating (and finding ways to bend the boxes where possible) for the audience being addressed \u2013 whether at conferences or job interviews. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The panel also strongly encouraged early career researchers to recognise themselves as experts in their domain, emphasising that they bring new ideas and directions into their fields. They also advised taking a strategic approach to publishing: mapping the journals, concepts, and ideas that one reads and follows closely. And tracing the work of scholars one wants to be in conversation with, in thinking about potential publication venues. Rather than aiming to publish a high volume of papers, the panel suggested aiming for striking a balance \u2014 between research papers, blogs, reports, reviews or creative work \u2014 and thinking more broadly about scholarly efforts through teaching, workshops, conferences, and peer review as ways of building one\u2019s engagement and presence within a field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the topic of academic jobs, the discussion emphasised spending time and effort in understanding the specific institutional terrain and national context in which one is applying \u2014 whether in Europe, the United States, the United Kingdom or elsewhere, \u2014 and to tailor their application material accordingly. Specific advice in this regard included encouraging candidates to ask sharp, well-thought questions during the interview to demonstrate their thoughtful engagement with the role and institution. They also suggested reaching out to people at the institution in advance when appropriate, using these conversations to test ideas and gain insights into the role and department, before applying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, in this context, the panel acknowledged the difficult realities of navigating rejection, intense competition, and uncertainty in the academic job market. In response to an audience question on managing these pressures, they emphasized the importance of finding support within one\u2019s communities and pausing to reflect on personal priorities \u2014 such as building a family, buying a house, caring for ageing family members, or choosing where to live \u2014 rather than sacrificing them in the sole pursuit of an academic career. They stressed pacing work and resisting the pressures of constant productivity, recognising it as an unsustainable trajectory. The discussion concluded with practical advice on cultivating networks of support, care, and solidarity as essential resources for surviving and thriving in academia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The panel was jointly organised by jointly organized by AI Ethics & Society<\/a>, the Planetary AI <\/a>project, and the Digital Economy and Society Cluster<\/a> at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. We are grateful to the panellists for sharing their time and thoughtful perspectives. We would also like to thank everyone who joined us, and we look forward to building on the conversation in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Across the higher education sector, research and teaching staff are increasingly contending with shifting funding landscape, engaging with multiple disciplines, publishing cross-disciplinary research, and uncertainty about potential career pathways. Against this backdrop of significant changes, how might scholars, particularly at early stages of their academic careers, respond to these changes and what might meaningful forms of mentorship, collaboration, and support look like in an unsettled academic landscape? Our recent panel discussion, held on 18 Feb 2026, brought together early career and senior scholars to reflect on these and other challenges of navigating academic work today. The panel included Adam Badger (Newcastle University), Karen Gregory (University of Edinburgh), and Nelson Oppong (University of Edinburgh). The three panellists brought a wide mix of disciplinary backgrounds, career trajectories and institutional experiences to what emerged as a thoughtful and grounded conversation about navigating the shifting landscape of academia. A central theme of the discussion was interdisciplinarity \u2014 navigating the pressures and tensions it poses for early career scholars. Panellists reflected on how the first degree is often assumed to define a scholar\u2019s disciplinary identity but stressed that this need not be a limiting factor. What matters more is cultivating a research vision, building on the initial passion and questions that draws one to research. This is developed over time and interdisciplinary work can be enriching and productive but may also sometimes feel like a \u201cbottomless pit\u201d if pursued without direction. The key is not to attempt to be well-versed at everything at once, but to demonstrate how one\u2019s research makes connections with insights or concepts from different disciplines and how they are being brought back into \u2014 and contributing to \u2014 a particular field. Holding onto one\u2019s research curiosities and passion, while building a coherent vision over time, is essential to making interdisciplinarity sustainable and meaningful. This work may not always fit into pre-existing boxes but might be worth translating (and finding ways to bend the boxes where possible) for the audience being addressed \u2013 whether at conferences or job interviews. The panel also strongly encouraged early career researchers to recognise themselves as experts in their domain, emphasising that they bring new ideas and directions into their fields. They also advised taking a strategic approach to publishing: mapping the journals, concepts, and ideas that one reads and follows closely. And tracing the work of scholars one wants to be in conversation with, in thinking about potential publication venues. Rather than aiming to publish a high volume of papers, the panel suggested aiming for striking a balance \u2014 between research papers, blogs, reports, reviews or creative work \u2014 and thinking more broadly about scholarly efforts through teaching, workshops, conferences, and peer review as ways of building one\u2019s engagement and presence within a field. On the topic of academic jobs, the discussion emphasised spending time and effort in understanding the specific institutional terrain and national context in which one is applying \u2014 whether in Europe, the United States, the United Kingdom or elsewhere, \u2014 and to tailor their application material accordingly. Specific advice in this regard included encouraging candidates to ask sharp, well-thought questions during the interview to demonstrate their thoughtful engagement with the role and institution. They also suggested reaching out to people at the institution in advance when appropriate, using these conversations to test ideas and gain insights into the role and department, before applying. However, in this context, the panel acknowledged the difficult realities of navigating rejection, intense competition, and uncertainty in the academic job market. In response to an audience question on managing these pressures, they emphasized the importance of finding support within one\u2019s communities and pausing to reflect on personal priorities \u2014 such as building a family, buying a house, caring for ageing family members, or choosing where to live \u2014 rather than sacrificing them in the sole pursuit of an academic career. They stressed pacing work and resisting the pressures of constant productivity, recognising it as an unsustainable trajectory. The discussion concluded with practical advice on cultivating networks of support, care, and solidarity as essential resources for surviving and thriving in academia. The panel was jointly organised by jointly organized by AI Ethics & Society, the Planetary AI project, and the Digital Economy and Society Cluster at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. We are grateful to the panellists for sharing their time and thoughtful perspectives. We would also like to thank everyone who joined us, and we look forward to building on the conversation in the future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-report"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":456,"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetaryai.net\/staging\/4545\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}