Transitioning from Lecturers to Scholars: Coping with Changes and Expanding Interdisciplinary Collaborative Networks for Enhancing Research Productivity

Description

A self-financed tertiary institution in Hong Kong (hereafter "the College") has been undergoing a transition toward a private university. To achieve this goal, one of the College's objectives is to nurture the academic staff's research excellence and catch the wave of Industrial 4.0. While the College provides support such as teaching remission and seed research funds, lecturers who take the research "lane" need to balance the roles of teaching, administration, community engagement, and research as a value-adding practice. Therefore, they constantly cope with changes in personal career goals, collegial relations and the institutional landscape. In this talk, I will report a part of a larger study on how lecturers view these recent changes in the College. The focus will be on the English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) lecturers in the research lane regarding the change in the career pathway, achievements and challenges. Preliminary findings suggest their generally positive perception of the changes and recognition of the importance of collaboration. The main goal of this study is to identify specific areas in which research-lane staff need support from the College to enhance their competitiveness, confidence and collaboration.

Period	16 Sept 2022