La fabrique de l’internationalisation : trajectoires de recherche et pratiques de recrutement dans l’espace académique
Promoted by the European Union over the past two decades, the internationalization of research careers, and in particular the mobility of researchers, remains a complex, heterogeneous phenomenon in the European landscape (Hamann and Zimmer 2017; Musselin 2004). In political and social sciences, the internationalization of research careers has often been analyzed in terms of public policy. However, it is important to consider how internationalization is produced at the micro and meso social levels. What role do local institutions, individual researchers, and institutional actors play in shaping internationalization? Why do academic institutions frame mobility as both a mark of excellence and a "women's issue"? How do early-career researchers balance mobility with their personal lives. Finally, how does the internationalization of research careers transform the hiring process ?
This research focuses on Switzerland, which has the most internationalized academic system in Europe (Geuna 2015). I examine some of the ways in which internationalization is produced, from the PhD level to postdoctoral level and professorial appointment. The study is based on a qualitative dataset, that includes 55 interviews with academic actors and the ethnographic observations of 50 hiring committees in Swiss Universities.
Marie Sautier is a sociologist and a SNF-LIVES PhD Candidate, at Lausanne University (Switzerland), and at the Centre for the Sociology of Organizations, Sciences Po Paris, CNRS (France). Her research focuses on recruitment practices, equality policies, and the internationalization of academic careers. She took part in the Garcia EU project “Gendering the academy and research: combating career instability and asymmetries” and has published on career trajectories and social inequalities in Science in different national contexts (Switzerland, France, UK), as well as on the intersection of mobility, gender, and precariousness in academia.
