Abstract
This chapter sets the scene for the discussion about redesigning academic career frameworks by highlighting the driving forces behind new academic career pathways (education-focused and practice/entrepreneurship ones) recently introduced in a number of universities across the globe. It acknowledges the value of the career framework redesign initiatives to date, as well as the core challenges which the volume is addressing: career framework redevelopment has been uneven across the sector globally, there is insufficient comparative data and limited guidance on how to design frameworks that enable the sector to thrive for the benefit of society. Valuable progress risks being undone by implementation processes not sufficiently attuned to local institutional contexts or to the full spectrum of faculty responses to change. The chapter unpacks the view of universities which underpins this volume. It includes a note about academic development, signalling the need to align new frameworks and the development offer and highlighting the importance of building capacity in universities for new ways of learning and working that generate new solutions. It lays the foundation for the discussion in subsequent chapters, which culminates with 12 principles for framework redesign and implementation in Chap. 6.
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Sterling, M., Blaj-Ward, L., Simpson, R., Crawford, K. (2023). Introduction. In: Redeveloping Academic Career Frameworks for Twenty-First Century Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41126-7_1
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