Making a Beginning Together: The Value of Collective Practice

Abstract

This chapter examines the value of an academic community as a space in which competing imperatives of collaboration and solo research may not only coexist but also interplay productively. It will critically analyse how developing collaborative practices within an unaffiliated research collective (Beyond Gender) has provided vital tools for building an interdisciplinary academic community within Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE). While the merits of cross-disciplinary collaboration and networking continue to be invoked in institutional strategic plans, academic reward systems continue to favour individual outputs and sole authorship. With researchers increasingly struggling with heavy workloads, it can be challenging to argue that the time and energy required to create and sustain meaningful professional networks is worthwhile. In this chapter, I demonstrate, however, that academic research is rarely the product of an individual. I advocate for collaborative working as a means of diversifying research knowledge and generating adaptable ways of working. I illustrate this by demonstrating how involvement in Beyond Gender has generated research activity at SRHE. It is increasingly acknowledged that mattering and belonging are helpful to our understanding of higher education and to creating effective learning spaces (Gravett, 2023; Carruthers Thomas, 2019). This chapter aligns with this growing area of scholarship, showing that mattering and belonging fostered through academic community building supports creativity and innovation in research.

Citation

Murphy, S. (2024), "Making a Beginning Together: The Value of Collective Practice", Aarnikoivu, M. and Le, A.T. (Ed.) Building Communities in Academia (Surviving and Thriving in Academia), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 125-140. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83797-500-620241009