Managing Research Environments: Heterarchies in Academia. A Response to Cumming

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The first stereotypical academic environment – the ‘guru model’ – is strongly hierarchical but not highly networked. This environment is one of strong silos, such as relatively isolated laboratory groups. Each such lab group is headed by a professor (the ‘guru’) and responds to a dean or head of department. In this environment, hierarchy is also pronounced within lab groups. Postdocs occupy places between professors and PhD students, acting as intermediaries, or perhaps de facto supervising PhD students (very possibly without receiving official credit for it). In this environment many individuals work on different projects. Exchange among them is not strictly necessary and remains limited–that is, even within the lab, there is no strong culture of lateral collaboration (e.g., among PhD students or among postdocs). The overall environment is competitive and, arguably, some very successful professors have organized their labs in this way.
Original languageEnglish
JournalTrends in Ecology and Evolution
Volume31
Issue number12
Pages (from-to)900-902
Number of pages3
ISSN0169-5347
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.12.2016

    Research areas

  • Ecosystems Research - Environmental Sciences & Ecology, Evolutionary Biology , Genetics & Heredity, Ecology