Resilient Academics

A collaborative project by The University of Melbourne, University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, University of California-Davis, and University of Queensland, funded by Universitas 21. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has foregrounded the importance of individual and collective resilience, forcing each one of us to face challenges that may threaten our lives and livelihoods. Some academics have been able to adapt to this new paradigm, and even thrive. This project will set out to uncover some of the strategies shared by individual academics who have been successfully navigating this crisis. 

What makes or breaks one’s ability to thrive in this crisis? Hearing stories people tell about themselves can help academics understand how their identities are transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the longer-term recovery from adversity through the development of resilience strategies. 

Wave 1, 2020-2021 

In 2020, we launched the project Reimagining Academic Horizons: Stories We Tell where we investigated the resilience of higher education academics around the world. We conducted podcast interviews and surveyed academics about their views and strategies that enabled them to withstand the adversities of the COVID-19 pandemic. These have helped support other academics to reflect on their own evolving academic identities and develop resilience strategies. In March 2022, published the book Academic Resilience: Personal Stories and Lessons Learnt from the COVID Experience to provide different perspectives from academics across disciplines, career stage, and global contexts about how resilience in academia is developed. 

Wave 2, 2021-2022 

We have scaled up the earlier project with Resilience Beyond Borders: Im/Mobilities of Underrepresented Academics During the COVID-19 Pandemic. We examine resilience practices of historically underrepresented higher education academics in their experience of various forms of mobilities (e.g., geographic, vertical career mobility, etc). Similar to Wave 1, we are conducting an online survey as well as curating narratives and podcast interviews to nuance what was previously established in Reimagining Academic Horizons: Stories We Tell. 

 
Wave 1 project was approved by the relevant Human Research Ethics Committee at each institution: 2020-14456-12639-2 (University of Melbourne), EA200087 (The University of Hong Kong), and 2020-559 (National University of Singapore). Wave 2 has been approved by the National University of Singapore Institutional Review Board (NUS-IRB-2021-989), The University of Hong Kong Human Research Ethics Committee (EA220038) and ratified by the University of Queensland Research Ethics and Integrity (2022/HE000296). 

Please contact us to find out more.