Temporary Mobility - A Policy for Academic Career Development

Cognetti de Martiis, Dept. of Aconomics and Statistics Working Paper 21/13

30 Pages Posted: 30 Apr 2013

See all articles by Cornelia Lawson

Cornelia Lawson

The University of Manchester - Alliance Manchester Business School

Sotaro Shibayama

University of Tokyo; CIRCLE Lund University

Date Written: April 29, 2013

Abstract

Researcher mobility has received increasing support from policy makers around the world as an instrument to improve the performance of research systems by promoting the diffusion of knowledge, and facilitating knowledge and technology transfer, network creation, and productivity. International mobility grants have been a preferred means for governments across the world to facilitate the mobility of their research base. This paper investigates the effect of temporary mobility spells abroad on promotion. Temporary research visits may help to expand existing networks and promote knowledge transfer while at the same time ensuring career stability, identified as the main barrier to mobility in Europe and Japan. Using a dataset of 370 bioscience professors in Japan we identified their average career path and evaluated the role of mobility in Japanese universities. We find that international research visits have a positive effect on promotion and reduce the waiting time for promotion by one year. This provides evidence that these visits also benefit a researcher’s career in the long-term. This positive research visit effect is weaker for researchers who also change jobs. Research visits may therefore present a way for immobile researchers to speed up promotion without the need for job mobility. We further find that, while research visits of tenured staff enhance the career by providing an early chair, postdocs have no lasting effect on career progression. Instead, they may be an indicator for a researcher’s struggle to find a permanent position after the PhD.

Keywords: Academic labour market, Researcher mobility, Career paths, Promotion

JEL Classification: O31, I23

Suggested Citation

Lawson, Cornelia and Shibayama, Sotaro, Temporary Mobility - A Policy for Academic Career Development (April 29, 2013). Cognetti de Martiis, Dept. of Aconomics and Statistics Working Paper 21/13, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2257889 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2257889

Cornelia Lawson (Contact Author)

The University of Manchester - Alliance Manchester Business School ( email )

Booth Street West
Manchester, M15 6PB
United Kingdom

Sotaro Shibayama

University of Tokyo ( email )

Hongo 7-3-1
Bunkyo-ku
Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656
Japan

HOME PAGE: http://sotaroshibayama.weebly.com/

CIRCLE Lund University ( email )

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
152
Abstract Views
1,185
Rank
349,069
PlumX Metrics