Recruiting well into academic positions is a crucial factor for the quality and potential of faculty and their academic output. Recruiting practices are central in realizing academia’s ideal of being a living
meritocracy.

All aspects of academic recruitment are therefore intensely at the
forefront of the many parties involved in it: those who seek to be recruited, who evaluate and assess, who recruit and lead, and who administer and support along the way.

Traditions and norms regulate and determine highly specific and differentiated recruitment practices across academic disciplines, which stabilize and ensure continuity of embedded structures.

Diversity in research environments and methods is critical to ensure innovative and relevant research output. However, given academia’s persistent gender inequality evidenced in the leaky pipeline, the highly gender segregated distribution of status and resources and the widespread homogeneity among positions of power, there are strong indications that these embedded structures and practices are not conducive for establishing and maintaining a diverse, innovative and inclusive workforce. Existing practices and structures risk deteriorating research output, quality and relevance, and they present serious obstacles to those not currently in play but who aspire to working in academia. A further question is: may these structures and practices even inflict harm – not least if we see them in the light of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals?

This symposium will highlight and discuss ways to revise academic recruitment practices that may realize the meritocratic ideal, ensure diversity and inclusion of the academic workforce at all levels, and form the basis for innovative and well-rounded research and teaching output that involves and accommodates for a wide(r) diversity of needs and perspectives.