Taru Siekkinen


General description

I am a higher education researcher working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Finnish Institute of Educational Research (FIER), in the Higher Education Research Group (HIEST). I defended my dissertation "The changing relationship between the academic profession and universities in Finnish higher education" in 2019, from the field of adult education. I have been working at FIER since 2012. 

I am the chair of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers in Finland (CHERIF), a board member of Higher Education Researchers in Europe (CHER), and an external member of the Faculty Board of the Faculty of Mathematics and Science at the University of Jyväskylä. I am also a member of the editorial board of Tiedepolitiikka-journal. 




Active JYU affiliations


Research interests

My research interests as a higher education researcher have mainly focused on the academic profession, academic work and academic careers, which includes many research themes at a concrete level.

I have been interested in how the academic profession has been affected by organisational and societal changes, mainly related to demands for greater efficiency and impact in research and teaching. I have studied recruitment in universities, where the new tenure track recruitment and career model has been my focus (book to be published in August 2024: Pekkola & Siekkinen: Tenure Tracks in European Universities: Managing Careers in Academia). Related to this, I have studied performance-based management in universities and its impact on academic work. In addition, I have focused on diversity, equity and inclusion in the context of academic careers; who has the opportunity to pursue a career in academia and what hinders/supports the career progression of different groups, including marginalised ones, in academia.

I am also interested in hybridity in higher education, i.e. how different values and logics, including those from the private sector, emerge in universities at different levels and what impact this has on academic work. In relation to academic leadership, I have studied how it has changed and how it reflects changes at the organisational and societal level.

A current research topic is crisis leadership in higher education. In this research project, we are looking at crisis preparedness in universities and universities of applied sciences, and the perceptions of middle and top management about past, present and future crises. In the project, the wellbeing in academic work is being also studied.

In addition, one of my research interest has been related to the university-industry collaboration; how research platformes have been created in universities and are they supporting collaboration of different sectors.






Fields of science


Follow-up groups


Personal keywords

Academic profession, academic work, academic careers, diversity, HRM in universities, university - industry -collaboration.


Keywords (YSO)


Projects as Principal investigator


Projects as Team Member

  • CHER-conference
      • Välimaa, Jussi
    • Federation of Finnish Learned Societies
    28/08/2017-30/08/2017


Publications and other outputs

  
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Author of research datasets


Last updated on 2024-28-05 at 11:44