External Engagement of Academics in the Soft Sciences

Anna-Lena Rose, Sude Pekşen, Liudvika Leišytė, and Nina Bieling address these questions in their article “External Engagement of Academics in the Soft Sciences: Exploring Gender Patterns in the Baltic Sea Region”.

Their study is based on data from the APIKS (Academic Profession in the Knowledge-Based Society) project and focuses on four countries in the Baltic Sea region of the European Union – Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, and Sweden.

The authors use this data to examine the influence of institutional factors – including contractual agreements, institutional expectations, and considerations regarding career advancement – on the external engagement of academics in the social sciences and humanities.

The results of their study show that female academics are more likely to participate in external activities than their male colleagues. With regard to institutional expectations, it becomes clear that there is only a marginal and negative correlation with external engagement. In contrast, the relevance of external engagement for career advancement is perceived positively.

Read more in:
Rose, A.-L., Pekşen, S., Leišytė, L., & Bieling, N. (2026). External engagement of academics in the soft sciences: Exploring gender patterns in the Baltic Sea region. In F. Huang, G. A. Jones, & U. Teichler (Eds.), The shifting balance of academic systems: National, regional, global? (pp. 155–175). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-17936-4_8