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As always, the summertime months of June and July are awash with social media posts from happy academics announcing their moves to pastures anew, usually to academic departments within the much haloed research intensive universities. However, academic success is both a matter of personal endeavour and being in the right place, and being among the right people, at the right time. Hence for some, these summertime career moves might be a harbinger for reinvigorated career advancement. Sadly, however, for some, these announcements are a precursor to career stagnation, demise and its attendant ramifications. Why is this? Because no matter which university you find yourself in, your academic career will play out within you academic department and your research group; in short, the colleagues whom you interact with on a daily basis collectively serve as a strong determinant for your current and future career trajectory.

Hence as you pour out the wine to celebrate your success in securing that much-desired appointment, you might need to ponder this question: Is this move the right one for your career? Ideally, you should have carried out some fairly indepth research on the academic department you are moving to. However, I am not holding my breath. Despite the many hours I have spent on recruitment panels, I remain surprised by the utter lack of knowledge most applicants have on the department and position they are interviewing for. Perhaps that’s forgivable, given that, by and large, our academic careers are marked by excessive workloads which preclude many from investing time and effort in researching their target departments. However, as I have found out over a fairly lengthy career across multiple academic departments, you only need a few indicators to have a feel for a particular department. In this article I highlight some of these indicators, and as you will notice, all these indicators have their roots in EDI – equality, diversity and inclusion.

As a general rule, each academic department has an EDI charter prominently displayed on their institutional website, along with the eyewatering EDI initiatives that they are championing. Read the charter, and all the nice supporting initiatives, but don’t stop there. If you have looked at a couple of departmental EDI charters, you will soon recognise that they look and sound awfully the same, which might leave you to wonder who plagiarised from whom. You need to dig deeper, and this is where this article comes in.

Factors to consider when deciding to change department

If you are considering a departmental move, this is what you need to look out for, at the very minimum:

1. Who gets to be professor in the department you are going to? Do these lucky individuals come from across all research strands within the department, or do they come mainly from a few core strands? Do education-focussed, and community and enterprise oriented-academics also get to be professors in this department? A generous spread of professorial appointments and promotions across education, enterprise and research is indicative of a healthy, airy department that is ready to reward excellence, wherever that excellence stems from. A narrow, dogmatic stream of professorial appointments is indicative of an impervious department ostensibly rooted to tradition, and hostile to creativity and innovation.
2. How does the departmental professoriate stack up on the EDI stacks? Is the professoriate predominantly drawn from the dominant population, or is there a healthy mix of ethnicities, individualities and orientations from across the entire protected characteristics spectrum, as specified in the UK Equality Act 2010, for example? If the answer is a clear no, then this is a dog-eat-dog department; have nothing to do with it.
3. What is the departmental ratio of the professoriate to the rest of the academics? How does this ratio compare with similar departments elsewhere? Too low a ratio, then know that this is a career-killing department where merit goes unrewarded. Stay away and look elsewhere.
4. What are the characteristics of academic turnover in the department? Too high a turnover might indicate that the department is a hostile environment, and too low a turnover ratio might indicate a group of academics who have become so traumatised that they now view themselves as uncompetitive elsewhere. This is a soul-destroying department, stay away from it, unless you have a career death wish.
5. What is the awarding gap at both undergraduate ad postgraduate taught level? Too high a gap indicates an insular department that is insensitive to the needs of any student and any member of staff who is not part of the dominant group, whatever and however the department defines dominant and non-dominant groupings. Only join this department at peril to your mental health and wellbeing.
6. What is the health of the department’s postgraduate taught programmes? Are they flourishing, or, compared to other programmes elsewhere, are they static, or even wilting? Word of mouth is an important method of recruitment at postgraduate taught (PGT) level, especially in these days of connected social media. A department with non-competitive PGT programmes is symptomatic of non-supportive, hierarchical, monolithic departments.
7. What is the health of the department’s postgraduate research programmes? What proportion of doctoral students get to complete their doctorates within reasonable timeframes, and who gets to drop out of their doctoral studies? High completion rates across the entire protected characteristics spectrum suggests a supportive environment. Drop out rates unhealthily skewed towards people with protected characteristics point to a department that is hostile to minoritised individuals, so be warned.
8. Who gets to join the department? Healthy, inclusive departments tend to attract a heathy mix of rising stars and aspiring academics, whilst hostile departments tend to be the destination for academic colleagues who are down on their luck. Iron sharpens iron, so being amongst a cohort of enthusiastic, energised, supportive individuals is a good tonic for your academic career.
9. Who gets to be featured in departmental newsletters and social media outlets? Is there too much preponderance on a few star academics, or do the departmental news announcements showcase an exciting array of success stories from across the entire department, students, academic staff and professional services staff included? Be warned, some departments are academic dictatorships, and this is no help to your academic career.
10. Who gets to go onto the academic conference circuit? As academics we all need serious scholarly exposure as much as we need oxygen. If opportunities for conference attendance are reserved only for a select few, then reconsider your job offer. You may be moving into an academic cul de sac where your destiny is to be a bits-and-pieces, non-promotable academic.

These are only a few factors that I have identified in my own academic career. You may have a few additional ones of your own. Despite the individualistic hype endemic in the academic world, career development is, at best, a collective endeavour. So let’s share, and let us actively support each other as best as we can.