What makes a professor? The answer depends on where in the world you are.

Winner of the CIHE Award for Significant Research on International Higher Education by the Association for the Study of Higher Education

In the twenty-first century, universities worldwide have found themselves thrust into a great "brain race" as nations, both developed and developing, seek to enhance their place in the global knowledge economy. As the concept of the de-localized university—one that has radically expanded, perhaps even beyond national borders—grows, competing nations have begun reshaping aspects of their national systems to accommodate global standards and metrics.

In Professorial Pathways, Martin J. Finkelstein and Glen A. Jones consider how academic careers vary in countries that are fundamentally different in their organization and dynamics. Building on 25 years of scholarship, the book confronts major questions: What can we learn from the experience of other nations as they seek to balance the seemingly contradictory imperatives of expanding access and ensuring global competitiveness? What are the implications of this rapidly changing policy environment for the health of the academic professions on which university teaching and scholarship depends? And how can we advance the comparative study of higher education and, in particular, of the academic profession?

The volume brings together detailed case studies of the latest—and ever-changing—educational developments in ten countries across Europe (France, Germany, United Kingdom, Russia), Asia (China, India, Japan), North America (United States, Canada), and South America (Brazil). Essays written by respected scholars in the field identify the major structural features of national higher education systems and academic markets that directly shape academic work and careers. Professorial Pathways will be of interest to anyone who toils in the vineyards of comparative and international higher education.

Contributors: Elizabeth Balbachevsky, Martin J. Finkelstein, N. Jayaram, Glen A. Jones, Barbara M. Kehm, Dan Mao, Christine Musselin, Peter Scott, Fengqiao Yan, Akiyoshi Yonezawa, Maria Yudkevich

Martin J. Finkelstein is a professor of higher education at Seton Hall University.

Martin J. Finkelstein's profile page

Glen A. Jones is a professor of higher education and the dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He is a coauthor of Governance of Higher Education: Global Perspectives, Theories, and Practices.

Glen A. Jones' profile page

• Winner, CIHE Award for Significant Research on International Higher Education

"What makes this well-written and very readable book unique is that it shows clearly how the crucial issues at stake are not only the subjective factors, such as where it is "better or worse" to work as an academic, but the ways in which structural imbalances increasingly shape the sector globally and reach well beyond the traditional boundaries of academia, thereby impacting on so many other aspects of the lives of individuals working in the field and beyond."

Times Higher Education