‘I need a grant but spend time on teaching’: how academics in different positions play out the teaching–research nexus in interdependence with their contexts

The teaching–research nexus is omnipresent in academic professional life. How it is articulated depends on specific situations, contexts, and academic hierarchies. Initiatives to change the nexus in Dutch research universities are now informing European policy processes, but how academics in different positions play it out and deal with various contextual aspects is understudied. In this study, Wittgenstein’s notion of language games is combined with Elias’ notion of human figurations to assess articulations and interdependencies in the nexus. We analysed tensions and strategies in ten homogeneous focus group discussions with assistant, associate, and full professors across social sciences in The Netherlands. All academics identified tensions regarding the balancing of research and teaching and a systemic undervaluation of teaching, yet their games differed. Assistant professors experienced personal insecurities, whereas associate professors faced further differentiation of tasks, and full professors dealt with responsibilities concerning group performance and market-driven demands in both domains. In some figurations, research and teaching were balanced at team level. Paradoxically, all academics’ strategies tended to reproduce and strengthen patterns that exist at collective level, including tensions.