https://doi.org/10.31648/mcsc.10969
The proposed project seeks to provide a deep and comprehensive understanding of the changing scholarly communications attitudes & behaviours and work-life of the Polish Arts, Humanities and Theology (A&H&T) early career researchers (ECRs). It is about young scientists’ attitudes and behaviours related to seeking and using scientific information, citation, publishing, dissemination, reviewing and reputation building. This subject matter in relation to representatives of the three fields mentioned has not yet been addressed.
It also, importantly, sets out to establish whether things are changing, among others as a consequence of the external turbulent environment. These external circumstances, which attracted attention at the drafting stage, included the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, progressive inflation, as well as changes brought about by reforms in science and higher education in Poland, such as the establishment of new scientific disciplines in 2018 (and 2022), and the introduction of new rules for evaluating the work of scientists.
A new circumstance, which had already emerged during the course of the project, turned out to be the development of generative artificial intelligence (the release of GPT chat by OpenAI at the end of 2022), and Polish humanists, theologians and artist scientists were included in the international and interdisciplinary analysis from the Harbingers of change series (https://ciber-research.uk/harbingers.html).
It also seeks to contextualise the study by contrasting A&H&T ECRs with their compatriots in science, engineering, medicine, agriculture and social sciences who were and still are respondents in interdisciplinary, international projects: Harbingers_1 (funded by The Publishing Research Consortium & CIBER Research Ltd.; 2015–2018 https://ciber-research.com/harbingers.html), Harbingers_2 with the context of pandemic (funded by The A.P. Sloan Foundation; 2020–2022 http://ciber-research.com/harbingers-2/) as well as Harbingers_3 in the context od artificial intelligence in scholarly communication (CIBER Research Ltd. Harbingers-3).
This project is a national follow-up of these international projects carried out in eight countries, this time with reference to Polish representatives of previously unanalysed scientific disciplines (Arts & Humanities), and taking into account the specificity of the Polish scientific community.
Given that ECRs are a very large, vulnerable and strategic body of researchers (the professors of tomorrow) it is essential that we all understand how they are faring? How are they communicating? Are the harbingers of change? Are they any different from their peers in science, engineering, medicine, agriculture and social sciences, so requiring special attention in regard to such things as e.g. reputational platforms or new technologies? Also, as many are Millennials, are they possibly bringing new ways of behaviour with them that should obtain the attention of senior colleagues, publishers, funders, science and cultural policy makers?
The project used longitudinal in-depth interviews, consisting of two rounds of interviews – the first was conducted in the spring of 2023 and the second in early 2024. The respondents were twenty five novice researchers from various disciplines in three fields: humanities, theology and arts. The transcription of the online interviews was completed by the interviewees via email correspondence. The research methodology is analogous to that used in international Harbingers projects (described on the CIBER centre website and in publications).
The publications to date and the open data collections produced by the project are listed below (the project is scheduled for completion in early 2026).
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