Academic independence does not mean intellectual isolation: Reflections from the CGHE Autumn School

Academic careers are often described through individual achievements: completing a doctorate, publishing papers, winning grants, securing a post. Yet one of my strongest reflections from the CGHE Autumn School at the Department of Education, University of Oxford was almost the opposite. Becoming an independent researcher does not mean becoming intellectually isolated. Independence develops through relationships — through spaces where we can share uncertainty, encounter different perspectives and test our own thinking.

Sharing the good days and the bad

This became apparent from the very first morning.

In Lauren Clark’s Good Day, Bad Day writing reflections, participants shared experiences of good and difficult moments in academic life. Listening to others, I repeatedly had the feeling: this could have been my story. Experiences that can feel highly personal when we face them alone suddenly became recognisable and shared.

What mattered was not simply discovering that other researchers also have bad days. It was the atmosphere in which these experiences could be discussed openly. There was no shame in acknowledging difficulty or uncertainty. Later that afternoon, during the small-group session on current research challenges, this openness became even more explicit. Participants brought real problems from their own research and academic lives. Others responded with suggestions, possible solutions, or simply recognition and understanding.

The experience made me think about the importance of intellectual safety. A supportive research community is not one in which difficulties disappear. It is one in which unfinished ideas and unresolved problems can be voiced without fear of being diminished by them.

Critical thinking also requires confidence

Yet academic community is not valuable only because it offers support. It can also create the conditions for critical thinking.

A question raised during Ben Mulvey’s workshop on making research connections stayed with me: how should an early career researcher respond when their interpretation differs from that of a highly established scholar in the field?

This is a familiar dilemma. During doctoral study, publication and the development of a new research agenda, we constantly encounter influential theories and scholars whose work has shaped the field before us. Respect for that scholarship is essential. But respect is not the same as taking established arguments for granted.

For me, this conversation captured an important transition in becoming a researcher. We need to learn the literature, but we also need to learn how to enter into dialogue with it: to ask what an influential argument explains well, what assumptions it rests upon, what it may leave unexplained, and whether another interpretation is possible.

Belonging to an academic community should therefore give us greater confidence to think critically, not greater pressure to conform.

Communities are also something we build

On the second morning, the conversation on negotiating the postdoctoral years offered another perspective on academic community. Hearing postdoctoral researchers speak candidly about rejection, uncertainty, short-term contracts and the difficulty of finding a place in academia made visible a career trajectory that is often much less linear than its final outcomes suggest.

What stayed with me most, however, was how relationships gradually changed that trajectory.

The story began with finding a few people with similar interests and concerns. A small circle formed. They met, supported one another, exchanged ideas, wrote together and developed new initiatives. Over time, those connections grew into a wider community and much larger activities.

This changed the way I thought about networking. Academic community is not simply something that already exists and that early career researchers must somehow gain access to. It can also begin very modestly: with a conversation, a small peer group, a shared problem or an idea that several people want to pursue together.

In that sense, we do not only find communities. We make them.

Perhaps the most fitting evidence came after the Autumn School itself had ended. Within hours, messages were already circulating: invitations to stay connected, share events and opportunities, join future webinars, contribute to activities, meet again and explore possible collaborations. The formal programme had finished, but the relationships were already beginning to move beyond it.

I arrived in Oxford thinking about writing, publishing, grants and the practical challenges of an early academic career. I left thinking more deeply about the social conditions that make those activities possible.

Academic independence matters. But independence should not be confused with isolation. Sometimes we become more capable of thinking for ourselves precisely because we have found people with whom we can think together.

Written  by Yan Wang, University of Jyväskylä, Finland