Rethinking academic career development in universities

In a relentless pursuit of ‘excellence’, academic communities are facing challenges of loneliness, burnout, loss of motivation and lack of legitimacy. How should we rethink career development in research? Traditionally, ‘talent’ (picked locally or acquired externally) is hired into positions with an expectation to perform along similar and standardised norms; we argue for more diverse and individual approaches to academic careers as part of academic citizenship. We outline a career programme for scientists and academic leaders developed by professors at the University of Copenhagen. We describe the programme's structure, content and outcomes, and evaluate the participant's gains from the first two rounds, each lasting ten months. We posit that senior scholars and top researchers can be drivers of creativity and academic leadership training across universities – a task that ideally should be part of their tenure.