Navigating Academia – lecture

The IDUB IMSErt team invites you to a lecture by Prof. Ben Derudder entitled “Navigating Academia: A Map with Blurred Boundaries, Hidden Layers, and Shifting Landmarks.” The meeting will take place on September 12 at 4:00 p.m. in Collegium Maius (room 203). The lecture will be held in English.

This talk explores the evolving and often ambiguous nature of academic success, especially within the social sciences and humanities. Using the metaphor of a map that is incomplete, layered, and constantly changing, it reflects on how researchers navigate their careers in a landscape shaped by disciplinary fluidity, institutional complexity, and shifting markers of achievement.

The first part examines the structure of this landscape: blurred boundaries between roles and fields, hidden layers of expectations and informal norms, and landmarks that move as academic cultures and priorities evolve. The second part turns to navigational strategies: how to make choices, build collaborations, and remain adaptable in the face of uncertainty. The third part considers how the map looks different depending on one’s position - disciplinary background, career stage, institutional setting - highlighting the importance of context in shaping both opportunities and challenges.

Rather than offering a fixed formula, the talk invites reflection on how we each read and redraw the map of academia, and how embracing its complexity can be a source of both challenge and creativity.

Ben Derudder is Director of the KU Leuven Urban Studies Institute and Associate Director of the Globalisation and World Cities (GaWC). He is recognised as one of the most influential scholars in urban studies and has received the Research.com Social Sciences & Humanities Leader Award in Belgium annually from 2022 to 2025.