Exploring a possible future for the scholar practitioner

This chapter provides a perspective on the possible future evolution of the roles and experiences of scholar-practitioners (or ‘practitioner-researchers’). Practitioners work increasingly in an ‘expanding knowledge environment’, exerting ever-stronger pressures on practitioners to ‘know’ more about their own work, to account for their actions rigorously and accurately, and to understand and articulate how their professional activities fit into a broader context. However, practitioner-researchers are often left with the sense that they must develop this deeper knowledge in isolation, among other reasons because the research community focused on higher education is concerned with questions that do not have clear implications for (or resonance with) practitioner concerns. Moved to undertake research focused on their own, scholar-practitioners must confront the very real challenges of researching one’s own field. Ultimately, a robust future for the scholar-practitioner will turn on effective capacity building in research methods for these individuals, as well as concerted collaboration between less experienced practitioner-scholars and colleagues with more refined research skills and more extensive experience with rigorous academic inquiry. Fundamentally, a commitment by key stakeholders to the notion of ‘intelligent internationalization’ is needed, which implies more effective and systematic engagement across policy, practice, and academic communities concerned with international higher education.