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For me, Positive Academia is a personal and professional mission that resonates deeply with my journey as a scientist and academic. Positive Aademia is a now a CIC (Comunity Interest Company) founded by Prof. Anne-Wil Harzing and myself. In December 2024 Anne-Wil and I celebrated three years of Positive Academia! Our collaboration has been a transformative, intertwined synergy of two academics at distinct stages of their careers, united by friendship, deep trust, and a shared vision of a kinder, more inclusive academic world. You can read the full story here:
Celebrating a Synergy of Passion: Reflecting on Three Years of (#)Positive Academia
Having navigated the challenges of scientific research and business studies in academia, I have experienced and witnessed the pressures that academics—i.e., researchers and teachers—face. I believe in fostering a supportive environment where the individual scholar comes first, allowing them to thrive personally and professionally.
My passion for crafting and cultivating a positive academic environment stems from my extensive experience working in high-pressure industry and academic settings. I have transitioned from scientific research and development for multinational companies to academia, engaging in change-making projects in both sectors for several years. We cannot deny that navigating our academic careers in highly competitive and often quite isolated neoliberal institutional environments is challenging. In these environments, we need to shift and reinforce collaboration and mutual support to nurture a culture where we all, individually and collectively, can flourish.
What drives me is the belief that #EveryLittleActionCounts. Whether it is supporting PGRs or ECRs, promoting well-being in the classroom, or encouraging positive social media practices among scholars, I have dedicated my work to building a space where academics feel valued and empowered. All these little actions are about embracing diversity, fostering meaningful collaborations, and ensuring that our contributions are recognized. Since co-founding Positive Academia with Anne-Wil Harzing, I have been actively engaged in research, teaching, and community-building efforts aimed at creating a more positive academic environment. My work includes guides on well-being activities, social media use, and interconnected learning in teaching, as well as various events and talks that bring together diverse voices to share insights and support one another.
Ultimately, Positive Academia matters to me because it aligns with my vision of what the academic world should be: a place of innovation, kindness, and meaningful, shared individual and collective contributions. To me, it is about leaving a legacy that future academics can build upon, fostering spaces where everyone’s contributions are recognized, no matter how big or small, and celebrated. Our journey is not just about transforming academia for today, but ensuring that the values of positivity, collaboration, and well-being are embedded in the academic cultures of tomorrow.
“Clashing with one another, honing each other, and fostering mutual growth.” – Kenichi Yamamoto
We often speak of expertise as if it lives apart from us – as if knowledge is something we process rather than something we practice.
But what if our expertise is not a shield to separate us from the world, but a bridge that connects us more deeply to it?
Each of us, in our disciplines – whether we study psychology, markets or organization ethics – carries a from of expertise that can serve humanity. No humanity as an abstract ideal, but as the people before us – our students, our colleagues, our communities, and those whose lives are shaped by the knowledge that we create.
The world right now does not suffer from a lack of intelligence – it suffers from a lack of careful intelligence – wisdom that combines knowledge with empathy, critique with compassion, and analysis with imagination. That is where we, as academics, come in.
Our expertise gives us power – the power to question, to illuminate and to challenge. But that power only fulfils its purpose when it used for humanity, not merely about it. When we ask – how does what I research, teach, or write contribute to human dignity, equity, and hope?
Supporting humanity through our expertise does not mean simplifying our work – it means humanizing it. It means recognizing that ideas, have consequences – that theories shape realities, and that our classrooms can become laboratories of empathy.
So, we need to remember, we already hold within us the tools to make it real. Every act of mentoring, every thoughtful critique, every time we choose collaboration over competition – we are practicing expertise in service of humanity and perhaps that is the most profound academic contribution we can make – not only to generate knowledge but to generate care through knowledge.
We need Positive Academia because something in our current academic culture has become quietly unsustainable. The very spaces meant to nurture inquiry and imagination have, too often, become spaces of anxiety, competition, and isolation. We have perfected the art of critique but we have forgotten the practice of care.
We need Positive Academia because brilliance should not come at the cost of belonging.
Because intellectual rigor and human kindness are not opposites – they are co-dependent.
We cannot produce meaningful knowledge if the people creating it are exhausted, invisible, or afraid to speak.
Positive Academia is not a naiive optimisim. It is a critical optimism – one that refuses cynism but also refuses silence.
It asks – what would academia look like if care was not an afterthought but an ethic?
If we valued listening as much as publishing?
If mentorship, collaboration, and community were recognized as forms of scholarly excellence, not invisible labour?
We need Positive Academia because our students watch how we relate to one another – and they learn from it. They learn whether knowledge is shared or hoarded, whether feedback builds or breaks, whether critique invites dialogue or domination. Every interaction is pedagogy. Every moment of care is a form of resistance. Positive Academia is a call to re-humanize the university. To make space for compassion without diluting critique. To honor slowness, reflection and relationality in systems obsessed with speed and metrics. It is about shifting from publish to perish culture to connect and flourish.
And we need this not just for ourselves but for the future of knowledge. Because knowledge emerges from fear cannot liberate – knowledge that grows from mutual care just might do so.
So, we need Positive Academia because we deserve to build a scholarly world that does not drain us but sustain us. A world where clashing and honing lead not to burnout but mutual growth towards a Positive Academia Collective Transformation. A world where the pursuit of truth and the practice of care are one and the same. That is not a utopian fantasy it is a choice, one small everyday act of care, courage and critical kindness at a time. And that’s what we have tried to capture in our recently published essay in the Management Learning Journal in which we invite you to join our Positive Academia Collective Transform