by Nathaniel Whelan
Research mobility has become a crucial aspect of internationalization over the past couple decades. At Carleton, we welcome international professors, scholars, and students for long- and short-term research visits through our Visiting Scholars program. Since 2000, we’ve hosted approximately 1,500 researchers from over 80 countries and 740 institutions. In the last 10 years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of scholars coming to our campus, speaking to the growing importance of mobility in academic circles.
For Carleton, it helps increase our global visibility and improves our capacity to engage internationally. In return, those who come to Ottawa experience the many benefits of international research mobility, including access to new resources, the opportunity to collaborate on various projects, and the chance to discover different perspectives.
One such scholar is Dr. Artur Demchuk from Lomonosov Moscow State University, who came to Carleton in February 2019. Dr. Demchuk is an associate professor in Comparative Politics whose academic interests include environmental policy and conflict management. As a guest speaker at our International Research Mobility Symposium last March, he talked about his experience with the Visiting Scholars program and how it benefited his research.
“Colleagues from the Department of Political Science and from other departments who deal with environmental issues were always available for appointments, ready to share their experience, give some recommendations about what sources to use, and where I [could] find some unique information I could not find back in Russia.”
Dr. Demchuk also spoke about the opportunities that being physically present afforded him: “Another very important part of my visit, because I am a university professor, was related to teaching, and thanks to [my faculty host] and other colleagues, I had the chance to sit in on classes and give several talks and answer students’ questions on some topics related to Russian studies… This part of my experience helped me to know better the academic tradition of Carleton, how teaching is organized, how curriculum is developed, and to learn and compare teaching methods, and of course, to communicate with students.”
However, once travel restrictions were introduced as a result of Covid-19, universities across the world faced difficult questions on how best to support international research. Up until 2020, research mobility had traditionally been done in-person at Carleton, and so we were forced to rethink the ways we offer these opportunities and encourage global collaborations.
Recognizing the many advantages of modern technology, we quickly pivoted to a virtual space. Our new Virtual Research Visits program continues to champion international research activities in spite of the pandemic. This is done through the use of various web-based communication tools, which allow scholars to conduct research at Carleton from their home countries. To accommodate this new style of research mobility, we updated our guidelines and related policies.
“Introducing virtual research to the Visiting Scholars program offers more flexibility and accessibility for participants who now have the option of a fully virtually visit, or pairing it with an in-person visit. With increasing challenges to research mobility, such as border restrictions, funding for travel expenses, longer immigration application processing times, flight cancellations, and changing occupancy limitations in buildings, the virtual offering allows for the continuity of research in real time.”
-Yvonne Clevers, International Research Agreements and Mobility Coordinator
Since April 2020, we have welcomed more than 35 virtual visiting scholars who have started over 30 research projects, which involve four faculties and over 30 faculty hosts. We expect these numbers to rise over the coming years.
In preparation for the International Virtual Exchange Conference last October, Ms. Clevers and her colleagues conducted interviews with past virtual scholars to discuss their experiences with the program. What they discovered is that virtual research presents a number of new advantages and learning opportunities.
“Before Covid, I was a local researcher… I do research in my lab, [and] I share with my colleagues,” said Dr. Ferdi Kara, a virtual researcher from Bülent Ecevit University in Turkey. “Then with Covid and remote access all around the world… every group, they encounter the same problems, and I learned how they resolved their problems. So now, I can say that I am a more global researcher, and I can understand what’s going on in other labs.”
Dr. Halim Yanikomeroglu, Carleton professor and Dr. Kara’s faculty host, discussed the increased availability of his research team and how he even started his own YouTube channel where he shares all his talks with the wider international research community.
Thinking about the shift to virtual, he said: “I am seeing some benefit of Covid-19, because now we have a very established online presence and activities, which means that so many people around the world can join… Some of our research groups are routinely attended by more than 30 people. So now I am actually thinking: what should I do in 2022? Because, as you know, the university has planned gradually [to reopen] and of course, it should be like that, going back to some sort of normalcy. So my current plan is to keep some of the activities still virtual in the post-pandemic era.”
This idea of pursuing virtual research even when in-person mobility resumes was an interesting point of conversation for most of the scholars interviewed.
“I would be willing to do virtual research, engage in a virtual program or a research opportunity. Why? Because what I realized… during this pandemic, people have become more accessible, so we don’t have to go through [certain] channels,” said Jaya Jha, a virtual researcher from the University of Mumbai in India. “If I would have been physically present there, then probably to reach out to a particular professor, it would take me some time, I’d have to seek an appointment or I’d have to go to a particular office, and all that would have consumed my time, so it is quite time efficient… And especially for someone who’s working in [my] field where data is involved or where social media platforms are involved, I think a virtual medium works the best.”
Timothee Cabos, a virtual student researcher from the University of Montpellier in France, shared similar sentiments, but perhaps not quite as keen.
“I’m more inclined to do in-person research,” he said, “but the thing that was positive [was that my] internship was very much focused on the informatic part… It was easy to do an internship on the computer because everything was online. So if I have another opportunity to do an internship, which is a bit informatic or something like that, it is not a big problem because the tools are ready and they’re easy to use.”
With the positives of virtual research come several challenges. Some that made scholars hesitant to pursue virtual visits include mental health, different time zones, Wi-Fi connections, knowledge of online tools, and the simple fact that some researchers need to have physical access to a lab in order to complete their work.
Dr. Yanikomeroglu pointed out another important aspect missing from virtual visits. After talking about his increased availability, he admitted: “The quality of availability perhaps is different than sitting across the table with young researchers. That part is the missing part: the human touch.”
Following Dr. Demchuk’s talk at the International Research Mobility Symposium, Dr. Dirk De Bièvre from the University of Antwerp in Belgium expanded on this idea, emphasizing the importance of personal connections.
“Social interaction is not only a question of physical presence, it is also a question of emotional presence,” he said. “Being close to each other is something you can only achieve when you have physical mobility… We need to be emotionally involved with each other in order to be able as humans to learn from [one another]. Academia, scholarship, intellectual curiosity can only work if we really engage with each other also emotionally.”
He later continued: “In order to develop trust, we need to know each other, so it is absolutely crucial that international mobility is nurtured, is cherished by us as university organizers and why we need support staff to do this. And I have had the enormous pleasure of seeing that at Carleton University the support staff does this incredibly well.”
Even though the current pandemic has forced us to rethink the way we offer support, one thing that has not changed is our commitment to the success of our researchers, both local and international. As Carleton continues to navigate this unprecedented terrain, we strive to accommodate everyone as best as possible in order to continue furthering important research, forging global relationships, and keeping the spirit of internationalization alive.
As of January 2022, Carleton has resumed in-person visits on a case-by-case basis as long as scholars comply with the university’s travel advisory, the research cannot be done remotely, and permission of the Dean has been granted. Alongside the gradual reopening of our campus, we will continue to offer virtual research visits to those who can conduct their research from home, either prior to or as an alternative to an in-person visit.
For more information, please contact:
Yvonne Clevers, International Research Agreements and Mobility Coordinator