Across the globe, colleges and universities are reconfiguring themselves through mergers, accountability frameworks, performance metrics, and new governance models. But in the rush to modernize, leaders may overlook a quieter shift that determines whether those reforms succeed: how change reshapes the people who carry out the institution’s mission every day.

A recent global literature review led by researcher Raquel M. G. Marques, titled “Academic Identities and Higher Education Change,” published in Higher Education Research & Development (2023), examines how these structural shifts influence faculty identity—the sense of who academics are, what they value, and how they find purpose in their work.

Drawing on 44 empirical studies published between 2010 and 2022, the review traces the ways scholars resist, adapt, or blend new expectations into their professional selves. The findings reveal patterns familiar to many higher education leaders: increasing workload and bureaucracy, heightened competition, and an uneven valuation of teaching versus research. Yet the research also points to specific conditions that help faculty maintain meaning and engagement during periods of disruption.

Marques, a Ph.D. student funded by Portugal’s Foundation for Science and Technology, says her interest in the human side of reform grew from watching policy debates that rarely included the people affected by them.

“We talk a lot about structures and reform,” she said. “But not so much about the impact of these changes on the people who experience them nearly every day—teachers, researchers, and students. My research focuses on this human dimension, exploring how academics interpret their work and themselves in times of transformation.”

The literature she and her colleagues analyzed makes clear that identity in higher education is fluid rather than fixed. Faculty continually negotiate who they are in response to institutional culture, policy pressures, and their own stage of their career. According to Marques, identity is “something we continuously perform and embody,” not a static label. That means reform inevitably touches identity—and how that process unfolds can determine whether change becomes a source of renewal or burnout.

The studies reviewed show that many universities, particularly in Western Europe, North America, and Australasia, have incorporated private-sector management practices emphasizing metrics, outcomes, and rankings. These policies often redefine what counts as valuable academic labor.

Faculty describe feeling pulled toward measurable outputs such as grant income, publication counts, and student-evaluation scores at the expense of the deeper, less quantifiable work of mentoring, discovery, and public service. The tension has emotional consequences such as anxiety, fatigue, and what several studies call an “erosion of meaning.”

Still, the evidence also shows that academics respond creatively. Some resist, invoking disciplinary values and professional autonomy to challenge what they view as the commodification of knowledge. Others adapt by reframing new tasks as opportunities for impact or by selectively aligning with institutional goals to protect time and resources for students. Many inhabit a middle ground that blends both approaches. One study calls these scholars “Flexians”—faculty who shift their language and emphasis depending on context, using strategic flexibility to survive and sometimes thrive in a system of constant flux.

Marques sees this negotiation nearly every day in her research interviews.

“For example, a professor may engage in entrepreneurial activities to align with funding priorities while still presenting these efforts as a form of social contribution rather than market compliance,” she said. “They resist internally but must adapt externally. Their ongoing negotiation between personal values and institutional pressures is what we mean by identity in flux.”

The review also highlights key differences between early-career and senior academics. Newer faculty, already socialized into a culture of metrics and precarity, often display remarkable adaptability but recognize there is little freedom to push back.

“They know they have to play the game,” Marques said. “They are the most precarious, therefore the most vulnerable.”

Senior academics, with tenure or reputational security, tend to adopt a more critical stance. Some express nostalgia for collegiality and autonomy they feel has eroded, but many use their stability to mentor younger colleagues or advocate for policy reform.

What determines whether change feels empowering or alienating, Marques said, is institutional culture.

“Institutions that value collegiality, dialogue, and transparency can be empowering, as people experience a sense of shared purpose,” she said. “However, when the culture becomes more individualistic or competitive, change tends to feel alienating and emotionally draining. The same policy can produce completely different reactions depending on whether academics feel seen and heard.”

Studies consistently find that organizational environments emphasizing trust, open communication, and community mitigate the negative effects of reform. When departments operate as cooperative “tribes” rather than performance units, faculty display higher resilience and engagement. Conversely, when universities reward individual competition, short-term productivity, or constant self-promotion, identity fragmentation and emotional exhaustion increase.

For senior administrators, the implications are clear: how leaders manage the relational side of change—acknowledgment, participation, and meaning-making—matters as much as the structural redesign. Faculty buy-in, Marques noted, is not a product of compliance but of coherence: people need to see how new systems connect to the fundamental purposes of education and scholarship.

The review also surfaces the cost of ignoring the emotional labor of academic life. Universities often underestimate the toll of continuous adaptation. Faculty not only teach and research, they also absorb uncertainty, model stability for students, and shoulder invisible service work that keeps departments functioning.

“We have to see people,” Marques said. “We cannot lose sight of what matters—not the profit, but people, knowledge, science, education.”

In practice, that means coupling performance systems with genuine investment in trust and community. Institutions that provide forums for reflective dialogue, equitable workload design, and recognition of multiple forms of contribution sustain healthier academic cultures. Studies cited in the review point to four broad strategies that correlate with stronger identity resilience and lower burnout.

Four Strategies for Healthier Academic Cultures

Balance Evaluation with Belonging

Use transparent promotion and tenure criteria that value teaching, mentorship, and community engagement alongside research to reduce alienation. Several European universities cited in the reviewed literature have begun weighing “third mission” work, knowledge transfer, and civic partnership as part of faculty assessment.

Redesign Workloads to Protect Their Purpose

Many of the studies describe faculty overwhelmed by administrative and reporting tasks that crowd out meaningful teaching and research. Streamlining bureaucracy and assigning credit for collaborative work can restore alignment between time spent and institutional mission.

Invest in Early Career Development

Because junior academics face the steepest pressures and least autonomy, targeted mentoring and professionalization programs can prevent early burnout.

“They are entering the profession already inside a performative culture,” Marques said. “We must show them that reflection and integrity are still valued.”

Cultivate Psychological Safety

The review underscores that well-being is not ancillary to performance; it’s foundational. Institutions that normalize discussion of stress, provide confidential counseling, and train department chairs to recognize overload see higher morale and retention.

While structural reform is unavoidable, Marques believes leaders can shape its moral tone.

“Change is inevitable,” she said. “But whether it becomes a source of renewal or burnout depends on how institutions care for the people who make them alive.”

Her message echoes what the research shows. Identity work is emotional work, and ignoring it undermines innovation. Across the 44 studies, scholars describe a profession that is simultaneously resilient and at risk. They recount renewed enthusiasm when collaboration or student learning is prioritized, and disillusionment when they feel reduced to data points. The most consistent recommendation from researchers is deceptively simple: treat academics as partners in meaning-making, not as metrics to be managed.

Marques argues that universities stand to gain from reframing performance as participation.

“Universities thrive when academics feel their work matters—to students, to knowledge, and to society,” she said. “We have to preserve this capacity to reflect and to think.”

The takeaway for leaders is less about abandoning accountability than about balancing it with agency. Faculty will continue to adapt; their identities will continue to evolve. The question is whether institutions design environments that honor that evolution. When administrators invite shared reflection, protect time for high-impact work, and align incentives with core academic values, reform can strengthen rather than erode professional purpose.