Kwiek, Marek2014-11-202014-11-202014Opening Speech, 5th Annual International Conference of the Russian Association of Higher Education Researchers, Moscow, October 18, 2014http://hdl.handle.net/10593/12162The academic profession has always been highly stratified. Through an analysis of academics from 11 European countries (N = 17,211), the role of a distinctive group of highly productive academics (upper 10 percent) is studied. The Opening Speech shows that this group is responsible for about a half of all articles published across Europe, and the pattern is consistent across 11 countries, 5 major clusters of academic fields, and across time. Our research tends to call into question the assumption regarding the relative homogeneity of the European (university-based) academic profession. From the perspective of knowledge production, the dividing line today is not only between academics employed in university and non-university sectors: it is also, perhaps more fundamentally, between highly productive academics and the remaining academics in the university sector itself. Based on research productivity rates, there are strikingly different academic communities across Europe and across individual countries. The policy message of this Opening Speech is that European universities in their struggles for more funding and recognition are so heavily reliant on the European research ultra-elite that every national reform agenda should explicitly take their role into consideration (as it should the role of non-producers, or "silent scientists").en-USresearch productivityacademic productivityresearch performancesocial stratification in scienceLotka's lawCAP dataEUROAC dataEuropean academic professionEuropean universitieshighly performing academicstop performersnon-performing academicsskewed distributionEuropean research elitecross-national studytime investmentresearch orientationacademic rolesteaching-research nexusacademic workplaceEurpean academicsacademic lifeworking time distributionresearch timeresearch time distributioncorrelates of research productivityacademic behaviorsacademic attitudesquantitative studycomparative studystar scientistsaverage academicsfaculty workacademic inequalitydivided academic professionsilent scientistsresearch non-performersEuropean higher educationcross-national pattermspatterns of productivityDerek de Solla PriceAlfred Lotkaknowledge productioninequality in knowledge productionArtykuł