It’s hard to be an academic right now. But it feels almost impossible to be a scholar. And while the difference between the two might seem subtle, it’s everything. The academic is rewarded whereas the scholar is overlooked.

Academics perform knowledge. Scholars pursue it. One chases metrics, the other meaning. One is paid to write, the other writes to understand. And increasingly, one is visible. The other is invisible.

What gets rewarded isn’t what matters most

Both roles have always coexisted and lived in relative harmony, though it’s become a lot shaky in recent decades. There was room for slow thinking, for publishing when you had something worth saying, and not because it was expected or due. The scholar had a place in the university.

Now, productivity has swallowed purpose and performance has replaced pursuit. I’ve felt this most acutely when comparing two papers I published last year: one in an unranked journal about Wellbeing and Life Design, the other in a prestigious Q1 journal about something I can’t even remember now. Obviously the Q1 article brought praise and celebrations of professional recognition. But the Wellbeing one? That’s the one I’m proud of. It’s the piece that advanced my thinking, made me felt proud as a researcher, and still resonates. And yet, in the eyes of my institution, it barely registered.

I’m not bitter about it. I’m just awake to this landscape I’m operating in.

I see that what gets rewarded isn’t thoughtful work, or even impactful work. It’s just productive work. At my university, a colleague was recently given a publication award. Not for influence or reach of the journal articles, but for volume. Their work had few citations, and most were actually self-citations. But that didn’t matter. They produced and overdelivered on their expectations. And the university system applauded.

It’s a system that mistakes quantity for quality. Where articles are submitted not to spark ideas but to meet quotas. Where the value of writing is reduced to the journal rank it lands in, not the difference it makes. Where metrics dictate meaning.

I’ve written before about how academic publishing is losing its soul. But this post goes beyond publishing for it’s about identity.

The cost of being slow

The tension I have is this:

The more I try to honour the scholar in me, the more I risk underperforming as an academic. And that conflict is exhausting.

Slow scholarship takes time. It asks for stillness, for letting ideas brew, for writing that doesn’t begin with a publication target in mind. But taking that time means turning away from the performance of output. It means not chasing the citation game. It means risking invisibility in a system that rewards visibility.

And yet I’m not ready to give up on the scholar entirely. I don’t think I ever will.

If universities can’t fund the work of scholars, maybe scholars need to find other ways to fund themselves. I’ve noticed more academics building public profiles for independence. Launching their own courses. Starting YouTube channels. Creating podcasts. Not to become influencers, but to reclaim time. To create spaces where scholarship can breathe again.

Because let’s be honest, the modern university is no longer about nurturing scholars. It manages academics and incentivises performances. It evaluates us by outputs, not insights. Students are treated like customers. Engagement becomes a performance. And the pressure to make things palatable hollows out what makes education powerful.

In these conditions, it’s not just research that suffers. Teaching suffers too. When students disengage, we take it personally. When metrics fall short, we carry the blame. The pressure to perform is relentless and so is the erosion of care.

Is the university selling an image it no longer delivers?

But here’s the part I keep circling back to.

Most people who enter academia are drawn by the image of the scholar. The quiet thinker. The curious writer. The one who reads not to quote, but to understand. The one who stays up late with an idea, not a deadline. Truth bomb: That person is being edged out.

What we have now is a system that sells the image of the scholar, while demanding the output of the academic.

No one tells you that. You have to learn it yourself. The saddest part? Many early career academics only realise this after years of chasing a version of academia that no longer exists. And many senior academics refuse to admit that it’s gone.

So now what?

If there’s any hope, it’s in naming this reality. In saying it clearly:

Being a scholar and being an academic are not the same thing.

And pretending that they are, or that institutions will value both equally, is a kind of deception. It keeps people in systems that will never reward the kind of work they most want to do.

But maybe we can start somewhere smaller. With slow writing. With thinking that doesn’t begin with impact factors. With conversations that prioritise care. With carving out time to catch our breath.

The scholar is still here. But we have to make space for them again.