Higher education increasingly seeks to build trust not only through the dissemination of research results, but also through the scholars themselves—how they think, work, and understand their role in the academic community and society. Scholars whose academic careers span several disciplines are playing an increasingly important role in this regard. Their multidisciplinary education broadens their thinking, encourages creativity, and allows them to combine different traditions of knowledge, but at the same time raises the question of how academic identity is formed and experienced in such an environment.

With a multidisciplinary education, an academic's identity is formed not as a predetermined or stable status, but as a constantly evolving and developing relationship with knowledge, higher education institutions, the academic community, and society. The multidisciplinary education acquired by scholars shapes thinking that encourages action in spaces where disciplinary boundaries become not only opportunities but also a source of tension. Scientific creativity is not limited to innovative methods or the choice of research topics – it becomes a way of maintaining a meaningful relationship with academic activity, even when structural systems do not fully recognise or support this creativity.

In this context, fundamental questions arise: how do scholars with multidisciplinary education give meaning to their presence in higher education? How does lived scientific creativity help them remain authentic in the face of disciplinary norms? How is academic freedom experienced when thinking and activity constantly transcend established boundaries? And how do these experiences affect trust – in oneself, in academic communities, and in the eyes of society?

Answers to these questions are sought using integral phenomenology as a research methodology. The study involved 17 researchers who have changed their fields of study during their academic careers and acquired multidisciplinary education. The research data was analyzed in two stages, integrating the phenomenological hermeneutic research method with practical phenomenology. The data analysis not only allowed to understand how the academic identity of researchers with multidisciplinary education develops, but also to see how this identity is interpreted in higher education.

The results of the research reveal that the multidisciplinary education acquired by scholars manifests itself as an internal resource that allows them to view complex phenomena from multiple perspectives and to combine theories, methods, and practices. At the same time, it becomes a test—a need to constantly justify one's academic "legitimacy," adapt to evaluation systems, or choose between creative freedom and professional security. Scientific creativity acts as a vital force in these experiences, helping to maintain a meaningful connection with academic activity even when external structures limit or fragment identity.

The experiences of scholars reveal that scientific creativity becomes an everyday practice that is not reduced to isolated "moments of inspiration" but manifests itself through a consistent process of thinking, writing, questioning, and discovery. Creativity here appears as methodological playfulness, as the ability to create scientific intrigue, as the courage to let emotion into academic text, and as openness to the unknown. This is not a random trait, but a consciously cultivated attitude that allows a scholar with a multidisciplinary education to remain in a living relationship with the object of their research.

The academic identity of scholars with multidisciplinary education is formed as a dynamic, creative, and reflective process. Scientific creativity acts as a connecting axis in this process—it maintains the connection between different disciplines, between emotion and rationality, between the individual and the institution. It is through this vividly experienced creativity that not only individual academic identity is created, but also a broader culture of the academic community, in which not only the result but also the process of knowledge itself is valued. Creativity becomes a space for dialogue – between disciplines, between different epistemological positions, between science and society.

Background
Trust between professors and university administrators has declined in the context of greater managerial control and a related shift from collegial to corporate forms of governance (Deem et al., 2007; Leišytė, 2023). A strategy to improve trust can involve greater efforts to encourage professors to pursue roles as academic administrators. Professors who move into administrative roles, such as dean and vice rector, can work to ensure that academic values and professional logic continue to shape the priorities and practices of universities. Such actions could enhance trust and improve relationships between administrators and professors (Tierney, 2006).

Multiple barriers, however, may discourage professors from pursuing administrative roles. In addition to the need for leadership training, the transition from faculty to administration is characterized by a set of challenges which include loss of peer interactions, difficulty in maintaining research agendas, and lack of autonomy over work schedules (Martin, 2022). Furthermore, faculty colleagues may criticize professors for “going to the dark side” by accepting a job with the administration (McWilliam et al., 2008).

One path toward encouraging more professors to pursue administrative roles is through appointments as interim administrators. Following retirements and other departures, interim administrators are appointed to carry out the duties of the position, while a search is conducted for a permanent replacement (Huff & Neubrander, 2015). Interim positions provide a short-term opportunity for professors to experiment with administrative work and determine if they wish to pursue longer-term administrative appointments. Positive experiences within these short-term roles could lead to successful transitions into academic leadership.

Objectives
The purpose of this study is to understand how professors develop as academic leaders during their service as interim administrators. The research questions include:

1: What understandings do interim administrators develop about academic leadership?
2: How is the work of interim administrators related to building trust between professors and university administration?

Methods
This study focuses on the experiences of 25 professors who moved into interim administrative positions at four public universities in the United States. Participant selection criteria included: currently serving as interim or completed interim service within the past year; appointed internally within the institution; and served in a full-time interim role as dean, associate dean, or associate provost.

Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews, which were transcribed and coded using NVivo14. To enhance trustworthiness, we triangulated the interview data with institutional documents and websites. Multiple investigators coded all data to improve consistency and depth of analysis.

Findings
Regarding the first research question, interim administrators developed an understanding that academic leadership involves navigating multiple logics. Study participants sought to ensure that professional logic continued to shape the work of academics, but they also engaged with managerial and market logics in their efforts to shape the reputation and profile of their university. They learned that a large part of their job involved reconciling competing values and priorities across the logics (Besharov & Smith, 2014).

Furthermore, study participants developed understandings of paradoxical leadership (Pearce et al., 2019). The central paradox revolved around the limited time they would serve in the interim role. The temporary status of their role was both constraining and liberating. They did not want to start a change initiative that would take multiple years to complete. This limitation, however, pushed study participants to pursue a more precise agenda for change, and they felt free to push for these changes, since the job was temporary and they had “nothing to lose.”

Regarding the second research question, study participants encountered low levels of trust in the university administration, but they relied on the interpersonal trust that they had developed with faculty colleagues in previous years. They attempted to build trust through open communication and data sharing. Given their institutional knowledge, they were able to foster collaboration across academic departments. Obstacles to these goals, however, included resistance from professors and challenges to their authority.
Implications
Findings suggest that short-term interim positions can motivate professors to pursue academic leadership roles. Mentoring and training programs for new administrators can incorporate understandings of leadership in terms of navigating multiple logics and working within paradoxical leadership contexts. Furthermore, findings suggest that building and relying on interpersonal trust can foster effective relationships between professors and administrators, even when trust in the university administration remains low.

In the recent years, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands have introduced tenure-track professorships at universities, following the US-American role model. The paper presents features of tenure track professorships in the three systems, putting them in the context of the different inherited academic career structures and the degree of institutional autonomy, hereby highlighting the differences as well as the common driving forces, challenges and perspectives.

A comparison of TTP in Germany with similar career paths in Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland reveals two fundamental differences: Firstly, universities in these three European higher education systems enjoy a much higher degree of personnel and financial autonomy than in Germany. In Austria and the Netherlands, and generally also in Switzerland, universities are employers of academic staff. Furthermore, none of the three comparative systems still has a civil service system for professors. Secondly, the density of regulations relating to TTPs is significantly lower in all three comparative countries than in the German higher education system. In the Netherlands, the overarching regulations are limited to one paragraph in the collective agreement; in Austria, to a few interrelated paragraphs in the University Act and the collective agreement; and in Switzerland, the regulations vary between the cantons and the federal universities. Everywhere, however, the design is left to the universities or faculties to a much greater extent than in Germany.

The driving forces behind the establishment of tenure-track professorships were similar in the countries compared to Germany: on the one hand, competition for top international talent among early career researchers, whom universities seek to attract and retain at an early stage; on the other hand, the increasingly vocal socio-political debate about the excessive use of fixed-term contracts for academic staff. The issue of equality also played a certain role in the establishment of tenure-track professorships, particularly in Austria. In all of the countries compared – as in Germany – existing personnel structures were adapted and reorganised by offering some early-career researchers at the assistant or junior professor level more binding and predictable prospects than before on their path to a permanent professorship. Although the US tenure track model was clearly the inspiration here, these changes are essentially adaptations within the framework of the respective national career systems. Opinions vary as to the extent to which the establishment of internationally oriented appointments at a comparatively early stage of academic careers and the new accompanying structures and processes of tenure-track professorships in the individual countries are changing the system. The diversity of European regulatory and scientific traditions means that reforms are taking place in parallel without any real convergence. At least in the initial phase of the process, there appears to have been no mutual orientation between countries.

Even though direct quantitative comparisons between the countries are not possible due to different methods of counting university statistics, it is clear that the changes affecting junior and assistant professorships only affected a small proportion of the total academic staff (although in some cases a significant proportion of junior and assistant professorships). There was no systematic switch to TTP in the countries compared either, but in the German higher education system in particular, junior professorships with tenure track have only been added to junior professorships without tenure track, and the latter – like habilitation and junior research group leadership – continue to represent a possible path to full professorship. This makes it difficult to communicate the new career path to applicants from abroad.

Recent developments in the Netherlands also suggest that TTPs may not be the end of the story when it comes to career structure reform. In response to a society-wide effort to make fixed-term employment the exception in the academic system as well – with correspondingly stricter collective bargaining agreements – the first Dutch faculties and universities have already abandoned tenure track at the assistant professor level in favour of permanent positions with a so-called career track, as tenure track appears to be only marginally competitive under the changed conditions in the Netherlands.