The term pracademic is not simply a self-description. It is becoming more widely established in academic and professional debate, especially in fields that seek to connect research, policy, and practice. The journal Development in Practice has dedicated a special issue to pracademics as change agents and invited renowned researchers and practitioners to contribute.

In his paper within this special issue, Kuhn draws on his own experience. In the first case, he served simultaneously as a professor at Xiamen University in China and a senior expert with German international cooperation, helping organise a follow-up conference to the UN’s Rio+20 summit and connecting German and Chinese partners on climate governance and the circular economy in one of China’s pioneer low-carbon cities.

In the second, Kuhn evaluated a long-running programme supporting Arab Christian communities across the Middle East, hosted by a Palestinian university and funded by German and Swedish church donors.

Across both cases, Kuhn shows how pracademics add real value: they build networks, translate between institutional cultures, and help academic research land with practical relevance for donors and communities.

But he is equally honest about the tensions. Universities want publications; donors want visible results on the ground; and pracademics like Kuhn often end up caught between the two, feeling undervalued by both sides.

Kuhn also highlights how quickly political conditions can close down this kind of work. The German-funded position that supported his China work was phased out for political reasons, while the Middle East programme was deeply affected by the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2023.

Both cases, he argues, reveal a deeper problem: short-termism. Contracts and projects rarely last long enough to build sustainable careers or institutional recognition for people working this hybrid role.

Kuhn’s conclusion is a call to action: universities, donors, and cooperation agencies need to build more realistic, long-term pathways for pracademics, because their bridge-building work, however precarious, is often what makes international cooperation succeed at all.