**Opinion Piece**

Eva O.L. Lantsoght, Miguel Abambres, Tiago Ribiero, and Ana Sousa, in "Interviewing and Hiring Practices in Brazilian Academia: Proposals Towards Improvement" present an account and a critique of structural and behavioural elements of the mandatory processes by which Brazilian academics are assessed for employment and which also have implications for research funding, productivity, and quality. They argue that the inward-looking, inflexible, and mechanistic procedures and requirements which must be applied in both public and private universities have significant negative consequences for the quality and international standing of Brazilian higher education and scholarship, while also challenging internationally accepted principles of diversity and equity. It appears significant that the authors, with a range of academic specialisms, work outside Brazil, and that their previous writing on this sensitive topic has not been published there. How can academics challenge administrative and personnel practices when they are biased against outsiders and minorities? How can the rights and prospects of academics who challenge a well-defended and inflexible status quo be protected? How might the international higher education community encourage extreme outliers to reconsider taken-for-granted procedures which have demonstrable negative effects for both institutions and individuals?

The above offers a brief commentary on the articles finally included in this Special Edition, and we hope readers will find their eclectic nature and argumentative approach a source of interest and a prompt for further thought and research. We are immensely grateful to all those who submitted papers for possible inclusion, in particular, Laurent Dubreuil, for the work of the many reviewers, and for the opportunity provided to us by Societies to edit and help develop some very interesting work.
