White Matter identifies, evaluates, and introduces scholars to universities and research institutes worldwide, with an estimate of what each appointment adds to the institution.
By the numbers
Our expertise
Universities in every region compete for research standing, and faculty appointments decide much of it, from the postdoctoral researchers who run the laboratories to the professors who lead them. Most are still made on reputation, availability, and personal networks.
White Matter was founded to bring evidence to those appointments. For each mandate, we read the institution’s own research record, source the full field of candidates, and state what each appointment would change, and the risks.
Two practices that draw on the same record of evidence.
Every career stage, from postdoctoral researcher to professor, as single posts or cohort hires, with executive search for academic leadership.
Explore faculty search
Gulf universities already hire in clusters: about half of arrivals publish with another recent arrival, and about half share a subfield with one. When each post is filled on its own, a cohort can duplicate strengths and leave gaps; planning the posts together avoids both.
Provost and dean searches rest on reputation, references and interview. The research record of the units a candidate has led is public and rarely read. Set against peer units over the same years, it gives a committee evidence an interview cannot.
Universities price appointments but seldom price departures. Across 29 Gulf universities, a fifth of researchers appear on about four in five of the most cited papers. In some fields, one departure puts about a third of that record at risk.
“Managing faculty as capital requires what any asset requires: valuation, pricing, and a record.”
The principle behind White Matter's faculty advisory work.White Matter
Faculty advisoryOur commitments
Every mandate and every approach is held in confidence.
No researcher is named to a client until identity is confirmed from the works record.
Mobility is read from affiliations and co-authorships. Nothing is inferred from a person's name or origin.
We review every candidate and make every recommendation; ATLAS supplies the evidence.
