Cultural context. While the research product (papers, mainly) is very international, how the sausage is made vary greatly by countries. While one of my topic of interest have decades of interest in Europe, it got zero attention here. Also I've noticed that most papers I read in English are basically ultra-specific narrow crap tested in questionable conditions, while stuff written in my native language try to address bigger issues and are more convincing (but also less data centred). Even the way of writing a PhD thesis is different: monograph in Europe, slapping three journal papers with an intro and conclusion here.

My solution will be to continue doing the minimal amount of work that I'm forced to do and write interesting papers with my external network of colleagues. It's of course forbidden by the lab rules by I found a loophole I can exploit.