"[Singular noun], and in particular [plural noun], is/are"

I have a sentence following the template above, and I am not sure what is the right verbal form to follow. A specific example could be:

Academia, and in particular professors, [is/are] more concerned with [sth] than [sth].

I am using the verb to be in the example but it applies to any other verb (in my actual text it is a present perfect, so the question would be whether to use "have" or "has").

My impression is that, in the example above, "academia" is still the subject and "and in particular professors" just works as a complement for it, so it should be "is", but it sounds strange to follow "professors" with "is".

EDIT:

I am thinking that, in the example I used, maybe some could argue that "academia" might work as a plural term because it refers to a community of people (does not sound right to me but just in case), so I will add a less ambiguous example (more similar to my text) where the first noun cannot possibly be interpreted as plural:

Psychology, and in particular research studies, [is/are] more concerned with [sth] than [sth].