Radicalism can arrive in unexpected forms. For months now one of the hottest topics on academic social media – and for good reason – has been the precarious employment conditions endured by many early career researchers. The Universities and 
Colleges Union even staged a strike ballot on the issue, albeit linked with other matters. But then along comes the consultation documents from the review of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, to show us how it’s done.
The Concordat was established in 2008 ‘to improve the employment and support for researchers and research careers in UK higher education’ by ‘setting out clear standards that research staff can expect from the institution that employs them, as well as their responsibilities as researchers’. The ten-year review process has to date produced a report by a Review Panel, a response from a Steering Group, and now opens this week to a period of public consultation.
The consultation process promises to be very interesting indeed. There is much in the Review that is uncontroversial and arguably overdue, such as recommendations about equality and diversity, or concerning the language in which the Concordat is framed. There are also some issues on which the Review poses purposeful challenges, such as length of contracts, the value of bridging periods between contracts, and the potential to transition some individuals from fixed-term to open-ended contracts. But the action is likely to centre on two matters: support for researchers’ career development, and the definition of researchers.
Careers for researchers or researchers for careers?
The lives of early career researchers are characterized by fixed-term contracts, high levels of competition and stress, and job insecurity. Most, especially in the sciences, will not find permanent employment as academics. From the beginning, the Concordat has aimed to face this context by understanding and prioritizing the interests and career needs of this crucial category of highly-skilled, motivated, yet also vulnerable people.
Since the Concordat was produced, it has become standard practice that researchers employed on research council contracts are entitled to ten days per year for professional development activities. This may include, for example, independent research or training, and may be focused either on academic or non-academic career progression. As the Review notes, this entitlement is neither well understood nor consistently applied. Many individuals are still not getting the support they need, to progress either in academic or other careers.
The Review’s response takes two forms. Firstly, ‘there should be increased emphasis and support, by both funders and employers, for uptake of researchers’ 10 days training allowance’. That will hardly prove controversial. Secondly, ‘20% of a researcher’s time should be allowed for developing independent research and skills’. To be clear, that means 20 per cent in total (i.e. inclusive of the existing ten training days), and represents a four-fold increase on the existing provision.
The key responses to this proposal will come from research councils. Universities and principal investigators will be mightily anxious about potentially lost project time, and this will doubtless feature in institutional responses. Charitable and industry funders will likely also have views. My bet is a compromise; however, if the councils fall into line and are prepared to absorb the cost of one day per week when researchers will not be advancing the projects on which they are employed, this could well become the new reality.
Yet there still remains a question: if the model of ten days per year is not being applied effectively, why would forty-four days necessarily work any better? Perhaps some respondents might also suggest that a more sensible requirement would be for universities to provide more tangible support for career development. At my university, the careers counselling service for postdoctoral researchers can be booked up several months in advance. Those sessions require just one hour of a researcher’s time, but can transform the way they understand their skills and career options.
In other words, will the problem of career development necessarily be fixed by more time? Quality may matter at least as much as quantity; it might be more sensible for universities to be required to provide more support, rather than simply freeing time for researchers. Moreover, it could be argued that prioritizing time privileges the model of postdoctoral researchers transitioning naturally to PIs. That will appeal to many people, but will not necessarily fix the problem since this will inevitably remain a minority experience.
Who’s an early-career researcher anyway?
Footnotes do not come more explosive than number 2 on page 10 of the Review: ‘Hidden researchers include a large number of individuals who are employed by HEIs on teaching-only contracts, often on an hourly-paid basis, and who pursue research outside their contracted hours.’
The Review’s point here is that for a revised Concordat to focus only on postdocs employed on funded projects is to ignore a plethora of other people, many of whom at present enjoy weaker levels of institutional support. This is the ‘academic precariat’. According to the Review, ‘the definition of “researchers” used in the Concordat should be explicitly broadened to include staff not primarily hired as researchers, but who are research active’. That’s teaching-only staff, hourly-paid staff, even laboratory technicians. And all these people – researchers almost by a process of self-definition – should as a result be eligible for the support outlined in the Review’s other recommendations.
This will feel to very many people, not least those employed on hourly-paid, teaching-only contracts, like a blow for workplace justice. But there will also be objections, not solely on financial grounds. This proposal might have the perverse, and potentially chaotic, effect of sucking many more people into the scope of the REF, on the grounds that a substantial amount of their time is devoted to research. Moreover, it undermines the well-intentioned, if not always well-received, efforts of many universities to create teaching-only career-paths, on which academics will be rewarded according to a set of standards that does not include research. Good luck to the people who have to navigate a path through the responses on this one!
The opening of the consultation phase has been cannily timed, to coincide with a day when everyone’s favourite postdoc, Rahul, proved that researchers can do anything. But there’s perhaps an even bigger challenge ahead for those charged with making sense of the consultation responses. What they produce will shape the lives of researchers for the next ten years.
[ex-] HEAD OF DEPARTMENT’S BLOG 