Jess ButlerMay 10, 2023

The House of Commons has released a thoughtful, critical report on UK research quality

The recommendations to government are excellent, both practical and progressive

Highlights:

Make all research open access

Require data and code accompany all publications

Move peer-review and publication acceptance before data collection

Specifically fund replications

Remove “originality” from REF, instead require transparency

Impose a 3-year minimum term for all postdocs

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmsctech/101/summary.html

Show threadMartin EscardoMay 10, 2023

@JessButler

I don't understand the rationale for a minimum 3-year term for postdocs. If they find a permanent academic job, like I did, in the first year of their postdoc, why shouldn't they take it?

It is already exploitation that people *have* to do postdocs to get permanent academic jobs.

In the current system, the earliest people get permanent academic jobs is at age 35, on average. This doesn't make any sense - socially or scientifically speaking.

Show threadIan SudberyMay 11, 2023

@MartinEscardo @JessButler

Any employement contract can be terminated by an employee at any time (subject to contractual notice periods). A three year PDRA contract would not mean that a PDRA had to work a full three years. Nor would it mean a employer had to terminate the contract at 3 years. It would just mean an employer couldn't terinate a contract before 3 years soley for the reason that the fixed term was over.

Show threadIan Sudbery

@MartinEscardo @JessButler

Would it be better if the jobs that people had after finishing their PhDs, but before being ready to be research managers/team leaders/supervisors/teachers/adinimstrators were open-ended in nature? Certainly. Is a guarenteed minimum of 3 year better than what we have now? Must be (althougih I'll note its rare in my field for PDRAs to be less than 3 years anyway).

May 11, 2023 at 11:39amWeb
Show threadIan SudberyMay 11, 2023

@MartinEscardo @JessButler

Note though that there is no such thing as a permenant job in the UK. My job isn't permenant, your job isn't permenant, nobodys is. They are "open-ended", but we can be got rid of when ever an employer decides our services are no longer required, and the law governing that is identical to the law governing making a PDRA at the end of a 3 year postdoc redundant.

Show threadMartin EscardoMay 11, 2023

@IanSudbery @JessButler

In the UK, when you have a lectureship or a professorship, you are fired only if you do something very wrong or the university goes rogue. That's a fact. For example, the math/cs department of Leicester University did go rogue. This only tarnished the reputation of the university.

Show threadIan SudberyMay 12, 2023

@MartinEscardo @JessButler

Thats a myth. Thatcher ended academic tenure in 1988. Academics are subject to the same dismissal regulations as anyone else with more than 4 years continuous service in the UK.

There is a feeling that dispite the rules being the same, academics are just not let go, but that not true. The list of universities making redundancies is much longer than just Leicester - why were just in the news because of how egarious the selection proceedure was.

Show threadIan SudberyMay 12, 2023

@MartinEscardo @JessButler

Here is a list of universities making redundenacies from 2018 - this is prepandemic!

https://medium.com/uukspin/festive-redundancies-in-uk-higher-education-94709a92cba0

Very recently UEA and Brighton have both announced redundancies.

At my own university, the both the archology and lanuage teaching departments have been closed. A long, hard local fight saved the academic jobs in archeology (if not the department), but no such guarentee has been secured for lanuages.

Festive redundancies in UK Higher Education - UUKspin - Medium

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Show threadIan SudberyMay 12, 2023

@MartinEscardo @JessButler

Its not just redundancies either. In my own departments more than one academic has been "performance managed" out of their job for having an insufficient REF return in the last few years.