{"id":2438,"date":"2013-03-19T12:11:32","date_gmt":"2013-03-19T12:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/?p=2438"},"modified":"2013-03-19T12:11:35","modified_gmt":"2013-03-19T12:11:35","slug":"in-which-i-cling-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2013\/03\/19\/in-which-i-cling-on\/","title":{"rendered":"In which I cling on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I was kindly invited by the University of Southampton’s branch of the University and College Union<\/a> to give a talk about the casualization of research jobs. ‘Casualization’ refers to the state whereby workers are employed in a disposable fashion instead of being taken on long-term. Most early-career academic researchers in the UK, who are collectively responsible for generating the vast majority of scientific data, are employed on fixed-term contracts (77%, according to a 2011 survey by Vitae<\/a>, in direct contravention of the 2008 Concordat<\/a>), or on open-ended contracts which are unstable because they rely on soft money, and as such often end in redundancy. <\/p>\n

Although research is a popular and oversubscribed profession because of the excitement and freedom of doing creative work, it is widely acknowledged to have many drawbacks compared to other professions. But in a 2011 survey conducted by Science is Vital<\/a> on more than 700 UK researchers across all levels of experience, casualization was cited as the very top concern – ahead of pay and other common complaints.<\/p>\n

\"Poll\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As an individual, I’d have to agree that short-termism and its affiliated career uncertainty is my biggest problem with the scientific profession too. As an exercise for the talk I was giving, I thought it might be useful to make a flow chart of my professional career in terms of contract length (with relative salary indicated by the yellow stars). Although I know I’ve had a long and tortuous progression, something immediately sprang out at me when I put it all together in one diagram: in the private sector, I’ve been offered a permanent position within a few months of joining a company – every time. In academia, I’ve never been offered one.<\/p>\n

\"Career<\/a><\/p>\n

But at least my immediate future is now secured. From April, I’ve been placed as a named investigator on someone else’s grant, so I can carry on with the same work I’ve been doing. (It’s a mark of how long I’ve been on an open-ended contract, renewed every few months at the last second, that a year can seem like an eternity). With some great papers coming out, and bolstered by an external grant I’ve recently won, I hope to use the coming period to secure one of the few independent fellowships that don’t have age restrictions – fingers crossed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I was kindly invited by the University of Southampton’s branch of the University and College Union to give a talk about the casualization of research jobs. ‘Casualization’ refers to the state whereby workers are employed in a disposable fashion … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-careers-2","category-staring-into-the-abyss-2","category-the-profession-of-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}