Why don’t universities value senior research-only staff?

The issue of precarity is often discussed in relation to early-career researchers. But I expected that an experienced researcher like me, with 35 years of experience in the private and public sectors, would be offered a better deal. I was wrong.

I moved into academia five years ago. I had been a market research manager for a FTSE-100 company before starting a family and stepping down several levels to work part time for a large county council. As local government budgets got squeezed, less value was placed on staff’s expertise and more on their cost, resulting in my redundancy after I refused to accept a pay cut.

People like me offer universities a considerable pool of talent and diverse experience, which you might think they would value highly. After all, they spend a huge amount of time and resources in writing their Research Excellence Framework submissions to try to improve their research rankings. Yet, while they want “world-leading” research, they seem to have moved the bar even lower than local authorities in terms of valuing the people who dedicate their whole working lives to producing that excellence.

For instance, my previous employer, the University of Essex, employs 165 research-only staff, according to a freedom of information request I submitted. But just 32 – 19 per cent – of them have permanent contracts, with almost all of these working within one research institute. The remaining 81 per cent are all employed on fixed-term contracts.

Nor is Essex remotely atypical, as the job vacancy sites for multiple universities prove. Research-only staff like me are usually recruited on a fixed-term research grant or project that could last for as long as three years or as little as six months. Quite apart from the lack of job security or career development offered by short-term contracts, such precarity is an issue for the completion of research projects and grants since researchers need to look for another job before the end of their fixed-term contracts (they have rents or mortgages to pay, after all). Analysis and reporting are often left undone, obliging the lead researcher to find an alternative resource or finish the project themselves.

My experience might be slightly unusual, but I suspect it’s not unique. My role at Essex was to undertake research and evaluations in health and social care that were commissioned and funded by external organisations, such as NHS trusts, local authorities and charities. I was very successful in this role, with multiple commendations, and the value of the projects commissioned covered my salary and provided more than 20 other academics with involvement in research projects and additional income.

My contract was extended nine times in four years, with a business case required for each extension based on the value of the projects awarded. After those four years, I had a legal right to be offered my role on a permanent basis. However, the university rejected my school’s business case, stating that it didn’t employ permanent staff within academic departments (as opposed to institutes) that purely undertake research. It only employs staff who teach and do some research.

My role was then terminated, to the incredulity of the multiple professors and senior lecturers with whom I’d been working and despite the growing number of requests for projects that I could have undertaken. My only option for a permanent job was to apply for a teaching role that allowed some time for research.

However, teaching is a very different role and set of job requirements and not all researchers either want to teach or are suited to it. If you are a career researcher, why would you want to abandon your research training and learn how to direct a class, mark work and provide pastoral support to students? I did not.

As a postscript, I’ve been in contact with another university that, after understanding my role and experience, can see the value of the work I’ve been doing – so much so that it has created a similar post to focus on externally funded research and evaluation. But it is only able to offer me a fixed-term contract, with the possibility of extension if the role proves successful.

Vanessa Baxter is a senior researcher in public policy.