20% of staff now just teach

One in five academics is on a teaching-only contract, according to official statistics that will fuel concerns over the demise of the traditional link between teaching and research.

At least 80 per cent of teaching-only staff work part time. The Association of University Teachers, which carried out the research, said that the findings showed the growing casualisation of higher education.

The figures also appear to confirm anecdotal evidence that weak researchers are being placed on teaching-only contracts as the 2008 research assessment exercise approaches. Paul Cottrell, assistant general secretary of the AUT, said: "We have widespread reports from our members that universities are enticing big-name academics with the promise that they will not have to teach, while other academics are being pushed onto teaching-only contracts."

The AUT research is based on new data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency that for the first time include academics who work for less than 25 per cent of a full-time contract.

Until now, data on teaching-only staff had excluded the vast numbers working on the margins of universities, most of whom are on teaching-only contracts.

In 2003-04, 29,000 academics were on teaching-only contracts, compared with 15,000 shown for the previous year. While full-time numbers of teaching-only academics remained static, the new reporting method pushed up the number of part-time teaching-only staff from 8,650 to 22,530.

Two thirds of teaching-only staff are on fixed-term contracts. A quarter work term-time only.

Stephen Court, senior researcher at the AUT, said: "The figures reveal the extent to which universities are using highly casualised staff working at the margins."

He said he thought it "highly likely" that the increase reflected institutions moving more academic staff to teaching-only contracts in advance of the 2008 RAE.

The number of academics on joint research and teaching contracts fell from 85,000 to 81,000, the research shows. Mr Court said the AUT had counted more than 1,200 job cuts in 2003-04, and that Hesa data for 2004-05 would show more casual university staff when full figures on "atypical" employees were published.

Tony Bruce, director of policy at Universities UK, said his organisation was committed to maintaining the link between teaching and research. "It is an inevitable consequence of increasing research concentration that more academics will be on teaching-only contracts, but with some 25 per cent of institutions receiving 75 per cent of research funding that process has gone far enough.

Michael Driscoll, head of Campaigning for Mainstream Universities and vice-chancellor of Middlesex University, said: "It does look as if the RAE is driving a wedge between teaching and research." The move to divorce teaching from research had implications for quality, he said, and the figures raised equal opportunities issues because women accounted for 40 per cent of all academics but half of teaching-only staff.

The AUT research shows wide variation in the reliance on teaching-only staff. Some universities, such as Aston, Derby and Bradford, categorised about half their staff in this way. Others, such as the University of Central England and Plymouth, categorised none or very few.

claire.sanders@thes.co.uk