Fury at Kent’s plan to cut academics’ time for research

Proposals by the University of Kent to cut staff research time to a “baseline” of 20 per cent have been criticised as short-sighted, potentially self-harming and likely to damage the institution’s reputation.

Under plans to make significant savings, the university was due to consult on new academic workload models that, for many research-active staff, currently follow the 40:40:20 split often found in UK academia. In that approach teaching and research each account for 40 per cent of a lecturer’s working week, with the remaining 20 per cent allocated to administration and other duties.

Staff with significant research responsibilities would see their research time fall to a “baseline” of 20 per cent, although those who secure research funding would be able to obtain a higher percentage.

Strategies for areas of higher priority research are also being considered, although the new framework would aim to mostly standardise the differing research time allocations found across the institution, Times Higher Education understands.

One member of staff in Kent’s law school told THE that the proposals would cause huge harm to the department’s academic standing.

“This law school finished second in the last Research Excellence Framework, [and] the history department [was first]– it’s inconceivable that we could achieve the same result again if these changes happen,” the law faculty member said.

Last month, Kent announced that it was seeking to “phase out” courses in modern languages, philosophy and other areas as it responded to a “number of financial challenges including the fixed tuition fee, rising costs and changes in student behaviour”. Up to 58 academic posts could be at risk of redundancy, according to the University and College Union, in the latest cutbacks made in recent years by the under-pressure institution, which is yet to post its latest financial accounts.

A Kent spokeswoman said “delivering world-leading and impactful research is central to what we do at Kent”, and “current proposals help us ensure that [research] time allocation for staff across the institution is consistent, fair and transparent, while recognising the need to encourage and support staff to continue this vital work”.

“The proposals – which were developed with an academic advisory group and on which we are continuing to engage with staff and seek feedback on – suggest an affordable base level for research time across the institution,” they added, stating that the plans “also reflect our desire to balance this with time for teaching so that we can do more to meet the needs of our students in the future. This is in line with our incoming strategy, which is built around embedding a more student-focused approach.”

Plans to change workload models have been presented in terms of institutional savings, but the law school lecturer told THE that these calculations did not consider the longer-term quality-related (QR) research funding likely to be lost.

Research staff were also much more likely to leave, they continued. “Many research-active staff have been headhunted in the past but have said ‘no’, but will they want to stay? And will students want to come to us if we lose our research reputation?”

The changes were also likely to affect women more heavily than men, the lecturer claimed. “Men don’t have the same caring responsibilities on average as women and don’t take on the same pastoral responsibilities – with much less research time, will women be able to keep on doing research?”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com