Research cash-till rings teaching crisis

Research and teaching at Danish universities are threatened by an increase in the number of lecturers who receive external research funding and no longer need to teach. As a result, the universities are employing part-time assistant lecturers who have no research obligations.

Part-timers are employed on six-month contracts, work 20 hours a week, have no pension rights and are easily axed if the funding for a university or course disappears. Those who cannot secure two part-time jobs to make up a full income receive supplementary benefits; they must live on unemployment benefits during holidays.

Over the past three years, the University of Aalborg has increased its part-timers by 75 per cent, while there has been a 33 per cent increase at the University of Odense. The universities blame the present cash-per-student grants system: if the number of students applying for places or passing their exams falls, the universities' funding falls; the part-time lecturers are then dismissed shortly afterwards.

But the problem is exacerbated at the University of Copenhagen by a lack of competent part-timers. As a result the faculty of law and the institute of economics are forcing lecturers with external research funding to also teach.

Niels Christian Sidenius, dean of the faculty of natural sciences at Aarhus, said that the number of natural science students was falling drastically, and without external research funds some lecturers would struggle to keep their jobs.

The research funding, which comes from private projects and various state research councils, is growing, but funds awarded en bloc to the universities are falling while funds awarded to individual research projects are rising.

A ministry of education committee is amending the university grant regulations. Torben Kornbech Rasmussen, director of the ministry's department of higher education, admitted that the new rule will probably mean that universities which can attract higher research funding will receive a higher basic grant.

"The committee believes that there should be increased interplay between the universities and external institutions," he said. "The important thing is that the universities are aware of the relationship between teaching and research. If the problem gets too large, the universities can limit lecturers' exemption from teaching."