Are universities asking too much of an academic class full of neurodiversity?

Are you an academic who is suffering from burnout? Is there a chance you might be neurodivergent?

I’m sorry to pose the question in such a blunt way, but this conversation is well overdue. Every day I meet academics who I’m pretty sure are “on the spectrum”, yet, according to figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, there were only 430 autistic academics in the UK in 2022-23  – out of a total of 240,420.

If we include all neurodiverse conditions, that number rises to 4,385, but that is still less than one in every 50 academics. The number is so low it is almost impossible to believe.

Let me tell you a personal story. In the past few years, I’ve been diagnosed with two conditions: autism and ADHD. The former I had suspected for many years; the latter came as a complete surprise. Initially, I was sure I would be open about my diagnoses, including at work – I thought about setting up a forum for neurodivergent staff and students at my university. Pretty quickly, however, these plans vaporised.

“What if people take me less seriously?” I thought. “Will my students lose all respect for me? Will I get viewed as a headcase: someone incapable of the kind of sober, rational analysis academia so greatly prizes?” My diagnosis quickly became a stigma that I had to hide at all costs. And I am sure that I am far from alone.

This is ironic because academia is surely one of the most popular professions for neurodiverse people. We are drawn into it by the long hours of solitary work, the passionate obsession with niche topics, by the prospect of being paid for doing something we probably would have tried to do anyway.

The problem is that this is a picture of how academia used to be, 50 years ago. Today, academics are also expected to be administrators, to be counsellors, to “network”. Just about everyone I know complains of burnout. And, sure, there is a lot wrong with UK universities at the moment. But is it possible that a whole cohort of neurodivergent people are being asked to perform in a neurotypical way? Has the marketisation of higher education made it less amenable to the neurodiverse people who used to find it their natural habitat?

In wider society, neurodiversity is rapidly becoming less of a stigma. Rates of diagnosis are soaring. “I think [this] is going to continue until maybe everyone is categorised as neurodiverse”, wrote Ginny Russell, a sociologist at the University of Exeter, earlier this year. And maybe, in time, everyone will.

Campus Spotlight: Making your campus neurodivergent friendly

This led me to wonder whether there are any neurotypical academics. And what does it mean to be neurotypical? I’m not sure I know anyone whom I would confidently define that way. With neurodiversity covering such a wide range of conditions, “neurotypical” seems to be a mere negation – someone who is not neurodivergent. It has no content of its own.

But maybe in 100 years the categories will be switched around. Maybe we will no longer speak of “autism” and “ADHD”, for example, but will call this cluster of traits something else, much as we no longer speak of “hysteria” or “neurasthenia” (100 years ago I might have been diagnosed with neurasthenia). You put a label on something, but what is it you’re putting a label on? We are only just beginning to understand the complexities of the human mind, and how it can vary.

What unsettles me is the thought that I’ve been caught up in a cultural moment. ADHD, in particular, seems to have exploded into the public consciousness just as I’ve been diagnosed. Are people simply becoming more aware of the condition, spotting its traits more readily? Has the same percentage of people had what we now call ADHD throughout history?

Or is something else going on here? Have environmental factors led to an explosion in its prevalence? Has long-term screen exposure affected the development of our minds? Like so many of my students, I rarely put down my smartphone these days; is that a symptom of ADHD, or a cause? Are you telling me ADHD is unconnected to these phenomena?

On the other hand, people used to worry about the effects of train travel “on the nerves”. Later it was radio and television. Such fears seem silly now; will we come to feel the same about concerns over screen time?

Perhaps. But whatever their causes and however mutable their definitions – to get back to my main point – autism and ADHD do seem to be the elephants in so many university seminar rooms. Isn’t it time we acknowledged their presence?

Perhaps I’m focusing too much on my own experiences and observations. Other academics may feel that a diagnosis is unnecessary, or that it would reduce their complex individuality to a condition. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it.

Because, let’s face it, you’re a bit odd to be working in this profession. There are easier ways to make money, and there are easier ways to pursue a vocation. Maybe it’s time to think about why you’re doing it in the first place. And maybe it’s time for the sector to reflect on whether it is asking too much of you.

Joseph Cronin is director of the Leo Baeck Institute London and a lecturer in modern European history at Birkbeck, University of London.