Case study: The new norm in academia

We asked strikers to tell us about their personal experiences of how the themes of the strike have affected them. Below, we hear from someone who has been stuck on short-term contracts for a decade. Contracts for post-docs can range from six months to a maximum of about three years, and every new contract may mean moving to a new city or even a new country. As you can imagine, this insecurity has a big impact on life decisions like buying a house or having a child, and can put huge pressures on relationships.

I am still not sure I’ll stay in academia

For a good while I thought my career path was rather unusual, and I was always (apologetically) highlighting this when describing my experience and career progress. It was only fairly recently that I started to realise that, actually, my path is the new norm for early career researchers. If I had known this from the beginning, I am not sure I’d still be in academia. I am still not sure I’ll stay.

I am one these new “career-postdocs”, ie. working on externally funded projects year after year (it’s 10 years this year since my PhD!). If I'm lucky, my contract will be for 3 years but sometimes I have had contracts for 6 months or less and tied over ends and beginnings of different projects with zero-hours teaching contracts. I have a partner who has a permanent position so I was never in a situation where I had serious concerns how to pay the next rent but there definitely have been times when this worry was not far off. The realities are now that:

1. there are very few early stage permanent positions available (e.g., lectureships); 
2. if there are some available, they often require moving to a new city, which 10-years-post-PhD can be an issue for many of us regarding family arrangements;
   
   and the most depressing part:


3. working conditions in higher education in the UK are getting so bad (see the other blog posts and the reasons for our strike) that, after witnessing my friends and colleagues making this step, I am now seriously doubting if it is all worth it. It’s not exactly a great feeling having studied for years, worked (both research and unpaid teaching) for fixed-term contracts, and then to end up in an open plan office (in a “call centre”-type environment) constantly having to justify your “value for money”. 

This is why I am striking today and standing out in the cold with my colleagues. We did not sign up for this and this situation needs to change. Universities should not be money-making business ventures - they should be working for students and staff.