This year has seen a lot of focus in the press on issues of precariousness in employment for early career researchers, many of whom are seeking a way out of precarity. In the last quarter of this year, our blog has looked a lot at the career options available to those who finish their PhD. Career paths are a theme close to the core mission of piirus.ac.uk and our sibling service jobs.ac.uk, which is why we are investigating further with our survey, “Career pathways following doctoral research” – open for responses until 31 December 2016.
The seeming lack of careers for newly qualified PhDs calls for some new approaches, as a recent guest blogpost on the European doctoral candidates’ situation reflected. Precarity and the identification of possible career paths are connected issues, and both ought to be clearly and loudly acknowledged to those embarking on PhD study. There are many advantages to PhD study, as another guest blogger identified when looking at the earning potential of US doctorate earners, but a clear and stable career path isn’t one of them.
Exhilarating climb with spectacular views, or…
Now, I don’t have a PhD, so I can only offer a comparison case and an observer’s perspective. I chose librarianship as a career, and although it’s a profession with a clear path through Masters degree and chartership, it has never felt like a stable career. And I’ve never felt that to be a problem: it has actually made me strong enough to go freelance. I’ve always worked in and around universities and I’ve experienced different types of employment:
- a series of short term employment contracts,
- being a “permanent” employee,
- working as a freelancer.
I can’t claim to have ever experienced true “precarity”: I’m accustomed to lack of job security and my income fluctuates, but my material and psychological wellbeing are not in danger. I think that this is why some people see the “portfolio career” as a kind of freedom and opportunity for professional development, whilst others see it negatively: if it is a disguise for precarity rather than genuine freedom, then it is a problem. The difference lies in the wellbeing of the people affected, which of course depends on many factors. Finding a way out of precarity is imperative, and the search is extremely taxing on those who find themselves in this position.
a constant danger of a life-threatening fall?
Even the well-enough-paid portfolio career isn’t a lifestyle that suits everyone, nor is it something that those who have chosen it might wish to continue with lifelong. A relatively recent post on the Research Whisperer site takes the reader through a very bleak picture, but ends with some more positive thoughts, such as:
We need to imagine the PhD differently and promote it more honestly.
This may mean strengthening the pathway to non-academic careers. Or it may mean reimagining and crucially reconfiguring our ideas around what it is to be an academic…
The last point about “what it is to be an academic” rings loudly to me. I think that we should acknowledge across all disciplines, that there are many researchers who are not academics, and ditch a lot of unhelpful snobbery. There are plenty of practitioners who deploy research skills by taking an evidence-based approach, applying research methods to their work through data-handling, surveys, etc, whilst following the latest research literature. This is something that I know library sector colleagues do, and, of course, this blog featured a guest blogpost from a new librarian and former early career researcher. If we allow that there are many ways to be a researcher other than in academia, and many ways to be an academic other than with a permanent post at a University, then we begin to see that those who have earned a PhD have a broad array of relevant career paths.
Yet the permanent post brings many advantages, not only as a way out of precarity for the individual, but also to the research you carry out. I do like a list, so here are the reasons I’ve noticed, why many early career researchers are so keen on obtaining a permanent post:
- A sense of achievement when appointed: you made it after a long ‘apprenticeship’ through doctorate study/PhD.
- Time is freed up from job applications and interviews, so that you can finally get on with the research you are so passionate about. Or else now that time can be dedicated to writing grant applications.
- Community. Being on the “inside” opens connections that could be valuable to your research, as well as a support network.
- Access to facilities: the library, the lab, a warm place to write in. Not to mention IT provision – with support staff.
- An academic email address will unlock many things: more connections & your Google Scholar profile, to name just two. (We know that this isn’t the case in every country, which is why it’s no longer a requirement for piirus.ac.uk membership.)
- Access to research funding: traditional research funders send money to the institution, not the individual, so only those on permanent contracts may apply.
- A better CV/resume – prestige of the job, the institution, plus it is easier to maintain a current CV with just one job rather than a patchwork of contracts
- Professional development opportunities may open up, either through internal training or through funding to attend external events.
- Financial reward and stability: a salary that qualifies you for a mortgage or bank loan, just like all your peers.
- Various kinds of paid leave, freeing you from complex financial planning, such as for illness, parenthood and holidays.
- Freedom from requirement to complete complex tax returns each year.
- Pension contributions and membership to a universities pension scheme. You might possibly also have access to healthcare schemes.
- Entitlement to redundancy pay to help stabilise your finances if you are forced to move jobs.
- Sabbaticals, or various unpaid leave entitlements that could widen your experience, contact network and research expertise.
And lastly, slightly tongue-in-cheek:
- the office summer/Christmas party. (Although some might not consider that a benefit!)
I know that not every job offers all of these: there are variations from one country to the next, from one institution to the next, of course. And you can get some of these things on short term contracts, or through other channels. Number 3 on my list is precisely where joining piirus.ac.uk can help. One of the crucial things mentioned on the Jonathan O’Donnell’s Research Whisperer blogpost was the ability to apply for further grants. A former colleague of mine once commented that, in the 15 or so years he had been working at the same university on a series of short term contracts, his spouse had had numerous so-called “permanent” posts in industry.
Perhaps the 14 elements in my list could be provided in ways other than permanent contracts, but so long as they are in place then the academic has intellectual space freed up from many worries, as well as being provided with the means required to actually do research. To say nothing of affording the kind of dignity of life that is the opposite of that afforded by true precarity.
What benefits do you see, for the way you work? We’d love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below, or perhaps consider writing a guest blogpost for us.
Image credits: all images CC0 Public domain, via Pixabay
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