Future of Higher Education Funding: Statement to Oireachtas

On Tuesday 8th March, I gave an opening statement on behalf of the Irish Research Staff Association at a Roundtable discussion on the Future Funding of Higher Education at the Oireachtas, at the Irish government building. Here it is:   

Text of Speech  

  

My name is Andrew Allen and I am the Chair of the Irish Research Staff Association, which represents salaried research staff in Higher Education.   

  

Táim bródúil as a bheith anseo inniú chun labhairt ar son daoine atá ag obair i réimse an taighde in Éire.   

  

Research is an investment that consistently makes returns that are greater than what we put in. Studies from the Science Foundation Ireland, Indecon and University College Cork estimate that for every euro invested in research, society reaps a benefit of three to five euro back to the economy. Research staff bring funding into universities, contribute to internationalisation of higher education, help to inform evidence-based policy and, although this is often under-recognised, contribute to teaching as well.  

  

Strategic investment in research is of benefit to various regions across Ireland, and investment in research capacity across our universities, new technological universities, IoTs and other HEIs across all regions will be a great local, regional, and national economic stimulus.  

  

Research careers in HEIs are currently characterised by precarity, with research staff generally being employed on fixed-term contracts tied to specific research grants. The high turnover of research staff within the HEI sector means that experience is often lost from this sector. Research staff can also end up devoting a significant amount of time to chasing research grants where only a small number of candidates will succeed. Given that Ireland has a demonstrable track record for producing long-term research (e.g. the study on which I am employed, The Intellectual Disability Supplement to the  Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing), we should avoid precarity becoming part of policy.  

  

Coming from a background in psychology, I’m glad to see that mental health is on the agenda. A systematic review and meta-analysis found that job insecurity is associated with higher risk for depression and anxiety (Llosa et al. 2018). Precarity reduces the health and well-being of research staff, and their productivity with it. It harms not only individual researchers, but research groups and programs who have higher brain drain.  

   

In order to inform any policy making decisions regarding research and innovation it is firstly important to develop an accurate method of data collection regarding the numbers of research staff that is universal across all HEIs on the island of Ireland. Data on gender, ethnicity, international/ national status, level of seniority and contract type must be tracked over time and should include career outcomes of the researcher. Where there is aggregated data, it should be made easily available, to the greatest extent permitted by data protection law. Research staff should be able to communicate with large numbers of their peers quickly and easily, in order to maximise the potential for collaboration and avoid duplication of research effort. 

  

In terms of policy, research career frameworks are important for research staff. At the moment, a number of policies have been proposed that take an “up or out” approach, whereby research staff have to progress to a higher level within a relatively short period of time, or exit the system. Why is this problematic? Let’s look at the “up” part of “up or out”: Career progression is a good thing, but there is a lack of funding in place for research staff to progress.  So, they use increasing amounts of labour hours, paid for by the taxpayer, chasing increasingly competitive grants that they’re less likely to get. Research staff who are generally least able to absorb risk, are the ones who take on the bulk of the risk. And what about the “out” in up or out? Some researchers may wish to stay within a particular role at a given level, drawing on years of experience to perform high quality research, but risk being pushed out of the system when we take an “up or out” approach. The Higher Education Research Group has previously proposed a funded research framework in the late noughties; this is a model we should bring back.  

  

A possible solution to enable research staff to continue contributing to academic research is for funding agencies and HEIs to put in place staff scientist positions (and equivalent positions for arts and humanities), thereby creating alternative attractive career progression routes within academia. A report from the National Research Council (2014), for example, recommends raising the salaries of research staff to “appropriately reflect their value and contribution to research”. Unless the career prospects for early career researchers are improved, we risk losing the talent that will be essential for our future progress across all areas of research.  

   

Alternative career paths, where research staff segue into roles more focused on other areas such as teaching or professional services are to be encouraged, but they should not be seen as the necessary goal of all research staff.  

  

I’m here today not simply to advocate for research staff, but for a sensible policy of investment that benefits everyone. Given the return to Irish society evidenced by research, we know that investment in retaining research staff is a win-win. I look forward to participating further in this process.  

  

Táim ag tnúth go mór le páirt a ghlacadh se cómhrá seo. Go raibh maith agaibh.