Use of fixed-term posts ‘stifling more critical research’

“Embedded precarity” in higher education is diminishing research quality as staff on short-term contracts favour “safer” work to secure future employment, according to the author of a new report.

Speaking on 14 January at the launch of the paper, titled States of Precarity in UK Higher Education Geography, co-author James Esson said he feared the prevalence of fixed-term contracts was “narrowing geographical thoughts and practice”. 

“One of the things that came through in our findings is that precarity changes the type of research that people opt to do,” he said.

“In the desire to try to secure employment, people potentially opt for what they feel are safer, but more palatable, forms of research that will secure their employment. That had serious ramifications for the critical work they’re able to do within their discipline,” said Esson, professor of geography at Queen Mary University of London.

The report, published by the Royal Geographical Society with IBG, argues that precarity is embedded in the higher education sector.

“People often think about fixed-term contracts as being a very fixed moment in time in someone’s career, and that when they come on to a permanent contract, then everything is rosy,” Esson said.

“But that’s not the reality of many of our colleagues in the discipline, and in fact precarity becomes the final feature that follows them throughout their career…fixed-term contracts are undoubtedly a problem and a core part of that precarity but the insecurity goes a bit further than that,” he said.

The report, which surveyed 364 academics, found that the vast majority (83 per cent) of staff on fixed-term contracts said they had considered leaving academia. 

Most respondents said that fixed-term contracts undermined well-being, stability and long-term planning, with 53 per cent of those employed on such contracts reporting being unable to plan for their future, and a further 38 per cent reporting that it limited their ability to plan ahead. 

Esson said that there are “generational differences” in how this precarity is experienced by different age groups.

The report found that early career academics experience sector uncertainty “very differently” to those more advanced in their careers, and that early career academics believed more senior colleagues “struggled to understand and accommodate” their experiences.

Reacting to the findings, Olalekan Adekola, associate professor in geography at York St John University, said that although he now has a permanent contract, he is still impacted by his days in fixed-term posts earlier in his career. He said the uncertainty is like a “wound” – “it heals but the scar is still there”. 

“It still shapes the way I make professional decisions today, because of that fear of what I was going through at that time…it’s not something that you say, ‘okay, I experienced that 10 years ago and it’s all gone’. From my perspective, it stays with you forever,” said Adekola, who added that uncertainty around his academic career had created extra anxiety about his visa at the time.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com