UCL staff survey

[Kintan]

Just saw this about my old university (I've left academia mostly)
www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/04/ucl-staff-morale-at-all-time-low-because-of-management-poll-finds-academic-business-university Is this just a UCL problem, or does this reflect the morale of academics elsewhere too? Academia is no longer an attractive career option as far as I can tell. Pretty depressing.

From what I can tell. Yes I think it does. Going the research only route has been incredibly grim. There is very little concern about people's morale where I work.

I think my university has probably peaked in dissatisfaction at the business model and is now emerging a bit.

Thing is, no-one has anywhere to go really, except to other business-model unis.

I had heard UCL wasn't so bad for that just a couple of years ago, perhaps they were just behind the curve.

The biggest losers in these institutions are contract staff/those on teaching only- if you are a permanent staff member who has good benefits, there are ways of making the business model slightly more palatable for yourself, basically by not being collegiate and being incredibly selfish and individualistic. Not nice, but the public sector isn't great at the moment, so the idea of moaning but not jumping ship is what most people in academia seemed to have settled for.

Thing is, no-one has anywhere to go really, except to other business-model unis.

But teaching pressures are not as high in most of Europe, nor is the admin load put on academics. Moving to certain European countries (and elsewhere in the world) is a reasonable option.

I agree though that all UK universities are on this path.

It's hard to know though, with Europe/Brexit, a lot of countries are moving towards single nationality (like Germany, Spain?) so if you leave the UK you would then have to get residency and then think about nationality esp if you have children who end up a different nationality to you. Brexit is going to make academic/European job hunting more complex and less desirable.

There is the States though and Australia/NZ , I had a spate of good students go to Australia and move very quickly through the ranks getting good jobs etc.

Not everyone has the flexibility to up and move though, and I guess that's why most of us are staying put- there's a lot of professors at my institution, it's quite top heavy, they have their eyes on their pensions and I don't think they'll be moving for love nor money!

Brexit is going to make academic/European job hunting more complex and less desirable.

I don't think this is going to be true in practice. (BTW I personally am not British anyhow and neither are a very significant fraction of my department.) European universities are already headhunting top researchers in the UK. The offers include paying the costs of visas etc if these end up being required. It's also not correct that people are likely to be asked to obtain citizenship - permanent residency will be sufficient, whether you are EU or non EU. And Germany has actually gone in the opposite direction - it now allows dual citizenship, when it didn't in the past.

Also UK academic pensions are pathetic compared to those elsewhere in Europe. As a professor on a high salary, I would be far better off moving to Europe and paying into their pension schemes than staying in the UK. And again, as a high achieving academic, I would get far more research support in most of Europe than I do in the UK, where RCUK is spreading its money ever more thinly unless the work has immediate industrial applications.

I am pretty sure that we will continue haemorrhaging top academics in sciences unless we stay part of EU science programmes and we continue to welcome international staff at postdoc and permanent level.

All I can see is the European researchers I know, most have taken British nationality, and I don't see any moving to Europe, I know a professor who has been looking lately and has come back and decided it's not that bad here! There will be a big issue with the transferability of pensions or at least, the person I know trying to extract one out of more than one European country is in a nightmare.

I am in social sciences though, which is different than science and what you say is right, I'm sure for portable academics.

We have a lot of German staff, again, no big exodus yet. I'm pretty sure that British people who live in Germany may get into difficulties because you can only be a dual national with other EU countries- I know people who are panicking/making applications now over this.