No grants then not ‘research active’

[Redundancygirl]

I am a senior lecturer in a Russell group uni. I have been working there for 20 years. I have an ok publication record and my last major grant finished in 2018.

I had an ‘informal meeting’ with my newly appointed boss earlier this week who said that I must obtain some grant funding or I was in danger of being re-classified as teaching-only. My university has now decided that unless you have grant funding then you are classified as not research active. I did submit a major grant in 2019 - got to final stage but it was unfunded.

I feel absolutely defeated and exhausted. I have 3 kids & have worked flat out for the last year. No appreciation from my uni about this and how difficult it has been. Am I over-reacting to feel upset and stressed? How do I re-group and get it together? Thanks.

In Soc-Sci, it’s a bit of a joke. One colleague has got a small grant for about 9k. In my field, that’s pretty good going as hardly anyone gets large grants (and you don’t really need them tbh to do the research). But the majority of the grant will be spent on buying out my colleague from teaching duties and employing a precarious member of staff to cover it. How has he realistically made the department any better off financially? The overheads are likely to be the same but obviously it’s good for him to have more research time. There are some professors in my discipline who list grants for under 5k on their profiles.

Also, for the person who asked how my research time is paid for, I remember just taking part in the REF. I believe this brings in funding money, otherwise what is the point? And why the hell should I take part in it if I am expected to do research in my own time and out of my own pocket?

Also, for the person who asked how my research time is paid for, I remember just taking part in the REF. I believe this brings in funding money, otherwise what is the point?

In social sciences departments the QR income associated with REF brings in typically 5-10% of salaries. QR income is higher in quant and STEM subjects but still nowhere covering 30-40% research.

The amount of work invested in REF is utterly ludicrous.

@qudylogra

Also, for the person who asked how my research time is paid for, I remember just taking part in the REF. I believe this brings in funding money, otherwise what is the point?

In social sciences departments the QR income associated with REF brings in typically 5-10% of salaries. QR income is higher in quant and STEM subjects but still nowhere covering 30-40% research.

The amount of work invested in REF is utterly ludicrous.

Student fees also contribute to paying for my research time. My discipline has minimal overheads (no labs, high number of independent study hours). I’d expect that to fund my research too, as we always tell our prospective students about our research-led teaching and our league table position is determined by our research quality. Our fee-income often subsidises departments with higher grant income, but fewer students. A £1m grant over a few years doesn’t bring as much money as the £3m that one cohort generates each year on our undergrad programme.

Also, when anyone in my discipline gets a grant, they tend to be bought out of teaching so they aren’t contributing to keeping that income stream going and create additional overheads in terms of covering their teaching, which tends to eat up most of their grant money. I’m not sure why me writing articles (largely requiring no travel or other direct costs) and continuing to do my teaching (without external funding) is somehow not as good as my colleague getting 10k from an external body to write articles (again unlikely to involve travel or other expenses), taking a semester off teaching and using the 10k to pay someone to cover the teaching. Why would he be research-active and I am not?

Research income is reported as part of the REF, so it does make a difference there.

I am surprised, though, that you are allowed to use research funding for teaching buy-out like that. Except in very exceptional circumstances, we are only allowed to use research income to buy out teaching time if the funding covers us for more than the 40% of our time already allocated to research. And we are being discouraged from using teaching buy-out at all at the moment, even if we have grants covering more than 40% of our time.

There is still a net financial gain to the department if someone is appointed to do the bought-out teaching, simply because they are likely to be paid less than the person who is doing the research. Although obviously this gain is not as high as if you just tell departments with people who need buy out that they can't and they should just 'find a way to make it work'...

I think that universities are panicking a bit about how to balance their books and do the extra teaching necessary if we return to a face-to-face but still socially distanced way of teaching.

We have been told by the university that we can continue to do any funded research, but if our research is not funded (or not a continuing piece of work that would be ruined by stopping) then we are expected to put it aside and take on extra teaching. I guess reclassifying people without grants as research inactive is a way of formalising that move (or alternatively encouraging them to bring in some external money).

Likewise, if you have funding for conference attendance, equipment and so on through a grant then you can use that funding, but otherwise departments must cut all funding for these activities to save money. We are not even allowed to use the departmental kettle anymore, even though it is our kettle that we bought, because it uses the university's electricity!

I am surprised, though, that you are allowed to use research funding for teaching buy-out like that.

This is more common in areas that have lower grant income. It wouldn't be viable in departments where many people have a good fraction of their FTE on grants, as the financial model will usually rely on the income from DA time. Also one wouldn't want lots of senior staff out of teaching for student satisfaction reasons.

@bigkidsdidit you mean as a researcher associate or fellow, not as a faculty member? E.g.at those unis I'm pretty sure once you're permanent I.e. a lecturer, your salary is secure.

I mean I know many people who have been there for ten years working on grant-funded research; but as soon as the grant ends that’s it, so does the job. I am not sure how this fits with employment law but it is what happens

Oh yes, that is the case in most unis unfortunately. Although in at least some of them if a researcher has been working on contracts >5 years continuous, then they get priority if a new fund that suits their skills comes in. It really is a tricky one, as permanent roles are funded by the university e.g.through permanent streams of funds like teaching, but contracts are based on projects. I do everything I can to keep researchers going, but sometimes proposals get rejected, and I hate losing great researchers because of this....

Yes - I’m not being very clear, sorry 😄

I mean a group leader who has had two wellcome fellowships for example. At my place and in many many universities they would have a permanent contract after that; Oxford, Cambridge and imperial are places I know of that do not give permanent contracts for academics jn this situation

But people who choose to hold fellowships at Oxbridge, Imperial etc know the rules of the game - they could transfer them to other places that would offer permanent contracts. If you hold out at Oxbridge waiting for a permanent job, then you know you are running a risk.

Yep.... Will give a quick example to demonstrate the thinking there (not agreeing with it but understand why as balance sheets are a problem... ). There're certain fellowships that require a host institution letter to say the fellow will be offered a ft permanent post afterwards. The way this is used is that a post was 'anyway' going to be opened (strategic fit or direction, someone retiring etc) , and the grant is used to externally fund the candidate until the permanent post....

Hence why Wellcome aren’t paying salaries any more on senior posts / they’re fed up with universities wriggling out of what they promised