Redundancies at the University of Birmingham

[supermum52]

Hi everyone,

The University of Birmingham has just announced its voluntary leavers scheme which is quite a generous package. I stand to gain 72,000, 30000 of which is tax-free. I am 52 years of age with two teenagers, aged 13 and 16 who are also very demanding. I am really fed up with the culture of overwork and stress at UoB and have wanted to leave for quite some time. At the same time, it is a well-paying job. The leavers package really tempts me. Any advice on the direction I should take would be appreciated.

Not wanting to derail this thread but the mentions of Uni of Birmingham having what sounds like a toxic work environment is concerning for me, as a parent of DC looking to study there.

Are you able please to say if this is impacting students in all schools at the university?

For what it's worth, I think you should take the money. It doesn't sound like things are going to improve any time soon and I think in a year's time you will be wishing you had.

Sure, I specifically said I don't favour systems where they are concrete rules on this - there are good reasons why someone may need to apply for positions at lower pay bands, or could be stuck in postdoc land for years.

But it is not just about PIs choosing to be nice to ECRs. It is about how the whole principle of academia of passing knowledge down, and facilitating others to do the same. We work on others' grants, not because its a nice, easy job, but because it gives us the skills, learning and experience we need to develop our own projects and further knowledge, and give others the capacity to do the same. Its why these positions come with career development, mentoring, built in time for learning - and this is what funders expect and specify - there is a research development concordat. I'm a CI on a grant in development, and it was important to me that we include an RA to bring someone into the system and provide the opportunity someone gave to me - and I'm extremely junior myself.

I'm sure you already have skills and experience as a senior historian to carry out your research, and you have the permanent job which is basically a requirement to lead grants. So if you want to be more research focused, as I said, stay in your job and apply for grants and advanced fellowships - decent funding would also protect you from more redundancy - and mentor people who are interested in your area.

That is my advice and opinion, of course you are free to do and apply for whatever you want.

University of Birmingham is well known for its poor treatment of staff which leads to the demoralisation of generally excellent staff who are very dedicated to their subject. The people supposedly in charge of your welfare and "helping you reach your potential" are the ones who generally impede you getting on with it. Inevitably this does affect students as there are high levels of sick leave, apathy etc. I would not recommend it for a student, and if they can get into a higher-ranking university, they should go there.

if you want to be more research focused, as I said, stay in your job and apply for grants and advanced fellowships - decent funding would also protect you from more redundancy - and mentor people who are interested in your area.

If only it were this easy... The reality for many mid-late career academics (in particular women) is that all of our official working hours are taken up by service/leadership roles, which makes maintaining the research profile needed for big grants and fellowships extremely difficult.

My biggest caveat is that VS is usually only agreed for people they don't want to keep.

This might have been the case in the past, but it isn't necessarily any more. In the latest round (in a good department at an institution that's similar to UoB) we've let decent people go.

Do come back and update us @supermum52. As others have said, more of us will be facing these decisions in next couple of years and I’ve (mostly) found this thread very helpful.

if you want to be more research focused, as I said, stay in your job and apply for grants and advanced fellowships - decent funding would also protect you from more redundancy - and mentor people who are interested in your area.

These grants are extremely hard to get even with a stellar publication record. Funding has been cut to such an extent that the probabilities of securing it are very slim. I do not see why mid-career womens trajectory could not be valued in a collaborative project.

I know of the acceptance of the applications of highly competent people in these type of schemes. In fact, it is usually the most confident with independent academic capital that apply as they know they have more to offer, while the dead wood cling for dear life. 300-400 roles have to go in UoB, so it will be a combination of all types and capabilities.

Sure. I would love to keep you all updated on the process and aftermath. I am really grateful to you all for bringing to light some issues that had not occured to me. It is such a boon to be able to avail of these perspectives; the least I can do is to reciprocate.

@supermum52

Of course they are very difficult, and of course mid career women's trajectory would be valued as a collaborator! That is what I was emphasising - your value as a collaborator (CI)/ lead (PI), not as a postdoc/ RA on someone else's project; the latter is very different - as you will not have not shaped the project you are working on. As I said in detail, the purpose of these positions career wise are to put ECRs into a position where they can develop their own projects - whether alone or collaboratively.

Best of luck anyway. Unlike an earlier poster who said they resented efforts to protect ECRs, I do not resent efforts to protect permanent staff, their work environments and pensions.

One would ideally like in the position to lead these projects and be given the opportunity to do so, but in the absence of these opportunities and the dire employment situation, what is one to do? Thanks for your well wishes and I also wish you the very best for your future.

I agree with this. Maybe once upon a time a Prof was resting on laurels, able to pass on wisdom and mentor. Now, no way, not in my place. Even higher workloads, even more pressure to do teaching, research, grant apps, pastoral, learn new digital skills etc, do cyber security training etc etc, run REF. I aint got no time to foster next generation.

Hmmm @wtw so you're one of these ECRs who thinks that middle-aged women should just move over ? I hope not, but you sound a bit like that.

I employ postdocs with a range of experience, and hope that posts working with me enable them to progress in careers at all levels.

If I were to work with someone who's coming from an Assoc. Prof level, I would be very direct with them about their expectations & mine. And as PPs say, it's not always the most senior applicant who will be appointed.

That's my caution to @supermum52 - it may not be easy to pick up fixed-term contracts - but it is discipline dependent.

Indeed. And I spend a lot of my "research time" (hollow laugh) facilitating ECR careers: advising ECRs, writing references for them, reading their book proposals, articles, and mss, working in scholarly organisations which support ECRS, and writing research grants to try to keep them employed.

Yet the tenor of some (not all, but an increasing number) of EXRs that I read on, for example, the FaceBook group, Women in Academia Support Network, is "Do I have to do this book review?" or "Do I have to do peer reviews of articles when they don't pay me?" and so on.

There is a significant ethos in ECR social media that women like me should retire. But these same people won't do the volunteer work involved in facilitating others' careers which I, and many of my senior colleagues (particularly women) do all the time.

Not wanting to derail this thread but the mentions of Uni of Birmingham having what sounds like a toxic work environment is concerning for me, as a parent of DC looking to study there.
Are you able please to say if this is impacting students in all schools at the university?

Academic staff (particularly women) are champions at covering up their experiences of toxic management, and teaching with skill and enthusiasm regardless. Even though - and this was my experience at UoB - senior management make decisions which have a deleterious effect on students. This happened to my Department - a huge decision was made over which I had no control and which I opposed to the point of almost being shut out of any access to that SMT (I was told I annoyed them by talking too much about the bad decision they were making). I was the butt of student discontent to the extent that it almost damaged my professional standing.

But still I taught (with a broken arm at one point).

This honours you but It is not the same in all departments/schools.

I'm at a very similar sized institution and I'd be surprised if compulsory is a worse offer. We had a similar voluntary scene in the summer and it matched the existing enhanced redundancy policy

The generosity of the voluntary offer was designed to match, so that people didn't hang on for a better deal

What? I just wrote multiple comments saying at that level, should be on your own grants rather a L4 post of others' grants - how is that saying 'move over'. I'm saying she SHOULDN'T take move over - her job won't be replaced!

Also has nothing to do with age - there are brilliant middle-aged ECRs who entered academia from other careers - my institute is full of them. I'm not that young myself.

Are you saying that compulsory would be equal to this offer? Most people think the opposite.

Our voluntary offer matched our enhanced redundancy policy, which is on our intranet. They were very upfront about that

I think that's unusual. The ones I know of have been very clear that the VS is gold-plated to tempt people to get it rather than hanging on.

Surely a VS that's no better than compulsory is an incentive not to bother?

It has been the case in most of the places I know.

The ECR-bashing is a pity to see. ECRs here are merely trying to convey that just as conditions for perm staff have deteriorated so have conditions for RAs. If you haven’t worked an RA contract lately you might be overlooking that. The only reason to take them is to try to build a profile for a perm job.

If you’re a good boss to RAs currently it’s important to know that other bosses may not be like you (unfortunately!). Seeing RA-ing as a less stressful backup is madness.

Yes, we are all on the shit. I think everyone needs to see each others perspectives. I get so much...well you're a prof so what do you have to complain about.

I’d take it. Our university only offered 6 months VS…even with that a lot of people left or retired (me being one of them), or took other jobs. I have a colleague at Brum who has lamented the state of affairs there, so I can believe the environment isn’t great.

Re: research grants. I’ve been PI on AHRC grants, as well as some in the States and had some decent fellowships. Yes I became a professor because of that, but it is not realistic, particularly in humanities, to think you can score a big grant regularly. I received about 1 in 5 grants for which I applied, and to be consistently successful, you always have to have an application in the hopper. If your teaching load is higher, or there are more service expectations (which as a female there were for me), it means very long hours and a lot of stress. I wasn’t unhappy to retire a little earlier for sure.

OP, best of luck with whatever you decide but that VS package is exceptional.

Very sorry for your experience, @YellowAsteroid . Not shocked, sadly - by the sector, I mean.

I have no specific knowledge of B’ham except that their Computer Science is outstanding, particularly within their STEM Schools. I have been recommending it. I think I will amend my latest recommendation. Staff morale invariably affects students.