Am I crazy for spending money on research?

[theferry]

I suspect the answer is yes. I’m tying myself in knots about this.

My university has announced redundancies are going to happen. It is on the verge of bankruptcy within two years. I am in the Humanities. We have been targeted for job losses for the last 15 years and have lost 7 members of staff in the last 5 years so there are only 11 of us left. There weren’t any compulsory redundancies. All of them left and haven’t been replaced.
I
Nobody knows how the university is going to drop the jobs. It’s all unknown.

My research requires me to travel to the USA. I need to go out this summer, otherwise my research is going to stall. I will be stuck without anything to do until I can go out in summer 2026.

I have no funding for this travel. All travel/research funding from my work has been withdrawn. I’m in the difficult position where I need to get a grant to do the research, but I need to do some of the research to put together a grant application that stands any chance of success.

That leaves me having to fund this trip in the summer myself. We’ve done it before and it’s not unusual at all in my discipline. DH is my carer so he needs to come and that means DDs are going to have to come. So for a 4 week trip for the 4 of is will cost £10k easily

Would I be crazy to do this, given the currently precarious situation with work? We can afford, although it will sting. If I don’t go, my research won’t advance at all for a year and that will make me more likely to be redundant. If I keep my job,, I’m going to really get it in the neck for twiddling my thumbs for a year.

I think there are a couple of larger questions that you're not asking and you should be.

1. What are you going to do when the savings run out, given that you say another role in your field is unlikely?
2. let's say you survive this round of redundancies (far from guaranteed) - you'll be on the chopping block again in the next one. Realistically, it seems like your field is, effectively, dying. What then?

It seems to me like you're fixating on this trip saving you as a way not to ask the larger questions. And since you ask, yes, I think it would be nuts for you to blow £10k of your own money on "research" when your position is precarious and you don't have good prospects for getting another, especially since it would be effectively a jolly you're taking the entire family on. If this is really the only piece of research you can possibly do right now, follow people's sensible suggestions to get a local RA to digitise it for you.

Many thanks for the most recent posts. I’m looking into getting a RA to photograph material. How much do such people in thr USA cost? Is it difficult to cover the legal side of things (ie signing a contract)?

If you're an Americanist @theferry don't you have a network of colleagues you've met at conferences or via other scholarly activities? I should think the might advise you rather better than us. I know I have a couple of US colleagues I"d email for advice re RA rates, and I've also got a couple of email listservs where I could post a short description of the work available.

You could try one of the listservs on H-NET for example?

@YellowAsteroid no, I don’t have connections with people in the USA any more (long story). I’ll get in touch with the archives and see if they know of people.

Excellent idea to get in touch with the archives. They will know of reliable researchers.

Advertise on H-Net. I have never had a contract per se. I have said this is what I want, asked about a per hour rate, discussed how they will transfer the files to me (google docs etc). There will be a ton of grad students keen to make some money. You can post on Twitter, ask other Americanists if they have grad students willing to do this work?

Let us know what you decided to do and how it went?

I’m medical science. I don’t even buy myself a bloody pen. If the university / grant doesn’t pay I don’t do it! No one finds our own trips to conferences etc, but I appreciate there is a lot more money in my field

I got some travel money from Leverhulme and BA also give travel grants I think.
I do feel for you, I've paid to go to conferences from my own pocket, though might it be cheaper to pay a local postgrad to look at the archives for you?
If you have a colleague out there they could part supervise?

There is less and less money available for historians. I don’t think anywhere will fund conference attendance any more.

Everyone in my department funds most research trips themselves. It’s very common. You can’t publish without spending time in archives. It’s easier for some as the archives are in their home country. So the Irish historian goes back home to Ireland to do research, the French historian back to France, German historian back to Germany and so on. Unfortunately, I’m not American so trips are much more expensive.

@UEAStaff my decision is on hold at the moment. I’m going to see if anything is announced on the job front before Christmas. On tbe plus side, I’ve discovered that the archive will make 400 copies a month for free. That’s not as much as it sounds—it’s probably the equivalent of 1 box and I have about 200 boxes to work my way through. But it’s a start.