To leave academia for a more routine job

[googlenut]

I tried posting elsewhere but got no traffic. I have a chance to stay within the university on the same pay scale but in more of a support role. I'm currently on temporary grant reliant contracts. I am thinking of accepting due to the crazy expected work hours in academia and the constant competitive atmosphere that exists. Has anyone moved into research support and loved it/hated it?

[googlenut]

Thanks Hemlock. The ability to switch off when you leave the office is not to be underestimated.

[HemlockYewglimmer]

I've moved from academia to Uni professional staff in a Uni Registry. For me, the reduction in stress and pressure is brilliant. I still get to be involved in academic type activities if I want to which is good. I still publish but on my terms (though most research work has to be done in my own time, but I do get some days off to write/attend conferences because my boss likes having someone a bit researchy on his team).

I don't have to do much work in the evenings and weekends and do feel like I have more free time as I'm not constantly thinking/worrying about all the things I haven't got done yet. But my days are not as flexible. I'm grade 9, so have a lot of autonomy about what I get done during the day but I have to be in work for core hours so I do miss stuff with the DCs at school etc but feeling more relaxed makes up for that.

I do also feel the academic/non-academic divide in my interactions with the academics which I find annoying but I can cope with it! The work also isn't as creative and intellectually challenging and as a PP says, the volume is what creates the pressure but I think it is less pressure than academia. For me, at the moment the benefits outweigh the costs but I am keeping my options open in case I change my mind

[googlenut]

Hi revolting thanks for input but not sure what you are saying. Do you think I should go for non academic permanent post or not? I agree that the lack of secure work is a big drawback to research and I'm not sure I can put in the hours without any guarantee of a job.

[RevoltingPeasant]

Google you should also look at how often or whether they have been restructured over the last decade. IME support staff of any stripe get dicked about a whole lot in this way.

It is tough. I had 4 years of temp lectureships prior to my current, permanent lecturing contract. By by God, I'm lucky. I had about 15 people in my year as PhD students and afaik, only 2 of us ever got permanent jobs. And this was an elite 'Russell Group' university which boasted of its employment rates. The insecurity is horrible. I remember totally breaking down one day and sobbing on my knees on the living room carpet because I felt like I'd never have the security so many other people seemed to take for granted.

I love my job and cannot imagine life without it, but I also think there is a MH cost in hanging on in academia and I'd leave if I didn't have security. You put too much in not to have the basic security of knowing you will have a salary next year.

[googlenut]

It's interesting about the career progression. I'm at a research intensive university and over the last year have been on a lot of training courses with research support staff and they seem to have quite a lot of opportunities for self development and promotion.

[googlenut]

Gin that's really useful information. I can see the red tape being a less satisfying part of the job - but I imagine when you learn to navigate the system it is easier ( then say us researchers who only go through it occasionally).
One of the things I definitely don't like about research is not working as part if a team and I think a job in research support might be more like that.

There are things I would be losing though - and being in charge if my own research and first named author type things would be one thing I'm giving up.

[ginpig]

Things have gradually evolved over the last three years.

To begin with I was based soley at one institution, an hour's commute away and working under the scrutiny of someone who can be quite challenging to work with at times. If I was needed in other plaes this was always accommodated, but very ad hoc.

When I returned after maternity leave I had to make it clear that ad hoc working practices were no longer possible due to childcare. I am very lucky that I have two very flexible nurseries so can juggle things around as necessary, but the upshot of this is that I now work in the same city I live in 2-3 days a week. This means I pretty much organise my own work load and for most people I know involved in research and clinical trials support at a similar level the same is true- your working practices are inevitably dictated by the work load.

For me it the work can be quite varied, and generally interesting. This role allows me quite a lot of human contact, with patients and professionals, where as before hand I was often on my own in the darkness and silence with the company of rodents!

The red tape can be rage inducing at times- and often it seems like no one is ever concerned with getting things done, just creating further hurdles and more problems. However, once approvals come in/ studies are opened it can be very satisfying.

I feel like I've managed to create a bit of a niche for myself- I have taught myself a lot about Research Governance guidelines, GCP requirements and how to get things done at the various institutions I work in. Other people just run a mile from this stuff so turn to me to navigate it for them. In return I'm often acknowledged in publications with a middle of the pack authorship.

The drawback for me is that I often don't feel I'm viewed as an integral part of the research team-that my expertise and qualifications are quickly forgotten, and I often wonder 'what if' I'd stayed in a pure academic career track. Realistically I know that would have been a lot harder and I might not have made tenure, no matter how good I was- I think people who are successful have worked hard and been fortunate enough to work on the right thing at the right time and get the right publications. Hard work, intelligence and talent don't automatically translate to publication and that seems to be all anyone ever cares about these days..

My goodness- that was a ramble

[BackforGood]

I think Kundry's post is interesting.
We were sitting in the sun on holiday, by the side of the pool a couple of years ago - picture the scene, and I breathed a big sigh of contentment and said 'This is the life'. dh (who has recently secured a lecturer position, but at the time was a research fellow) instantly said "What do you mean? I'd hate to live like this. If we won the lottery, I'd still go to work you know"
Now, if you are a researcher like dh and most of the people he works with, they find it all so fascinating and exciting, that they wouldn't want to not be able to do that. I know he would hate to change role.
Financially however, we've only ever been able to get a mortgage, etc.,etc., because of my salary. ^That's the issue for a lot of academics, they don't have a wife to support them financially.
I do agree with the flexibility of hours things being a real bonus too - as long as the work is done, nobody is bothered what hours / days dh works. He's been able to take our ds for weekly physio appts since the beginning of the year, which not many jobs would be too happy about.
Much to think about.

[TheListingAttic]

I'm an embittered academic failure, so you should probably take what I say with a pinch of salt. I have experience of the tedious admin bit, but not the draining academic bit.

If you have a chance to have a long talk with the person who is doing/did the role you're looking at, or does something similar, and can get a good picture of what you will actually doing all day you might be able to weigh things up more easily!

[googlenut]

You are quite right TheListing - hence my dilemma.

[TheListingAttic]

I think a lot depends on the job you would be going into. Is the working interesting? Would it be challenging? Would you be engaged by it?

If you're on the same pay scale as you were as an academic then it's probably stretching enough not to be boring. I work at what is presumably a lower grade in research support (I'm on about £22k) and I would chew off my own face for the chance at an academic job (this is my second year of applying since I finished my PhD). Admin is dull. It's repetitive, mundane, and uninteresting - at least the various uni admin jobs I've worked alongside the PhD and since have been! The "challenge" tends to come from the volume of work, rather than what it is you actually have to accomplish. The tasks themselves are thoroughly tedious, and the main reason I'm out the door at 5.30 and don't think about work again till I'm in the next day is because I couldn't give a flying fuck about what I do.

This is probably grass-is-greener syndrome, but at least you can be engaged, interested, and care about your hideous 70-hour week! I'd look very carefully about what the alternative entails day in day out, and think about whether the gains outweigh the drawbacks.

[googlenut]

And as I've mentioned before I am worried about losing the autonomy. I more or less work my week to suit myself at the moment and can work from home if I want

[googlenut]

Ginpig that is really useful. Does the red tape stuff get you down. I imagine the role doesn't allow much creativity which I do get a lot of in research.
On the other hand there is a lot to be said for predictability while trying to juggle the needs of a family.

[ginpig]

About three years ago I went from post-doc to a research coordinator role as I'd had enough of academia- the insecurity, the never being able to shut off from work etc. and I couldn't see how maintaining that level of exertion was compatible with having kids.

For the most I part I do enjoy the job, but I have found the lack of autonomy difficult and couple with the fact that I feel I'm viewed as administrative rather than research quite difficult. The role was always supposed to have a continuing research element (I'm employed at a post-doc level), but with the workload this has been difficult to achieve (part of that is also because the boss' wife and I do not get on).

Mostly the PIs are glad I am around (the majority of them are academic clinicians so often torn between two worlds themselves) and tell me that they wouldn't be able to get their research off the ground without me, but I have consciously put myself in that position.

I would say that there is little in terms of career progression- that is definitely something I will have to push more myself and have been working to identify new areas I can get involved in and build my skill set to make that possible.

Unfortunately my position is 'funded' and not permanent, so that aspect hasn't changed. Also, the regulations surrounding clinical trials can be a bit of a nightmare- just a quagmire of red tape, so it does come with it's own drawbacks. So it is different from working as an academic, but as it's still in the academia arena it's still pretty frustrating!

[Sicaq]

I have not had enough coffee, 126! Who are the 8 % you refer to?

[traininthedistance]

126 don't know how much more to say it, but no, current academic working conditions aren't a result of the cohort participation rate, but to changes in management and research funding streams.

Eg. When successive governments made research funding conditional on outputs, soon in order to get hired you needed to demonstrate you had a certain number of RAE/REF outputs. The coming of email and changes in the school teaching system meant students expected emails returned overnight, much more hand-holding, etc. Admin and report-writing increased. More of the university started to be funded by soft money grant applications, and the hurdles for applying for those got more and more extensive. New criteria for applying and accounting for research money from HEFCE were introduced that involved more additonal work outside of core business (eg. "Impact"). At the same time, relocated to the department for Business and Industry, universities were encouraged to adopt private sector cost-cutting measures, including a focus on profit, funneling money upwards to management salaries whilst holding down pay elsewhere, and the adoption of more and more fixed-term contracts, and not replacing lectureships on retirement (or sometimes replacing them with short term "teaching fellowships"). There's a lovely table doing the rounds at the moment of VCs' salaries - the top 10 VCs' salaries are now all over 356k, whilst real pay has dropped by 13% for the rank and file-ers in the last 5 years.

In my department, 15 years ago most postgrad students were home students, many of us with some kind of small research funding stipend, and most of my cohort went into HE teaching in some way. Today, research funding for HE has been so cut to the bone that a research stipend for a UK student is as rare as hens' teeth, and though the numbers of research students haven't really changed over those 15 years, now the majority of our postgrads are overseas students, either paying full fees or on studentships from their own countries (to which they return afterwards). So no, of that 40% actually fewer of the UK cohort are funnelling into working in HE, not more.

[googlenut]

I would be helping to set up and run clinical trials in this role. There would be no expectation to publish.

[TarkaTheOtter]

I took a research support role but was expected to still publish my own research. It was the worst of both worlds in terms of workload. I've now left academia all together (currently SAHM) but would consider an admin role. Even then, I'd rather be student support side than research. I'd also be interested in lecturing if there wasn't an expectation to publish. Although I think a lot of depts give non-research lecturers all the shit courses/admin load, ime anyway.

[googlenut]

Baby that's really good advice about doing some freelance work or perhaps letting my current department know I'd be interested in small pieces of work even if I move. Hadn't thought of that.

[babybat]

I work in university admin, and work closely with some of the research support people. A lot depends on the university you're working for - a more research intensive institution is going to have a greater need for support staff, and better career progression. My current role has a great degree of flexibility and autonomy, and plenty of scope to expand. Research support is not without its stresses, particularly when big grant applications/publication deadlines/REF submissions are due, but only you can say whether you'd find that interesting.

If the role on offer is permanent, that's not to be sniffed at. HE is a challenging sector at the moment, and academic careers are hard to find.

You might also want to consider whether you've got the skill set to do some part time/freelance work in addition to your main role - perhaps in grant writing, technical writing or journals editing? That might help if you find the move isn't giving you the creative/intellectual stimulation you need.

[126sticks]

Well, 40% goes on to 4% which leads to 8%!

[traininthedistance]

The 50% target was never reached - and in any case it was 50% "to have had some experience of" tertiary-level education, which included short workplace-based training courses, higher-level NVQs and so on. Total tertiary participation remains below 40% in the UK IIRC. The target was original proposed by the Major government because the UK was falling substantially behind international competitors on tertiary education participation, including Canada and the US.

Academic pay and conditions are primarily the result of management changes in the sector over the last 15-20 years, including the dominance of the RAE/REF culture.

[googlenut]

Thanks biblio
To the poster who said there are lots of toxic management styles I completely agree (have worked in private industry previously) someone told me recently that someone in HR at uni said that if they were to deal with all the difficult characters in the university there would be noone left in management!

[126sticks]

Yes but the 50% go on to the 5% which becomes 10%

[bibliomania]

Why do I like uni admin? Don't want to out myself by being too specific about the nature of my job, but I genuinely find it interesting.

It probably helps that I'm fine with 9-5 and there is still a bit of flexibility within that.

Like most jobs, a huge amount depends on the boss you have and the team you're in.