Is anyone else an academic who has not produced enough research while having kids and is now in the s***?

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

There are lots of academics on MN, just wondering if there is anyone else in my position.

Am pg with 3rd dc in 5 years. Have had hyperemesis and other problems in all 3 pgs, which on top of 2 maternity leaves means heaps of time off work. In the meantime I have completely lost research momentum and produced sod all apart from a few book reviews. I was not submitted for RAE (though fortunately my dept did very well without me so none of my colleagues are holding it against me personally.)
Every time I come back it takes me all my time to get back up to speed with teaching and admin, get on top of all the changes in my field etc, and I only ever seem to make baby steps towards producing anything before I am sick or pregnant again.
Just had uncomfortable meeting with (supportive) HoD at which she broke news to me that I am about to get a scary letter from Personnel and a process is going to start which will probably include ritual disembowelling/change to a teaching only contract if I don't get something submitted before baby is due. Which would be fine as long as the foetus behaves and sickness holds off - am only just back at work after 2 months off with HG.

Serves me right for having children, doesn't it?

Foufoucault - its a bit of an everything role I think.

We have been re-organised (for the upteenth time) and these new roles have arisen (80% research activity, 20% teaching) for someone to nurture and support, to lead and to do research themselves and with others.

The problem is that the role would be across two departments, so I am desperately reading up on the RAE submissions of the rivals to the 'other' department, if that makes sense.

Am somewhat not surprised to see that the top-ranked department in that particular discipline gives all staff a semester-long sabbatical every four years. Well that would be helpful wouldn't it? (Remembers the member of staff who suggested that I had one of those but called it 'maternity leave'.)

Libra, I second the idea of sharing successful grant applications, this has been employed here to good effect.

In terms of supporting individual research, what I think works best is realistic and regular discussion of people's publication plans. (I think it goes without saying that this should be done supportively and in PRIVATE, rather than a la Kathy's Away Day From Hell.)

My department is hot on scary rhetoric about Excellence in Research but not so good at sitting down with people and talking about exactly what they plan to publish. As a result, people can unwittingly go a bit off course, and then end up getting bollocked as the RAE looms. When in fact the problem is more one of management. This happened in the last RAE, and I can see it happening again already.

(Not to make it all about the RAE, but at the end of the day, publications tend to be what counts when it comes to promotion, grant success etc.)

Highon - many thanks!
I agree about realistic research plans. I have been trying to persuade a colleague that it is far better for her career to give a conference paper every year and develop them into journal articles than to worry about doing a part-time PhD (we are a business school so a lot of staff have come in with business experience rather than a PhD).

(And let's face it, it is all about the RAE/REF.)

PhDLife - definitely, it should depend on realism about what you can do depending on where you are in your life. And preferably the people who advise you should have actually have been in your position so should have some clue what the implications of having a baby actually are.

PhDLife, there could also be an argument for protecting the post-baby colleague from the committees etc. so that she can use what time she has to work on publications - whilst being realistic about what is going to be possible. E.g. saying 'if you get one article submitted this year that will be fantastic'.

Otherwise, I think the danger is that people end up on a 'mommy track' and/or get bollocked two or three years down the line for not having published enough.

Obviously it all varies from place to place, but here at least the ONLY thing that matters is publications and grant income, and one of the things that has been frustrating in the past is that management have been v. dishonest about this - although they are being pretty upfront about it now...

This thread (and especially the stuff about the RAE reminds me of this very much...

I must admit to going against the MN grain and doing work in the evenings after putting the dcs to bed at 7pm (only freelance proofreading/copyediting etc not academic stuff).

If anyone has any formatting/reference/journal style queries then ask away as this is what I should be getting on with were I not MNing...

Btw lots of people I know fill in with book reviews as a way in to the journal and journal editors...am sure you all do this already though...[racks brains for other useful things and comes up short]

Ah now you see I've been told not to do book reviews because it will distract me from producing my REFable outputs.

(We also keep getting told that publishing anywhere other than a top journal is a waste of time. Well, yes, of course give it a go, but what if the top journal rejects it (as they are considerably more likely to do for new unknown person than top academic)? I was also told by a former HoD 'never give a conference paper unless the proceedings are going to be published as a book' - again, that would equate to 'never give a conference paper' for most us!)

Yes but doing book reviews means you'll get to know the journal eds and could get onto the boards - especially with the new peer review systems - they count up for the journal eds how 'useful' people are in terms of book reviews and peer reviews etc and then rank them.

Depends how they rank the journals as well - if you apply to a journal that has an 'online first' system going on - ie it goes online as soon as its accepted and doesnt wait for space in an issue (as some of them can be running a year behind with a massive backlog of accepted papers) then thats going to be better than a higher ranked ISI journal iyswim.

Libra, an important point about all the research support should be that people know it's available. We also have past research applications available to look at - a fact I found out after my second unsuccessful proposal...

I think the mentors themselves should have some sort of training - mine had no clue about my area of research, never showed any interest in whether I was writing papers, or how many, or who with, never suggested attending conferences for the networking aspect, never mentioned applying for grants... At the time, I assumed that what I was doing was okay, because neither he nor anyone else questioned it. After I realised what I should have been doing all that time, and that my career had suffered as a result of not doing it, I was quite resentful towards him. Now I just think that he didn't have a clue what he was supposed to (not exactly a high-flier himself...). I imagine he got an email a few weeks before I started saying that he had been assigned to me and that was about it.

Another thing that my department does (I don't know if this is commonplace in other universities/departments or not) is that once or twice a year it arranges a session with people from the major funding body in my discipline. They talk about what they're looking for, what makes a successful application and take questions. I also remember an excellent workshop I once attended where we role-played being a funding review panel - very useful as you find yourself throwing around comments like 'yes, technically very competent, but what's the point?' and 'supporting statements don't sound very committed...' If your university offers this kind of thing I whole-heartedly recommend it.

Back again after a couple of days busy with the kids to catch up on this great discussion.

On the research support front, it seems I'm really lucky. Kathy, your "traffic light" experience sounds truly awful, and I'm so sorry you had to suffer through it.

I feel very supported at my institution - an old uni by the way. We have:

• "research clusters" (sounds painful!) which are informal lunchtime discussion groups about our research organized among people in the dept who share interests.

• lots of support for major grant applications with a research grants office, 50 hours teaching relief, and big encouragement from the Director of Research.

• a female Director of Research, who is brilliant. She is capable of putting pressure on research inactive people, but this would only be done at a one-to-one annual review (Head of School also there though). She has won major grants, and has read and re-read my application, as well as giving me her successful one as a template.

I truly think that what some of you are experiencing is dreadful - the consensus in our dept seems to be that putting the screws on people and humiliating them is a sure way to prevent them from being productive

Wow, HLaurens - I want to work there!

What Porncocktail describes works very well in our dept via the research area in Blackboard - it's much more useful having things there arranged in nice neat folders than things just getting emailed round as they appear and then everyone forgetting about them.

Highon - I totally understand your point, I just also know atm I couldn't find two researchy braincells to rub together, but would cope perfectly well with committee work!

porncocktail ime there are two reasons academcis do what you describe. One is if they (individuals or the dept collectively) have bad attitude about research, admin and/or teaching and decide to wilfully obstruct any management proposals designed to increase productivity in the area they object to.

The other is if they (ditto) are very good and realise the bureaucratic procedures handed down from on high are going to hinder rather than help their own procedures. Surprisingly this can work very well, so long as it doesn't degenerate into an attitude of general carelessness.

a quick aside which you might be interested in keeping an eye on (given the CAWK agenda)...

Andrea O'Reilly has funding for a study on being a mother in academia - (not sure if it has been mentioned earlier in the thread). There is a call for participants out, but it doesn't currently involve the UK. Worth keeping an eye on, though ... or applying for funding to do the comparative UK study...

apols if previously mentioned

nuts, if it's not the UK, where is it? [hopeful]

porncocktail - I've always assumed there was an implicit "vs." in the middle there . I am very impressed with your disorganisation story though. Beats any I've encountered!

I have a link PhDLife:

Mothers in academia

d'you think we should send her a link to this thread? might be useful/interesting for her.

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lol, I was wondering the same thing myself this morning, but I'm an interloper!