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?

Thanks PhDLife. Good luck with your situation too. Bloody Foucault!

Sorry to hear this Kathy. In the shit here too, although nothing as official, just treated like crap (bullying). Can you talk to the Union rep?

What about co authoring something? Anything to get yourself a jump start and would get HR off your back?

I'm in a similar position, but am short -term contracts and madly trying to write up the PhD so I can get a tenured post, but need money to pay for things, which eats into my writing up time - vicious circle and I am so fed up with it!

Hi Kathy,
Do you have research mentoring in your dept? My dept did really shit in RAE 2008 and I feel I won't necessarily be much help in improving things for the next whatever-it-turns-out-to-be because I'm about to go on mat leave again. i know exactly what you mean about the pressure of working while being a mum, since having ds1 i can only seem to cope with teaching and admin during term times and I get precious little research done. I'm a slow writer at the best of times too.

But we are now getting lots of research mentoring to help us out of post-RAE shit and it has been helpful to talk to people about how to concentrate my efforts on really high quality publications (are you in Arts or Sciences BTW?) There seem to be indications that it will be quality not quantity that counts in the next exercise and of course you will get special dispensation for having been on mat leave. Some advice I was given was on how to target the right journals, to refuse invitations to review books (damn, I love those free books!), don't publish in conference proceedings, seek lots of peer review before publishing . If you could show your HoD or Director of Research or whoever you need to impress that you are working 'smartly' even if your rate of churning out publications is slower than before, it might help.

Thanks Fluffy.
We were mentored up to the hilt in the run-up to the last RAE (which is probably why our dept did well) - everything was very strategic and the senior staff from my dept and a related one were very good about telling us exactly what to focus on. I am fairly clear about what I need to work on, just need to make sure I do it!

Ilovemydog - that was a strategy I tried; my cunning plan was to write something with one of the most dynamic and output-driven people in the dept so she would galvanise me and force me to do it Unfortunately because she is so output-driven etc she got seized on by senior staff to help with their big research grant bids and has genuinely not had time. Probably writing on my own is the way to go with this one, but co-authoring as a way to keep things ticking over while I'm away might be an idea.

I am not yet at the stage where I would need to be talking to union reps, but would def do so before the disembowelling if I can't get this target met.

Also, can you show that you are involved in research culture activities, e.g. PhD supervision, organising workshops, submitting grant applications? It all counts!

That's true, I do do supervision and other stuff. I have not submitted any grant apps though, which is part of the problem. ('I don't need any money to do my research and don;t have time to spend it' is not an acceptable reason for not applying, of course.)

It's really hard getting your head round grant apps if you're the traditional arts-based 'lone scholar'. I've had that problem. But I recently had great success with Leverhulme Visiting Professor scheme. Are there any big guns overseas in your field that you could invite over to kick-start some research project or other? It's an easy scheme to apply for with quite a high success rate. or is your Uni in the WUN? They have loads of funding initiatives.

Just to add to this, the British Academy Small Grants scheme is very straightforward to apply for, and has quite a good success rate. So that might be worth a try if it's in your area.

I think it is a big problem with academia that the thigs which really count, career-progression-wise, are the things you do in your spare time - grant applications, conferences, paper-writing. I don't see a way of totally getting around that.

I tried to overcome it by sticking with research jobs so I kept up with the publications and conferences papers and grant applications but had virtually no teaching. That has kept me going quite a few years with 3 small children, managing to publish as well as going on and off maternity leaves like a yo-yo. But research contracts have their own problems of course.

Yes, Brit Acad small grants is the one I will be going for. Missed the spring deadline due to being sick unfortunately, which means it is ACTUALLY impossible for me to meet the deadline my dept have set of submitting in a month . It also gives you 2 years to spend the money as opposed to 1 which has limited what I can apply for.

DH thinks I should talk to the union.... nothing to lose I guess.

Can I just chuck in that although there are undoubtedly issues related to ops gender here, that as a partner to an academic this pressure to publish is pretty much endemic. My dp was, for many years, by choice, on a p-t teaching only contract so did no research. He is now f-t and the pressure is well and truely on - and is across all depts and all academics. His place will simply not promote/side line anyone who doesn't, in their eyes, make the grade....
His dept are trying to come up with collaborative research projects where 3/4 people work on something - the idea being that the strongest researchers take the weight and help the 'weakest' and protect them...

That collaborative idea sounds very humane Blackduck.
Yes, everyone feels the pressure. And even people who are doing well can still experience a lot of pressure and stress because of it, especially when the department or uni overall is doing badly - I know plenty of leading researchers who have been given a rocket from their HoD for not being leading enough

Yes, dp's HoD is a clever bod and tries to find ways to work the system if he can, but ain't easy. Latest is they have to make a % cut in expenditure this year, they all thought as they were losing two members of staff (and not replacing) this would be their % cut - no - not according to the centre - that doesn't count

Kathy, if BA small grants are in your area, could you think of applying for a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for when you get back from maternity leave? Again, they are blessedly unbureaucratic to apply for, and wonderfully uncomplicated if you get one. If you had some dedicated research time lined up when you get back from the baby, it could be a real boost.

Blackduck, that all sounds very familiar - apart from the kind clever HoD. We are under a reign of terror at the moment, which makes things infinitely worse.

I'm only allowed to do that when I am due study leave anyway, which won't be for another two years (on top of the time on mat leave).
Actually it occurs to me that it might be a good idea for me to contact some of the funding bodies asking if I can apply for money and then delay spending it because of mat leave - AHRC have always seemed to me to be fairly aware of equal opps so they may be willing to do things to avoid disadvantaging women.

Shouldn't time on maternity leave count towards your leave allocation? E.g. if you get leave every four years, it shouldn't be delayed by a year if you are on maternity leave during that time, because that is indirect sex discrimination. (I am too scared to raise this at work though!)

I know people who were able to defer funding when they were on ML - tbh, I don't think the funding bodies would have a leg to stand on if they didn't allow it. Esp. in the sciences where grants are so important, you couldn't afford to stop applying as soon as you became pg.

Kathy, I was able to get the spending of my Leverhulme visiting professorship delayed by a year because I fell pregnant after submitting the app. I would second the opinion that most grant awarding bodies would be flexible in such cases.

Fennel, I think academics themselves are the only ones who can change the attitude that research activity is something done in 'spare time' around teaching and admin. I agree that there is a perception that this is the case, but every dept should have a workload scheme which allows some time during the alleged 37.5 hour working week for research. Someone said further up that you have to be really hard headed about using your research day for exactly that. It is tricky juggling it, but it's the only way forward these days.

And of course, the other thing to do is not spend ages pissing around on MN when one should be marking heaps of exam scripts...

so, what, fluffy - if academics themselves are the only ones who can change, etc, if I want to be one I've got to figure out how to get a lot of unpaid work done (publishing), so hopefully I can get a job out of it? It's daft, isn't it!

That's good about the Leverhulme. I have checked out AHRC too and they do seem to have decent maternity policies. My main obstacle right now is that the British Academy has taken the forms down from their site and not announced the autumn deadline but I'm meant to have an application ready to submit in a month
(I have a draft which I was going to submit for the last deadline, perhaps Personnel will be happy with that.)

I'm still a bit limited wrt other stuff though - can't apply for something involving a research assistant because I can't recruit someone for 2 years ahead, can't apply for conferences because the 2010-11 ones have not yet been announced....do you think they'd let me apply for money to organise one which won't happen till 2011-12?

Maybe someone should do some bloody research into maintaining academic careers over maternity leaves.

the system is daft, I mean, not you or anyone else on here!

Kathy, I don't understand why you can't apply for money for a research project that won't start until later? I delayed the start of a funded project I was PI on because of maternity leave, although admittedly we were awarded it before I knew I was pregnant.

But there's such a long turnaround for research council money anyhow (dunno about the academies, charities, quicker I think?) and you usually have some leeway on start dates anyway, even without maternity leave.

I'd be really surprised if there weren't a workaround for this.

On the general question though, I think the only way to get on - and I don't think I really have yet - is not to be so good. Successful academics who manage full teaching loads, admin, citizenship and publishing seem to a. collaborate a lot and b. be able to say no to being a good girl all the time: this is the one I would like to crack.

Whatever should happen, the reality is that most research and publishing goes on in between the daily demands of teaching and management. I think the key though when you have kids is finding a sort of focus that works for you. I read an interesting piece in the THES a while back about someone who ran 'writing weekends' for academics. Since most of us learnt to write as deadline merchants, many of us have not got out of this, even though life no longer allows it. So you either have to re-learn to do little and often, or you have to carve out space to have a writing binge.

I still do the latter but am at my best when doing just one hour of writing - but EVERY day. It is good discipline but hard to sustain. I deffo haven't cracked it yet.

Lupus - the little grants tend to have a last date the research has to start. The big ones may not but tbh I can't work out how I would spend £20 000, quite apart from the fact that without a track record of getting the little ones it's impossible (I am told) to get the big ones.
Given that they all make provision for mat leave if you find out you're pg after getting the grant, I'm sure they'd give me permission to put a later date on the app, though.
My immediate problem is that Personnel have decreed that I have to have an application ready to submit in a month.

My immediate frustration is that I had an application nearly ready to go (ie I'd written all the long bits and just had to cut and paste onto the form) for the British Academy small grants scheme for the March deadline, which was a target agreed at my last appraisal, then because I was off sick for 2 months I missed the deadline. Hence I am in trouble for failing to meet the target. I thought it would just be a matter of transferring it to the form for the October deadline so I agreed the new target, but the BA have taken the old one off and not yet put the new form on, so I can't meet this new target because the form physically isn't there. I've pointed this out to HoD but not had a reply yet. (doubtless because she is respecting her research days.)