Tag: University

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Academia: reduce your working hours to get more work done⸮⸮⸮

I sometimes love how honest guides to academic “careers” can be. Take this description of a lecturer position (maître assistant):

In some departments, lecturers can obtain a reduction in their working hours in the final year of their contract so that they can devote more time to developing their research dossier. It’s worth obtaining information from colleagues about the department’s practices and where necessary negotiating a reduction.
“career advice” for lecturers

I realize this particular information is no longer updated, but the advice is quite simple: reduce your working hours to get more work done! Makes perfect sense⸮⸮⸮

It’s quite an honest description, though: temporary posts are dangerous and may undermine an academic career.

If you feel that your administrative responsibilities are jeopardising the development of your research dossier, you must have the courage to renegotiate your workload as soon as possible as temporary posts are dangerous and may undermine an academic career.
temporary posts are dangerous!

OK, but doesn’t this make you wonder why universities actually offer these positions that by their own admission are “dangerous” for a career, that do not include enough paid hours to get your work done? This particular guide suggests that lecturers “must take precautions against being overwhelmed by student supervision” and, better still, they “renegotiate your workload as soon as possible” — as if such a renegotiation were realistically possible.

It probably makes economic sense to have this kind of jobs, but if universities were seriously against precarious positions and exploitation, perhaps they could tackle this kind of position — maybe jointly with “part-time” PhD positions? Just an idea.

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Life after the Migration PhD

This promises to be an excellent event!

Exploring possible career paths outside of academia in professional fields of migration and beyond

What can your working life look like after graduating? With the support of IMES, the ACES Migration Network, and the AISSR, the organisers launch a new hybrid seminar series titled “Life after the Migration PhD”. The series targets PhD researchers who work on migration or related topics and connects them to post-PhD professionals who have moved onto careers outside of academia. The seminars offer insight into a range of non-university working areas and function as a networking environment. They kick off on the 26th of October with a seminar by Claudia Simons.

During three monthly sessions from October to December 2021, we learn more about different working trajectories by talking to professionals in three fields: (1) research institutes outside of university (think-tanks, foundations); (2) international advocacy (NGOs, IOs) and (3) diplomacy and government institutions. The seminars are interactive.

More information and registration: https://aissr.uva.nl/content/events/events/2021/10/life-after-the-migration-phd-1.html

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Ethics versus Permissions

Today we’ve been discussing ethics and research. I’m very happy to see ethics being discussed in research articles, but from the perspective of someone not in an environment ‘governed’ by IRB decisions, we’re following the developments with some concern.

Let me be clear, ethics in research is a good and essential part of what we’re doing. What is worrying, though, is the formalization of ethics decisions to the extent that a commission decides and approves which research is ethically legitimate and gets a permission to go ahead. No permission, no research.

Increasingly, journals ask for IRB approval when we submit our research to them. To the extent that this encourages a discussion of research ethics and practices to match, I welcome this. To the extent that it takes one way of doing research ethics for granted (the way of IRB approvals), I’m not so sure.

A challenge in interdisciplinary panels is that we mean quite different things when we use the same terminology, like “covert research”. Because it’s formalized, there is a real risk that the instruments we use for ethical research — like informed consent forms — become a principle in themselves, not the underlying concerns for the respect for people. With that, we drive researchers to find creative ways to fulfil the formal requirements, but we do not necessarily encourage them to think about the ethical implications of the research.

When we’re in the logic of permissions and approvals, the incentives for the researchers are simply to follow a certain procedure. For the institutions, the incentives are to minimize the risk of being sued, and this may not necessarily align with ethical research practices. Will we soon have to submit a DOI for the approvals when we submit to journals as proof that we’ve followed the procedures, just so that we can demonstrate we’re not to blame? It won’t be about ethical guidance when we feel we need it, or a comforting second opinion, but a matter of form. Is there still time to take matters in our own hands and design research ethics from the bottom up? Or is the IRB way inevitable?

Salganik, Matthew J. 2017. Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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What is a maître d’enseignement et de recherche (MER)?

Maître d’enseignement et de recherche (MER) are relatively rare positions which were apparently introduced in universities in the French-speaking area of Switzerland in the 1990s.

MER are part of the corps intermédiaire (German: Mittelbau) along with PhD researchers and postdoctoral researchers. They are very similar to the Maître-assistante (MA) positions, also unique to French-speaking universities in Switzerland, as far as I know, with the only difference that MER are open-ended after evaluation, whereas MA positions are fixed-term (this makes MER the only positions in the corps intermédiaire that can be open-ended).

As other positions of the corps intermédiaire, MER are not part of the decision-making in universities, normally have no assistants, and may be excluded from some internal resources. They are attached to a chair, which limits independence in teaching and research, and typically teach more than professors. Despite the R in the name, apparently some MER effectively teach full time. Compared to professors, MER and MA have a lower salary and are often employed part-time. Unlike Lecturers in the British system, no promotion is foreseen for MER (at all). In this sense, the ‘official’ translation of MER (and MA) into ‘senior lecturer’ is inaccurate.

Image credit: CC-by Jeena Paradies

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Join the serious conversation on immigration — CAS Migration and Diversity

Immigration is no doubt a topic high on the political agenda and omni-present in everyday debates. Jointly with the Master of Advanced Studies in Intercultural Communication, Università della Svizzera italiana, the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies (SFM) of the University of Neuchâtel offers a Certificate in Advanced Studies on Migration and Diversity. There is still time to apply and joint the serious conversation on immigration.

CAS – Migration and Diversity – Leaflet