Around two-thirds of research staff at universities are on ‘precarious’ contracts, according to freedom of information requests made by the University and College Union (UCU).
UCU sent FOI requests to 103 higher education institutions in the UK that employ 20 or more research staff, or where research staff make up at least 5% of the academic workforce. It cross-referenced the responses with data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) on terms of employment.
Some 88% of research staff at the University of Oxford are on fixed-term contracts, 96% at King’s College London, 80% at the University of Manchester and 96% at the London School of Economics.
Only one employer – the University of Manchester – offered an enhanced paid notice period to research staff on fixed-term contracts, its Support for Research Staff report found.
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Most employers that responded to the requests paid only statutory redundancy pay to research staff who were dismissed at the end of their fixed term contract.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady likened the use of fixed-term contracts to “gig- economy style short-term contracts for the staff who prop up university research departments”, pointing out that researchers play a key role in activities such as developing vaccines and building universities’ rankings in the Research Excellence Framework.
The union also asked research staff to score their employer out of 100 as to the support it provided to those on fixed-term or precarious contracts. Only eight universities scored above 50, whereas 39 universities received a score of less than 30.
The University of Leeds scored highest in its level of support, at 64/100. Four out of five of the bottom-ranked institutions were based in London: the University of London (Institutes and activities); the University of Greenwich; the University of East London and SOAS (University of London).
Nine out of 10 respondents said they did offer some form of redeployment, with the most common period being three or four months during the contractual notice period. Almost a third of employers were unable to say what percentage of staff they had successfully redeployed at the end of their contract, however.
Fifty-nine per cent offered some form of bridging period to support the researcher at the end of their contract, but in the majority of cases this was not part of a formal policy or supported by central funding, so was decided on a case-by-case basis.
Grady said: “The poor scores across the board on areas like fixed-term contracts, proper redeployment processes and decent redundancy provision speaks of a sector that urgently needs to update its attitudes to employment practices.
“Critically, the worst practices are not confined, as one might expect, to the least financially secure institutions. Far from it: five of the 24 Russell Group universities are in the bottom half of the table.”
UCU lays out a series of recommendations for universities in the report, including working with the union to build a “more sustainable model” of employment for research staff, committing to reducing the use of fixed-term contracts; and providing greater support for staff who do reach the end of an externally-funded, fixed-term contract through measures such as enhanced redundancy pay, extended notice periods or bridging periods.
Grady added: “The current funding model for much UK research allows employers to blame the system for their choice of employment practices. But we should be clear, it is a choice. Better workload management by employers coupled with the use of proper redeployment can help move staff to more sustainable employment.
“Universities need to work with UCU towards a more sustainable model for the employment of research staff. They need to commit to reducing the use of fixed term contracts and move their research staff to genuinely secure contracts.
“And they need to put systems in place that support continuity of employment and minimise the risk of redundancy at the end of funded research projects.”
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