Universities
are stifling researchers and the UK scientific community by employing too many
staff on short-term contracts.
New
research presented in a report from the cross-party House of Commons Science
and Technology Select Committee shows that more than 40,000 researchers in the
UK’s universities are employed on short-term contracts, some as short as one
month.
In
university science and technology departments, around half of all researchers
are on short-term contracts.
The
report says contract workers are taken for granted and badly treated:
"The
universities are under funded, but that is not an excuse for poor
management."