Universities in dock over contract staff

Many researchers in science are on short-term contracts

Universities stand accused of failing the research workforce and the UK's science base because they employ too many researchers on short-term contracts.

Over 40,000 researchers in Britain's universities are employed on short-term contracts, some as short as one month.

And in science and technology, around half of all researchers are on short-term contracts.

How many more reports like this will we need before universities end their love affairs with fixed-term contracts?

Sally Hunt, Association of University Teachers

Contract workers were taken for granted and badly treated, said a highly critical report from the cross-party House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee.

"It is hard to identify a single culprit for the continuing mistreatment of our research workforce, but top of the list must be a management culture in some of our research-intensive universities, which is callous and short-sighted.

"The universities are under funded, but that is not an excuse for poor management.

"We would like a world where good researchers were successful on merit and less subject to an academic lottery," the report said.

The committee reported finding widespread dissatisfaction and demoralisation among contract researchers.

Research was often left unfinished or unpublished, said MPs.

Wake-up call

The Association of University Teachers Universities welcomed the findings and urged universities to take immediate steps to reduce their reliance on short-term contracts.

The report largely ignores the progress made by university managers as they seek to improve working conditions for contract research

Diana Warwick, Universities UK

AUT general secretary Sally Hunt said: "It's time that employers of contract research staff woke up to their responsibilities to their staff and did the decent thing."

"The document makes it clear that the employment practices of some universities and research councils are positively Dickensian and have no place in the twenty-first century.

"How many more reports like this will we need before universities end their love affairs with fixed-term contracts?"

Time and a place

But the damning report prompted outrage from the umbrella group, Universities UK.

The group said the report had failed to acknowledge that there was a place for some short-term contracts in higher education.

At the start of an academic's career, such contracts had "a legitimate role to play" and enabled researchers to gain "invaluable experience" at different institutions, said the group.

Short-term contracts were also an important means of attracting new entrants to the sector at a time when recruitment was difficult.

Chief executive Diana Warwick, said: "Universities are tackling the problems experienced by short term research staff and it would have been more helpful had the select committee sought to assist universities to build on the work they have done."

"Instead, and unhelpfully, the report largely ignores the progress made by university managers as they seek to improve working conditions for contract research staff while operating under severe financial constraints," she said.