Lecturer’s view: Irish universities need researchers who lecture, not lecturers who research

As the recession continues and the spotlight falls on public sector expenditure, the question has to be asked – what does this mean for the third-level sector? Like everywhere else in the public sector, universities are being asked to implement efficiencies.

To some the word ‘efficiencies’ means cutbacks – to others it means a chance to take a breather from the Government’s policy of throwing money at a particular sector without any concomitant demand for reform that would ensure the best value for taxpayers’ money. Such a charge is often levelled at the health service: could such a charge be levelled at universities?

Although State spending on education is less per capita than most other OECD countries there was a large increase in research funding for universities over the past ten years.

A plethora of schemes and bodies were established to distribute the money and there was much hoopla about how the state was not only keeping its top researchers at home but was also recruiting top researchers from abroad.

But spending money is one thing; ensuring long term value for that money is quite another. As universities don’t recognise the concept of permanent researchers, those researchers that the Government so often boasted about were employed on successive fixed term or specific purpose contracts ranging from a few months to a year or two. Now the money has run out leaving the state facing a massive brain drain and researchers high and dry.

Could this money have been spent more productively? Are there ways in which researchers could have been better integrated into universities to ensure that the money spent on them, and their talents, would not be lost to other countries?

At the moment, the universities are running an early retirement scheme. Could such a scheme not have run five years ago on the basis of replacing each retiree with a researcher? The problem here is that universities don’t recognise the concept of permanent researchers and still pursue the outdated policy of recruiting lecturers who become permanent after one year’s probation. There are two problems with this policy.

The first problem is that the position of lecturer is becoming more and more dependent on producing research, securing funding and attracting research students. This is not to say that lecturing or teaching is not important. It is and always will be. But the dynamic of teaching and learning is changing radically – more and more of it is migrating online and in the future only those who engage in original research will be in a position to deliver credible original material that students won’t already have been exposed to or can’t get, or have practical experience of, anywhere else.

Research feeds into teaching and teaching feeds into research: anyone who disputes this may need to reflect more on the changing nature of their university workplace and their place within it.

The second problem is that one year’s probation is too short. Most appointees are given the job on the basis of their previous work in the belief that this will continue into the future. But previous work is a guide to past achievements not a definitive indicator of future performance.

After one year’s probation, the appointee is made permanent and everyone hopes for the best; very often with mixed results.

In contrast, American universities have a process of incremental tenure – in essence seven years’ probation – before permanent appointment. This process ensures that appointees continue to perform to their very best, which benefits everyone – students and research active colleagues alike.

In summary then, the present crisis presents universities with an opportunity to engage in meaningful reform. The reality is that as research takes an increasingly central role in the State’s university funding mechanism the best universities will begin to recruit researchers who will also lecture, as opposed to lecturers who might also do some research.

The university that first moves to a tenure track system will have the pick of the country’s best researchers – the lure of a five or seven year contract, possible permanency, and the guarantee of working in a research active environment would be far too strong to resist.

Dr Mark O’Brien is a lecturer in the school of communications and is writing in a personal capacity. The views expressed are his own.