Tampere University’s management is developing a set of principles regarding employment contracts for early-career researchers and the status of grant-funded researchers at the university. These principles represent a significant intervention in how research is organized and supported at the university, and, as such, we in Tatte believe that they need to be broadly discussed within the university community.
As we understand them, these principles include, at least, 1) a model in which grant-funded researchers meeting certain requirements will be eligible for a part-time working contract at the university, 2) a 2+2 model for doctoral researcher employment contracts that would limit doctoral researcher employment contracts, for those who have them, to a total of 4 years, issued 2 years at a time, and 3) the imposition of a 6-year limit on the postdoctoral period. We also understand that there have already been moves toward limiting the issuance of fixed-term contracts to long-serving researchers at the university, even where there are externally funded projects that would hire them.
To begin, we can say that we are optimistic about the opportunity for grant-funded researchers to have the option of signing a part-time working contract with the university, as this may improve the recognition of their position within the university community, while also providing them with more equal access to benefits provided to university staff, such as occupational healthcare.
It is more difficult to take a strong position on the 2+2 model for doctoral researcher employment contracts, as practices vary considerably across the university. In some cases this would likely be an improvement, while in others it would be a deterioration.
However, we have deep concerns about the proposed 6-year limit on the postdoctoral period. We are concerned that this limit will unnecessarily cut off promising lines of research, lead to the arbitrary and unfair treatment of more experienced researchers, and increase pressure and stress across the research career. More specifically:
- We are, of course, concerned about the university sector’s reliance on fixed-term contracts and the challenges of getting ‘stuck’ at the postdoctoral phase. However, in the absence of new resources for tenure-track positions or for clear pathways into senior research fellow positions, we are concerned that placing a 6-year limit on the postdoctoral period will do nothing except lead to more unemployment for experienced researchers. For researchers who are already past or near the 6-year limit, we are especially concerned about how this could affect their employment status at the university. A real solution to these challenges would involve transitioning long-serving researchers into standard, ongoing employment contracts.
- We see no value in making university research careers into even more of an ‘up or out’ system than they already are. This will only increase the pressure and stress on early-career researchers as they look ahead to this 6-year limit. Indeed, ‘up or out’ is an overly optimistic characterization of the situation in fields where more senior positions are scarce. For researchers in those fields, this could effectively just push out members of the community for no real reason.
- We do not believe that this 6-year limit is well-calibrated to the diverse fields of research that exist at the university. Some fields may have relatively broad opportunities for research work outside universities, but for some fields such opportunities are almost as rare as more senior academic positions would be. Thus for many, this 6-year limit would push people not only out of the university but out of the research work they have trained for altogether. We also fear this could effectively mean the end of certain smaller fields of research at the university in cases where there won’t be enough interest/investment to create a permanent position.
- We worry that this 6-year time limit will place arbitrary restrictions on who a PI can hire into a project, with implications for academic freedom and their autonomy to recruit the best people for their projects–for example, if a PI of an externally-funded project wants to hire an experienced researcher who has already been working as a postdoctoral researcher for 6 years. We also worry that the university will miss out on the experience and expertise of more senior researchers who will be forced to try to take their contributions elsewhere.
- We do not feel that the process behind developing these principles has been transparent, nor have we found much evidence that it has involved the active participation of the researchers who it will affect.
Recent initiatives to increase the number of completed doctoral degrees in Finland are rapidly changing the landscape of doctoral education and early-career research, even as we know that many doctoral degree holders face challenges in securing employment. As such, we think these principles represent an important moment in setting the conditions and possibilities for research at the university, and more open discussion is needed before decisions are made. We understand that there are good intentions behind these principles, and we are excited about the potential to improve the position of grant-funded researchers especially. However, when it comes to the limit on the postdoctoral period, all we can see are problems. We understand well the challenges of fixed-term contracts and the difficulties researchers face in advancing beyond the postdoctoral stage, but we do not see an arbitrary time limit as the answer. We believe that this would only make academic work and research careers even more pressurized and uncertain than they already are.
Finally, whatever form these principles take, we hope that Faculties and project PIs will retain the flexibility, within the resources that are available to them, to create solutions that achieve the best possible outcomes for research and for researchers.