(S2E12) The Sisyphus metaphor: researchers in long term temporary contracts

Intro: 00:00:00

Welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast, where in every episode we explore what is research culture and what should it be? You'll hear thoughts and opinions from a range of contributors to help you change research culture into what you want it to be.

Tony: 00:00:25

Okay, so I'm Tony Bromley and welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast. Um, this is season two, and in season two we are speaking to people who presented at the Researcher Education and Development Scholarship conference of 2022. The conference theme was, 'How do we stop Losing Talent in Research Careers' and in terms of research culture,

through that title, it covered, covered an awful lot of aspects from research culture. Today I'm delighted we've got with me, uh, Cecile Menard from the Institute for Academic Development at the University of Edinburgh, and the title of the presentation was 'Researchers in Long-Term Employment on Temporary Contracts, the Sisyphus of Academia'.

So, hello to you.

Cecile: 00:01:07

Hello, Tony.

Tony: 00:01:08

Are you feeling okay today?

Cecile: 00:01:10

Yes, yes. Very well. Thank you very much.

Tony: 00:01:12

I know we sort of ask about doing an icebreaker just to, you know, make, make more personal so people learn a little bit about us. And just in the, in, when we were talking earlier, you mentioned that you were a pub land lady, which is a different one for me.

So , what, what was that all about? ?

Cecile: 00:01:28

Yes, indeed. Well, I, uh, I worked in the service industry for about 10 years after I went to school, got my Baccalaureate in France in 93. And I was actually a mature student, um, in, in England and started my, my undergraduate degree when I was 28. So there's a 10 year gap during which I was a waitress, I was a barmaid.

And, and when I moved to the uk. Uh, I was, I was a waitress for about three years. Moved to Brighton, worked in a pub, and as things go, the, the then pub land lady, uh, left and I was offered the job, and initially I said no. So I went back to, to the boss, the owner of the pub, and, and said, no, no. Okay, I'll, I'll take the job.

That was in Brighton between: 2000

people who know that pub.

Tony: 00:02:17

Oh, well. Um, we may well have people who know the Brighton area or on the Yes. No, it's just interesting people's backgrounds. And there's, um, in terms of the conference, there was, um, one or two presentations about mature, uh, people coming into PhD programs mature because we still

you know, to a lot of extent follow cliches of people being 21 straight out a degree programs and go to PhDs and it's in, it's, it never was entirely the case, but it's increasingly not the case. So it's, yeah. It's interesting to hear your background. Um, I was gonna get to your title actually. So in your title, uh, researchers in Long-Term Employment on Temporary Contracts, the Sisyphus of Academia.

So I've gotta come clean and I'm not an expert in the Greek mythology, so I just wondered if you could perhaps explain the metaphor why you chose Sisyphus and what Sisyphus did, or what happened to Sisyphus?

Cecile: 00:03:06

What happened to Sisyphus? What, if you want I can, I can start first, uh, saying who I'm talking about, which maybe would be make more sense.

Uh, so when I say, long well researchers in long-term employment on short-term contract. That's a, that's a bit of a mouthful. So I, I will shorten that to long-term researchers and what we've defined as long-term research researchers are people who have been in short-term employment, uh, for more than eight years.

And usually the eight years is quite, it's quite important because a lot of funding bodies have narrowed their eligibility criteria to be able to apply, for example, for independent, uh, research fellowships to about eight years. And although some of those eligi eligibility criteria are being lifted now, you still have to justify after a number of years after your PhD why you are still, for example, applying for early career independent fellowship.

So you still have to justify why maybe you don't have the publication numbers or, or the amount of funding. So these are the people I'm going to, to be talking about in what I call long-term researchers. So if you go back to Sisyphus uh, so there are actually quite a lot of similarities, the different angles from that.

So first Sisyphus was, uh, was a King. I can't remember if where, um, but he was condemned, uh, for eternity for eternity by Hades. Uh, the. God of the underworld to roll a boulder up the hill or a mountain only to see as soon as he was at the top of the mountain, only to see the boulder roll down again, and he had to start all over again.

And this concept, this idea of starting all over again is something that is very familiar with long-term researchers. Um, because you know, when you're on short-term contract and when we're talking short-term, um, really it's as, as short as, you know, a few months, three, six months. If you're lucky, you'll have five years, but in general it's usually, you know, around two years.

Um, but you know, you can have one three year contract and obviously once you get to the, to the end of your contract, you have to apply for a new job. Mm-hmm. . And for some people that we are with the same principal investigator or the PI, they'll be with the same line manager for, you know, a long time. But for many, they have to apply for a new job.

Sometimes they have to change university, city country more rarely because usually, you know, the long term researchers are older than the early career researchers, so they'll have a family, so they try to stay in the same area. You change research group, you, you change line manager. So you will feel like you are starting all over again effectively and often you are. And, and you know, in terms of grades as well, uh, you are kind of starting from scratch. Um, There are, there's another reason as well. So there are four reasons why Sisyphus is quite [right], , um, important there. Um, so the second one is like Sisyphus a myth, and there are different definitions to what a myth is.

So, you know, the myth of Sisyphus is a traditional story in Greek mythology, and another definition of myth is a widely held but false belief. And I think around long-term researchers, there are a lot of widely held but false beliefs. So I have heard over the years, I'm I, I myself are, I'm a long-term researchers and I've heard over the years, you know, many people talking about those researchers in derogatory terms.

For example, you know the hangar on hangar on the passive postdoc and you know, kind of the floater, which is one of

Tony: 00:07:02

Cecile 00:07:09

Yeah, completely. That's a very good point.

Um, and I think. , there's this belief, as you say, there's one group and they, they hang on to their successful PI who gets a lot of of funding. And as you say that they're there, it's a heterogeneous group. And even the ones who do stay with the same line manager, usually, you know, they're there for a reason.

They provide continuity. They supervise students or more junior postdocs. So they have a use for, you know, for their line manager. Um, another reason why Sisyphus is useful as well to use is because, as you said yourself, you know, you're not too familiar with the myth of Sisyphus. Um, and I think, again, it's going back to what I was just saying.

I think most people are not very familiar with who the long-term researchers are. Um, when I started this research with Sarah Shinton, um, also at the University of Edinburgh, There was no study we knew that looked at, you know, long-term researchers. There wasn't even a word to describe them. Um, so that's another, that's another similarity.

And finally you'll be happy to know, .

Tony: 00:08:29

Cecile 00:08:30

finally, uh, Albert Camus. So as we said, you know, as said, I'm originally French and, you know, Albert Camus wrote a book, uh, called The Myth of Sisyphus in which he discusses the, the meaning or the meaning, less, less lessness of life, which, you know, is, is far broader than the topic of the podcast, but where he basically concludes that we must imagine Sisyphus being happy doing something

that many other people would find absurd. And again, it's the same for long-term researchers. Often they're told, you know, maybe you should, you should change career. There's, there's nothing for you there. You've been stuck in this, in this career with no progression for 20 years, and this isn't how they see themselves. For a lot of them

they're in that research path because they love what they're doing and they're good at what they're doing as well. And I think, again, it's very important not to imagine what, what they are, but rather to ask them, why are you there? How did you get there? So that's it for Sisyphus .

Tony: 00:09:40

Yeah. And no, I mean, it, it's really interesting to hear that because there's so many important points in that, uh, in terms of the metaphor.

And it really does, you know, ring true this with, you know, what I've heard and my experiences, but what I was particularly interested in, in speaking to you for the podcast is what you've mentioned already, the research aspect, because we can easily make assumptions, uh, about people in, in, in general. So, um, in about the research itself, so what did you actually do?

What was the research project? Who, who did you speak to at,

Cecile: 00:10:10

So the research project, it was just, um, so initially the research project was about the redeployment register at the University of Edinburgh. Which is a way which we thought was, would be to reduce precarity amongst research staff, because if they're more likely to be redeployed, they're, you know, obviously they, they won't be unemployed, which is the idea.

But actually when we were looking at that, I was thinking, well actually, even though they're redeployed, they're still in precarious position. It's still short term. And obviously people who are redeployed quite a lot or have been redeployed, end up being often long-term researchers. If you're looking at the research staff side of things. Obviously in professional services

there are similarities and, and, and parallels. Um, and so what we did is, is kind of decided we don't really know much about this population. As I said, there are a lot of assumptions. Um, and we just decided why don't we actually talk to long-term researchers. And so I conducted, I, I, I sent a call at the, at the university, uh, asking long-term research staff to get back to me.

I would interview them for about an hour and 25 people got back to me and, that's, that's how it was. Everything comes from those 25 interviews. And that was, I was hoping for 20. We don't actually know how many long-term research staff there are. And again, this is something, yeah, this the whole sector, we don't know.

Um, we think, uh, I saw in one paper it was an O E C D. No, it was a Vitae paper, um, that said about one third of researchers had been on temporary contracts for more than 10 years. So, you know, we think maybe one third in research universities, but we don't really know. So I was hoping 20 people would get back to me.

25 people did. And this research come, or the results from this research come from those interviews.

Tony: 00:12:12

So, um, what was the, what would do you see as the key findings in the investigation? And perhaps what might have surprised you? So what were generally the key findings, what they say? Was there anything surprising?

Cecile: 00:12:23

Um, well, when you start from nothing, everything is almost surprising. Oh, yes. . So that was, that was very exciting and I think. What was surprising to many of the participants is that they weren't the only ones. So most people think that they are the only ones in that situation to to have been, you know, long-term researchers.

Everybody else they know seem to be an early career, but the key findings, um, was pretty much what you touched on earlier, that there there are, you know, it's not a homogenous group, and I kind of separated the group into three identities. So the first identity is what I called the candidates, and it's basically a long-term researcher who see themselves in a kind of transitional role.

And they have been postdocs sometimes, excuse me, they still call themselves already early career researchers and what they want to do is secure a lectureship. They want to have a permanent position. They want to teach, they want to have their own research group. And effectively what they do, what they dedicate their time to do is to have to tick all the boxes to become a researcher.

So, you know, they want to publish in, in high impact journals. They, they're applying for funding, they're teaching, they're getting all this experience. Interestingly, they were the most likely to say that if they, did not secure a lectureship soon, they would leave academia altogether. So they were the first identity.

Second one are the ones I called the accidental researchers. It's, it's a word I'm still a bit uncomfortable with, but having spoken to the participants, no one took offense. They kind of understood what I meant. Um, an accident. You have happy accidents and unhappy accidents, so they're a bit the same.

So you have the happy accidental researcher who is usually a researcher who didn't necessarily, at the start of their career know where they wanted to go. Um, they liked research, so they, they wanted to stay there for a bit and they ended up with a, usually a line manager who's quite good at securing funding and they stayed with them and that line manager has acknowledged that actually the

long-term researcher is very important. So, so they kept them. So it's really organic. It's, it's working for everybody. The second unhappy accident, accidental researcher. Um, there, there are a lot of stories of discriminations and flaws as well in, in the current research culture system in a way. So you have a lot of people who describe themselves as inter disciplinary.

And, you know, when you apply for lectureships or often it's very discipline specific. Um, and they have often never felt that they could apply for, for lectureships and for fellowships as well. A lot of them said, well, I sent some applications and because it's interdisciplinary, I'll have one reviewer getting it or part of it

the other reviewer will get the different part and then it doesn't quite work. They never seem to, to have some feedback where everybody gets it. So there's a large percentage of long-term researchers who are interdisciplinary researchers, and then there's a huge percentage as well of researchers who are women who often went part-time either after having children or because of caring responsibilities and because they end up being part-time, often they can't attend, excuse me, the same number of meetings.

Uh, they can't produce the same number of papers as someone who is full-time. And although we're supposed to judged to be judged in terms of full-time equivalent. This isn't how it works. Um, so they're the kind of what I called the unhappy accident because their, their career basically, their, their personal circumstances really affected their professional life.

And then the last identity, which I called the career researcher, are researchers who they may have started as candidates. You know, they are not mutually exclusive. Many of the people I interviewed really had had different identities in different times of different times here of their career, and they may have started as accidental as candidates, and they are people who took the conscious decision to remain in research, only in the research only career, despite the precarity of the position.

Yes. Um, and they would describe themselves as, as career usually very happy with what they're doing. And all they're saying is, well, we would like, we would like a different, um, academic structure that allows us to be who we are, to do what we do. Even though they're on research only contracted with far more than research.

As I said earlier, the support often the line manager they teach, they do lots of things that are not really accounted for in their account contracts. But they know that's where they want to be.

Tony: 00:17:37

Yeah. It's, it's interesting listening to you in connection to the other podcasts in this series, because there's another theme, a number, a number of themes that are coming through and particularly disadvantage towards women. There's a whole podcast, from colleagues from, uh, Sweden on, uh, the title is about, uh, women 'screwed from the start' is the beginning of the title, the presentation.

Yes. So it, the connections are there. Um, So in terms of the findings, it's really, it, it's nice to hear the clarity and I've, I've not really heard the character categorizations before that you've, you've put forward there. So does this lead to recommendations then in terms of research, are there things?

Because a lot of the precarity of short, short-term contracts, long-term researchers, this has been ongoing for, I mean, I've been in research for, um, I've gotta admit it, decades now. So are there, are there recommendations that we could, we could have coming out of this research to address some of these research cultural points, which we keep going back to?

Cecile: 00:18:36

Yes. I mean, the, the name of the conference was 'How do we stop losing talent in research careers?' and, and definitely so the, the recommendation, what really struck me when I was speaking to, to the long-term researchers is how the current academic structure is ill adapted to contemporary research. Um, you know, we are expecting this kind of PhD, postdoc,

lecturer career path. And actually a tiny proportion of people do go to that. I can't remember. What was that famous Royal Society graph that said, was it about 3% of

Tony: 00:19:12

it is a small amount? Yeah, definitely. Yes.

Cecile: 00:19:16

And if there was no space in academia for these long term researchers, Then they wouldn't be employed.

You know, no one is employing people just because they like them, that, that there needs to be, you know, that they're there. And the what is amazing is, is if you actually, so in terms of recommendation, The recommendation is really broaden up the, the, the academic career structure. Forget, not forget, but don't just have PhD, postdoc, lecturer.

The reason for that is because research has changed from the time, you know, this was, this kind of structure was, was established decades and decades ago. So, you know, you have more and more huge team science, you know, some papers. Before, you know, if you think maybe 50, 60, 60 years ago you had one author on the paper, now they have, what do they call this mega authorship paper.

Yes. It's acknowledged that research, most research certainly in in STEM. It's a bit different in the humanities, but in STEM, you are doing it with a team. So first of all, it would be acknowledging the fact that it's with a team. And also if you think of the current, the current structure you effectively have from lecturers to professors at the top.

And there's a huge gap where they are expected only to line manage junior staff, and by junior staff, I mean, you know, PhD students and early career researchers, and effectively, the reason why, you know, professors, lecturers are employing long-term researchers is, is because they know they have more experience.

They le they, they should need less management. Certainly in terms of, of the research. I mean, everybody needs, you know, keeps on needing training and management. You can't just leave people alone, but they also provide continuity and I, and I think in terms of. It doesn't make sense to think really. If you think of whether it's at university or or in any other company, you don't just have the big boss and then the junior staff.

No, you need someone in the middle. And the long-term research staff I think are providing this, someone in the middle. And then finally as, as I said about the interdisciplinary re researchers. We talk about them a lot. We say interdisciplinary is fantastic, you know, and, and, but actually often what it means, it's interdisciplinary projects, not interdisciplinary people.

And again, this, this, this career, the current career structure doesn't allow for that. When you, when there's a, a lectureship is, is advertised. It's very, very specific. And STEM for, as I said earlier, the fellowships, so it doesn't work anymore. It doesn't really account for the diversity of the workforce in academia and if you open up the career structure, I think the, the problem of diversity, that the higher education or some sectors of the higher ed education has, will open

its, will open up simply because you are opening up this kind of the career structure. Different people will, will fill different spaces and I think it'll be organic rather than forcing certain things so much. So just diversify the career structure. You'll, you'll diversify your workforce. So this are the recommendation really.

Tony: 00:22:43

No, that's excellent. There's so many. Just listen to you. There's so many interesting points that come out from this in the work and the discussion. I could go, I could ask a thousand questions. We could go on at length, but I was trying to, if I could just bring things to a close. Um, so the recommendations you mentioned there was terrific.

Um, it, it's his research project. Will there be publications? Uh, can the, can the listener get a hold of some more information on this?

Cecile: 00:23:08

Yes. So there is already a publication. It's in, it's been published in September, 2022 and it's in plus one. And it's, uh, the two co-authors are myself and Sarah Shinton. Um, and maybe we can, I don't know if you can put a link

on that.

Tony: 00:23:25

We will. We will put it. We will put it into the show notes Yes. Of, of the podcast. That'll be terrific. Yes. Um, I just, that just leads me to, um, I feel like I've cut the conversation short a little bit because it was point to discuss, but, um, thank you for joining us. It was really good to to listen to you.

Thank you.

Cecile: 00:23:41

Thank you. I mean, if you want, I can also say there's a follow up to that. Um, we've done, uh, we've also done, because it was a one one institution, um, study, we thought it's important to know that, you know, our, our results aren't biased towards one institution. So we sent out a survey in July and it's fantastic.

We got 185 responses over 20 institutions in the UK. So there will be more.

Tony: 00:24:11

That sounds, well, it is even better, more robust study as well than more data and more information. So that's someone to look out for. Thank. Thank you very much.

Cecile: 00:24:19

Well. Thank you very much, Tony.

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