Frustrations | Cash for Questions: Research funding, policy and development

Jobs in university administration

papers — This man had hair before he started shortlisting.....

The Guardian Higher Education network recently hosted a careers clinic on ‘How to break into university administration‘, and I posted a few thoughts that I thought might be useful. According to my referral stats for my blog, a number of visitors end up here with similar questions about both recruitment processes and what it’s like to work for a university. I think it’s mainly my post on Academics vs University Administrators part 94 that gets those hits. I’ve also been asked by friends and relatives for my very limited wisdom on this topic.

I also think it’s good to share this information, because one of my worries whenever I’m involved in recruiting staff is that we end up employing people who are best at writing applications and being interviewed. In my particular line of work, that’s fine – if you can’t write a strong job application against set criteria, you probably shouldn’t be helping academics with grant applications. But that’s the exception.

So what follows is me spilling the beans on my very limited experience of recruiting administrative staff in two institutions, both as panel chair and as an external panel member. I’m not an HR expert. I’m not a careers advisor. But for what it’s worth, what follows is an edited and expanded version of what I posted on the Guardian page.

——————————————————————————

When an administrative job is advertised, a document called a ‘person specification’ is drawn up. Formats vary, but usually this is a list of skills, attributes, experiences, and attitudes that are either classed as “essential” or “desirable”. Often it’ll say which part of the recruitment process these will be examined (application, aptitude test, or interview).

In all of the recruitment I’ve been involved in, this is an absolutely vital document. Decisions about who to short list for interview and who not to and ultimately who to appoint will be made on the basis of this person specification and justified on that basis. And we must be able to justify our decisions if challenged. As panel chair I was required to (briefly) explain reasons for rejection for everyone we didn’t interview, and then everyone we didn’t appoint. I’m sure the importance of the person specification isn’t unique to universities.

To get an interview, an applicant needs to show that they meet all of the essential criteria and as many of the desirable ones as possible. My advice to applicants is that if they don’t have some of the desirable criteria, they should make the case for having something equivalent, or a plan to get that skill. For example, if a person spec lists “web design” as desirable and you can’t do it, express willingness to go on a course. For bonus points, find a course that you’d like to go on. If you’re offered an interview, you can use the person spec to predict the interview questions – they’ll be questions aimed at getting evidence about your fit with the person spec. You could do worse than to imagine that you’re on the interview panel and think of the questions you’d ask to get evidence about candidates’ fit with those criteria. Chances are you won’t be a million miles off.

Unfortunately, if you don’t meet the essential criteria, it’s a waste of time applying. You won’t get an interview.

As an applicant, your job in your application form is to make it as obvious as possible to the panel members that you meet the criteria. Back it up with evidence and at least some detail. If a criterion concerns supporting committees with minute taking and agenda prep, don’t just assert you’ve done it – say a bit about the committee, and what you did exactly, and how you did it. Culturally, we’re not good at blowing our own trumpets, and a good and effective way round this is to just stick to the facts. Don’t tell, show.

Panel members really appreciate it when applicants make it easy – they can just look down the person spec, look through the application, and tick, tick, tick, you’re on the potential interviewees pile. Don’t make panel members guess or try to interpret what you say to measure it against the criteria. There’s nothing more frustrating than an applicant who might be exactly what we need, but who hasn’t made a strong enough or clear enough case, especially about transferable skills.

Panel members can tell the difference between an application that’s being tweaked slightly and sent to every job vacancy, and one that’s been tailored for that particular vacancy. Do that, put in the effort, and you will stand out, because so many people don’t. Take the application seriously, and you’ll be taken seriously in turn. And spell check and proof read is your friend. A good admin vacancy in a university in the current climate attract hundreds of applications. That’s not an exaggeration.

Two other tips. One is always ask for feedback if you’re unsuccessful at interview. In every process I’ve been involved in, there’s useful feedback there for you if you want it. Even if it’s “someone else was better suited, and there’s nothing you could have done differently/better”, you still want to know that. If you were good, chances are that the university in question would like you to apply again in the future. The second is to always take up any offer of an informal conversation in advance of applying. If you can ask sensible questions that show you’ve read all the documents thoroughly, there’s a chance that you’ll be remembered when you apply. You won’t get special treatment, but it can’t hurt.

Jobs will be advertised in a variety of places, depending on the grade and the degree of specialism needed. Universities will have a list of current vacancies on their websites, and often use local papers for non-specialist roles. Jobs.ac.uk is also widely used, and has customisable searches/vacancy emails, as well as some more good advice on job seeking.

Finally….. every job interview process that I’ve been involved with has attracted outstanding candidates. Some with little work experience, some with NHS or local authority admin experience, many from the private sector too. Universities are generally good employers and good places to work. It’s competitive at the best of times, and will be doubly so now.

————————————————————————–

The fact that most of you reading this not only (a) already have university jobs; and (b) know perfectly well how the recruitment process works isn’t lost on me. But this one’s for my random google visitors. Normal service will be resuming shortly.

Responding to Referees

This post is co-authored by Adam Golberg of Cash for Questions (UK), and Jonathan O’Donnell and Tseen Khoo of The Research Whisperer (Australia).

It arises out of a comment that Jonathan made about understanding and responding to referees on one of Adam’s posts about what to do if your grant application is unsuccessful. This seemed like a good topic for an article of its own, so here it is, cross-posted to our respective blogs.

A quick opening note on terminology: We use ‘referee’ or ‘assessor’ to refer to academics who read and review research grant applications, then feed their comments into the final decision-making process. Terminology varies a bit between funders, and between the UK and Australia. We’re not talking about journal referees, although some of the advice that follows may also apply there.

————————————-

There are funding schemes that offer applicants the opportunity to respond to referees’ comments. These responses are then considered alongside the assessors’ scores/comments by the funding panel. Some funders (including the Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC] in the UK) have a filtering process before this point, so if you are being asked to respond to referees’ comments, you should consider it a positive sign as not all applications get this far. Others, such as the Australian Research Council (ARC), offer you the chance to write a rejoinder regardless of the level of referees’ reports.

If the funding body offers you the option of a response, you should consider your response as one of the most important parts of the application process. A good response can draw the sting from criticisms, emphasise the positive comments, and enhance your chances of getting funding. A bad one can doom your application.

And if you submit no response at all? That can signal negative things about your project and research team that might live on beyond this grant round.

The first thing you might need to do when you get the referees’ comments about your grant application is kick the (imaginary) cat.* This is an important process. Embrace it.

When that’s out of your system, here are four strategies for putting together a persuasive response and pulling that slaved-over application across the funding finish line.

1. Attitude and tone

Be nice. Start with a brief statement thanking the anonymous referees for their careful and insightful comments, even if actually you suspect some of them are idiots who haven’t read your masterpiece properly. Think carefully about the tone of the rest of the response as well. You’re aiming for calm, measured, and appropriately assertive. There’s nothing wrong with saying that a referee is just plain wrong on a particular point, but do it calmly and politely. If you’re unhappy about a criticism or reviewer, there’s a good chance that it will take several drafts before you eliminate all the spikiness from the text. If it makes you feel better (and it might), you can write what you really think in the tone that you think it in but, whatever you do, don’t send that version! This is the version that may spontaneously combust from the deadly mixture of vitriol and pleading contained within.

Preparing a response is not about comprehensively refuting every criticism, or establishing intellectual superiority over the referees. You need to sift the comments to identify the ones that really matter. What are the criticisms (or backhanded compliments) that will harm your cause? Highlight those and answer them methodically (see below). Petty argy-bargy isn’t worth spending your time on.

2. Understanding and interpreting referees’ comments

One UK funder provides referee report templates that invite the referees to state their level of familiarity with the topic and even a little about their research background, so that the final decision-making panel can put their comments into context. This is a great idea, and we would encourage other funding agencies to embrace it.

Beyond this volunteered information (if provided), never assume you know who the referee is, or that you can infer anything else about them because you could be going way off-base with your rant against econometricians who don’t ‘get’ sociological work. If there’s one thing worse than an ad hominem response, it’s an ad hominem response aimed at the wrong target!

One exercise that you might find useful is to produce a matrix listing all of the criticisms, and indicating the referee(s) who made those objections. As these reports are produced independently, the more referees make a particular point, the more problematic it might be. This tabled information can be sorted by section (e.g. methodology, impact/dissemination plan, alternative approaches). You can then repeat the exercise with the positive comments that were made. While assimilating and processing information is a task that academics tend to be good at, it’s worth being systematic about this because it’s easy to overlook praise or attach too much weight to objections that are the most irritating.

Also, look out for, and highlight, any requests that you do a different project. Sometimes, these can be as obvious as “you should be doing Y instead”, where Y is a rather different project and probably closer to the reviewer’s own interests. These can be quite difficult criticisms to deal with, as what they are proposing may be sensible enough, but not what you want to do. In such cases, stick to your guns, be clear what you want to do, and why it’s of at least as much value as the alternative proposal.

Using the matrix that you have prepared, consider further how damaging each criticism might be in the minds of the decision makers. Using a combination of weight of opinion (positive remarks on a particular point minus criticisms) and multiplying by potential damage, you should now have a sense of which are the most serious criticisms.

Preparing a response is not a task to be attempted in isolation. You should involve other members of your team, and make full use of your research support office and senior colleagues (who are not directly involved in the application). Take advantage of assistance in interpreting the referees’ comments, and reviewing multiple drafts of your response.

Don’t read the assessor reports by themselves; you should also go back to your whole application, several times if necessary. It has probably been some time since you submitted the application, and new eyes and a bit of distance will help you to see the application as the referees may have seen it. You could pinpoint the reasons for particular criticisms, or misunderstandings that you assumed they made. While their criticisms may not be valid for the application you thought you wrote, they may very well be so for the one that you actually submitted.

3. The response

You should plan to use the available space in line with the exercise above, setting aside space for each criticism in proportion to its risk of stopping you getting funded.

Quibbles about your budgeted expenditure for hotel accommodation are insignificant compared to objections that question your entire approach, devalue your track-record, invalidate your methodology, or claim that you’re adding little that’s new to the sum of human knowledge. So, your response should:

Make it easy for the decision-makers: Be clear and concise.
Be specific when rebutting from the application. For example: “As we stated on page 24, paragraph 3…”. However, don’t lose sight of the need to create a document that can be understood in isolation as far as possible.
If possible and appropriate, introduce something that you’ve done in the time since submission to rebut a negative comment (be careful, though, as some schemes may not allow the introduction of new material).
Acknowledge any misunderstandings that arise from the application’s explanatory shortcomings or limitations of space, and be open to new clarifications.
Be grateful for the positive comments, but focus on rebutting the negative comments.

4. Be the reviewer

For the best way to really get an idea of what the response dynamic is all about in these funding rounds, consider becoming a grant referee. Once you’ve assessed a few applications and cut your teeth on a whole funding round (they can often be year-long processes), you quickly learn about the demands of the job and how regular referees ‘value’ applications.

Look out for chances to be on grant assessment panels, and say yes to invitations to review for various professional bodies or government agencies. Almost all funding schemes could do with a larger and more diverse pool of academics to act as their ‘gate-keepers’.

Finally: Remember to keep your eyes on the prize. The purpose of this response exercise is to give your project the best possible chance of getting funding. It is an inherent part of many funding rounds these days, and not only an afterthought to your application.

* The writers and their respective organisations do not, in any way, endorse the mistreatment of animals. We love cats. We don’t kick them, and neither should you. It’s just an expression. For those who’ve never met it, it means ‘to vent your frustration and powerlessness’.

I’ve disabled comments on this entry so that we can keep conversations on this article to one place – please head over to the Research Whisperer if you’d like to comment. (AG).

New year’s wishes….

The new calendar year is traditionally a time for reflection and for resolutions, but in a fit of hubris I’ve put together a list of resolutions I’d like to see for the sector, research funders, and university culture in general. In short, for everyone but me. But to show willing, I’ll join in too.

No more of the following, please….

1. “Impactful”

Just…. no. I don’t think of myself a linguistic purist or a grammar-fascist, though I am a pedant for professional purposes. I recognise that language changes and evolves over time, and I welcome changes that bring new colour and new descriptive power to our language. While I accept that the ‘impact agenda’ is here to stay for the foreseeable future, the ‘impactful’ agenda need not be. The technical case against this monstrosity of a word is outlined at Grammarist, but surely the aesthetic case is conclusive in itself. I warn anyone using this word in my presence that I reserve the right to tell them precisely how annoyful they’re being.

2. The ‘Einstein fallacy’

This is a mistaken and misguided delusion that a small but significant proportion of academics appear to be suffering from. It runs a bit like this:
1) Einstein was a genius
2) Einstein was famously absent-minded and shambolic in his personal organisation
3) Conclusion: If I am or pretend to be absent-minded and shambolic , either:
(3a) I will be a genius; or
(3b) People will think I am a genius; or
(3c) Both.

I accept that some academics are genuinely bad at administration and organisation. In some cases it’s a lack of practice/experience, in others a lack of confidence, and I accept that this is just not where their interests and talent lies. Fair enough. But please stop being deliberately bad at it to try to impress people. Oh, you can only act like a prima donna if you have the singing skills to back it up…

3) Lack of predictability in funding calls

Yes, I’m looking at you, ESRC. Before the comprehensive spending review and all of the changes that followed from that, we had a fairly predictable annual cycle of calls, very few of which had very early autumn deadlines. Now we’re into a new cycle which may or may not be predictable, and a lot of them seem to be very early in the academic year. Sure, let’s have one off calls on particular topics, but let’s have a predictable annual cycle for everything else with as much advance notice as possible. It’ll help hugely with ‘demand management’ because it’ll be much easier to postpone applications that aren’t ready if we know there will be another call. For example, I was aware of a couple of very strong seminar series ideas which needed further work and discussion within the relevant research and research-user communities. My advice was to start that work now using the existence of the current call as impetuous, and to submit next year. But we’ve taken a gamble, as we don’t know if there will be another call in the future, and you can’t tell me because apparently a decision has yet to be made.

4) Lazy “please forward as appropriate” emails

Stuff sent to me from outside the Business School with the expectation that I’ll just send it on to everyone. No. Email overload is a real problem, and I write most of my emails with the expectation that I have ten seconds at most either to get the message across, or to earn an attention extension. I mean, you’re not even reading this properly are you? You’re probably skim reading this in case there’s a nugget of wit amongst the whinging. Every email I sent creates work for others, and every duff, dodgy, or irrelevant email I send reduces my e-credit rating. I know for a fact that at least some former colleagues deleted everything I sent without reading it – there’s no other explanation I can think of for missing two emails with the header including the magic words “sabbatical leave”.

So… will I be spending my e-credit telling my colleagues about your non-business school related event which will be of interested to no-one? No, no, and most assuredly no. I will forward it “as appropriate”, if by “appropriate” you mean my deleted items folder.

Sometimes, though, a handful of people might be interested. Or quite a lot of people might be interested, but it’s not worth an individual email. Maybe I’ll put it on the portal, or include it in one of my occasional news and updates emails. Maybe.

If you’d like me to do that, though, how about sending me the message in a form I can forward easily and without embarrassment? With a meaningful subject line, a succinct and accurate summary in the opening two sentences? So that I don’t have to do it for you before I feel I can send it on. There’s a lovely internet abbreviation – TL:DR – which stands for Too Long: Didn’t Read. I think its existence tells us something.

5) People who are lucky enough to have interesting, rewarding and enjoyable jobs with an excellent employer and talented and supportive colleagues, who always manage to find some petty irritants to complain about, rather than counting their blessings.

Dear rail companies….

"Good morning, look you, Jones-the-absolute-ripoff"

Dear rail companies,

Just a quick note of appreciation for your wildly unpredictable and logic-defying pricing structure. I enjoy trying to navigate the labyrinthine maze of different fares whenever I want to travel. I highly recommend the Semi-Super Saver Single Return Railroader Autumn Summer Traveller Student Nurse District Pet Family Oxbow Lake Pass incidentally.

It’s irritating enough doing this for myself, but it’s even more annoying when trying to cost a research project involving a lot of train trips. The project could be fairly cheap, or it could be massively expensive, depending upon brute luck, how organised academic colleagues are in requesting tickets, how soon the administrators can book them through the special magical portal of trail travel that universities seem to have, what time academics have to leave/arrive, and whether Mars is in the ascendant. Do we go optimistic, take an intermediate position, or take a wildly pessimistic one? Travel costs could end up being negligible in relation to the project as a whole, or run to a significant share of expenses. We could end up returning a fairly substantial slice of cash, or we could run out of money and/or cut the project activities short.

Guess what, rail companies? The rest of the budget is predictable. So why are you making life difficult? You don’t get research associates charging extra for work before 9:30, or offering to work for substantially less if you tell them what to do six weeks in advance. Transcription costs aren’t more expensive if the tapes leave London via Waterloo rather than St Pancreas International. Overheads aren’t more expensive in peak hours.

All this is bad enough. And then one train company – I’m looking at you, East Midlands Trains – makes it worse by plastering adverts featuring Jedward all over every phone box in the Greater Nottingham area. Damn you all. Damn you all to hell. On an apex network first advance single.

Outstanding researcher or Oustanding grant writer?

The Times Higher has a report on Sir Paul Nurse‘s ‘Anniversary Day’ address to the Royal Society. Although the Royal Society is a learned society in the natural rather than the social sciences, he makes an interesting distinction that seems to have – more or less unchallenged – become a piece of received wisdom across many if not all fields of research.

Here’s part of what Sir Paul had to say (my underline added)

Given this emphasis on the primacy of the individuals carrying out the research, decisions should be guided by the effectiveness of the researchers making the research proposal. The most useful criterion for effectiveness is immediate past progress. Those that have recently carried out high quality research are most likely to continue to do so. In coming to research funding decisions the objective is not to simply support those that write good quality grant proposals but those that will actually carry out good quality research. So more attention should be given to actual performance rather than planned activity. Obviously such an emphasis needs to be tempered for those who have only a limited recent past record, such as early career researchers or those with a break in their careers. In these cases making more use of face-to-face interviews can be very helpful in determining the quality of the researcher making the application.

I guess my first reaction to this is to wonder whether interviews are the best way of deciding research funding for early career researchers. Apart from the cost, inconvenience and potential equal opportunities issues of holding interviews, I wonder if they’re even a particularly good way of making decisions. When it comes to job interviews, I’ve seen many cases where interview performance seems to take undue priority over CV and experience. And if the argument is that sometimes the best researchers aren’t the best communicators (which is fair), it’s not clear to me how an interview will help.

My second reaction is to wonder about the right balance between funding excellent research and funding excellent researchers. And I think this is really the point that Sir Paul is making. But that’s a subject for another entry, another time. Coming soon!

My third reaction – and what this entry is about – is the increasingly common assumption that there is one tribe of researchers who can write outstanding applications, and another which actually does outstanding research. One really good expression of this can be found in a cartoon at the ever-excellent Research Counselling. Okay, so it’s only a cartoon, but it wouldn’t have made it there unless it was tapping into some deeper cultural assumptions. This article from the Times Higher back at the start of November speaks of ‘Dr Plods’ – for whom getting funding is an aim in itself – and ‘Dr Sparks’ – the ones who deserve it – and there seems to be little challenge from readers in the comments section below.

But does this assumption have any basis in fact? Are those who get funded mere journeymen and women researchers, mere average intellects, whose sole mark of distinction is their ability to toady effectively to remote and out-of-touch funding bodies? To spot the research priority flavour-of-the-month from the latest Delivery Plan, and cynically twist their research plans to match it? It’s a comforting thought for the increasingly large number of people who don’t get funding for their project. We’d all like to be the brilliant-but-eccentric-misunderstood-radical-unappreciated genius, who doesn’t play by the rules, cuts a few corners but gets the job done, and to hell with the pencil pushers ~~at the DA’s office in city hall~~ in RCUK’s offices in downtown Swindon. A weird kind of cross between Albert Einstein and Jimmy McNulty from ‘The Wire’.

While I don’t think anyone is seriously claiming that the Sparks-and-Plods picture should be taken literally, I’m not even sure how much truth there is in it as a parable or generalisation. For one thing, I don’t see how anyone could realistically Plod their way very far from priority to priority as they change and still have a convincing track record for all of them. I’m sure that a lot of deserving proposals don’t get funded, but I doubt very much that many undeserving proposals do get the green light. The brute fact is that there are more good ideas than there is money to spend on funding them, and the chances of that changing in the near future are pretty much zero. I think that’s one part of what’s powering this belief – if good stuff isn’t being funded, that must be because mediocre stuff is being funded. Right? Er, well…. probably not. I think the reality is that it’s the Sparks who get funded, but it’s those Sparks who are better able to communicate their ideas and make a convincing case for fit with funders’ or scheme priorities. Plods, and their ‘incremental’ research (a term that damns with faint praise in some ESRC referee’s reports that I’ve seen) shouldn’t even be applying to the ESRC – or at least not to the standard Research Grants scheme.

A share of this Sparks/Plods view is probably caused by the impact agenda. If impact is hard for the social sciences, it’s at least ten times as hard for basic research in many of the natural sciences. I can understand why people don’t like the impact agenda, and I can understand why people are hostile. However, I’ve always understood the impact agenda as far as research funding applications are concerned is that if a project has the potential for impact, it ought to, and there ought to be a good, solid, thought through, realistic, and defensible plan for bringing it about. If there genuinely is no impact, argue the case in the impact statement. Consider this, from the RCUK impact FAQ.

How do Pathways to Impact affect funding decisions within the peer review process?

The primary criterion within the peer review process for all Research Councils is excellent research. This has always been the case and remains unchanged. As such, problematic research with an excellent Pathways to Impact will not be funded. There are a number of other criteria that are assessed within research proposals, and Pathways to Impact is now one of those (along with e.g. management of the research and academic beneficiaries).

Of course, how this plays out in practice is another matter, but every indication I’ve had from the ESRC is that this is taken very seriously. Research excellence comes first. Impact (and other factors) second. These may end up being used in tie-breakers, but if it’s not excellent, it won’t get funded. Things may be different at the other Research Councils that I know less about, especially the EPSRC which is repositioning itself as a sponsor of research, and is busy dividing and subdividing and prioritising research areas for expansion or contraction in funding terms.

It’s worth recalling that it’s academics who make decisions on funding. It’s not Suits in Swindon. It’s academics. Your peers. I’d be willing to take seriously arguments that the form of peer review that we have can lead to conservatism and caution in funding decisions. But I find it much harder to accept the argument that senior academics – researchers and achievers in their own right – are funding projects of mediocre quality but good impact stories ahead of genuinely innovative, ground-breaking research which could drive the relevant discipline forward.

But I guess my message to anyone reading this who considers herself to be more of a ‘Doctor Spark’ who is losing out to ‘Doctor Plod’ is to point out that it’s easier for Sparky to do what Ploddy does well than vice versa. Ploddy will never match your genius, but you can get the help of academic colleagues and your friendly neighbourhood research officer – some of whom are uber-Plods, which in at least some cases is a large part of the reason why they’re doing their job rather than yours.

Want funding? Maximise your chances of getting it. Want to win? Learn the rules of the game and play it better. Might your impact plan be holding you back? Take advantage of any support that your institution offers you – and if it does, be aware of the advantage that this gives you. Might your problem be the art of grant writing? Communicating your ideas to a non-specialised audience? To reviewers and panel members from a cognate discipline? To a referee not from your precise area? Take advice. Get others to read it. Take their impressions and even their misunderstandings seriously.

Or you could write an application with little consideration for impact, with little concern for clarity of expression or the likely audience, and then if you’re unsuccessful, you can console yourself with the thought that it’s the system, not you, that’s at fault.

On strike…..

"Careful Now" — "Down with this sort of thing!"

I hate having to take strike action. I hate having to take action short of a strike, which recently involved the highly radical step of, er, working to contract.

I particularly hate it at the moment because tomorrow will be my second anniversary at Nottingham University Business School. I think I’m very lucky to be at a well-run university and in a well-run School. I admire and respect my colleagues, and have no reason to think that that respect isn’t returned. I enjoy my work – challenging enough to stretch me, not so stressful that it might break me. I hope these words won’t come back to haunt me, but for now, I consider myself to be very, very lucky.

So I don’t want to strike. I also don’t want to ‘politicise’ my blog by saying too much about it. Not least because it’s hard to get to the bottom of what’s really going on. I’ve foolishly neglected to become an expert in pensions, and so I don’t fully grasp the issues. I know enough not to take at face value the information that the employers are giving us, nor the information from the UCU. On the one hand, it’s hard not to conclude that (regardless of your personal politics) that the government is doing all kinds of things that it’s secretly wanted to do for ages under the guise of TINA (‘There Is No Alternative’). It’s also hard to avoid the fact that changes were made to our pension scheme not so long ago that were supposed to address the (undoubted) issues of longer life expectancy. So it’s hard not to wonder why we’re back again so soon. And hard not to wonder how long it will be before we’re back revisiting and adjusting again. And again. And again.

There’s something of the theatrical about all of the public posturing and negotiations and the wars of words and the spin that goes on with every industrial dispute. Often I think what’s really going on is not what it seems. “Offers” are made which are intended to be rejected, and in the full knowledge that a better offer will be made after the inevitable industrial action. Unions ask for more than they could possibly expect to get. In the end, we usually end up with an agreement which lets both sides claim victory and appease their constituency. But what we will have tomorrow is a show of the strength of feeling and stomach for a fight. It may or not make any difference in the short term. But in the long term, it sends a clear signal and it will make a difference to the eventual outcome of the war, even if the ‘battle’ is stage managed.

I’d recommend union membership to anyone. If you can join a union, you should. Not only will they represent members’ interests collectively, they’ll also have your back if things go bad and make sure you get due process and fair treatment. If I had a pound for every story I’ve heard about union representation and support making a real difference to how someone is treated, I’d make at least some of the cash back that I’ll lose by striking tomorrow.

University Life: Why now is the wrong time of the academic year to get anything done….

A picture of a calendar — Better luck next year?

… and why that’s true for absolutely any value of “now”…..

September
“It’s the start of the academic year soon, everyone’s concentrating on preparing their teaching”

October
“It’s the busiest time for teaching. I’ve got 237 tutorials this week alone”

November
“I’ve got about 4,238 essays to mark.”

December
“It’s nearly Christmas, nothing gets done at this time of year”

January
“I’ve got sixty thousand exam scripts to mark”

February
[See October]

March-April
“With the Easter break coming up, well…”

May
[See January, but with added Finalist-related urgency and some conferences]

June-August
“Conference season…. annual leave…. concentrated period of research ~~in Tuscany~~“

A few scrawled lines in defence of the ESRC…

There’s a very strange article in the Times Higher today which claims that the ESRC’s latest “grant application figures raise questions about its future”.

Er…. do they? Seriously? Why?

It’s true that success rates are a problem – down to 16% overall, and 12% for the Research Grants Scheme (formerly Standard Grants. According to the article, these are down from 17% and 14% from the year before. It’s also true that RCUK stated in 2007 that 20% should be the minimum success rates. But this long term decline in success rates – plus a cut in funding in real terms – is exactly why the ESRC has started a ‘demand management’ strategy.

A comment attributed to one academic (which could have been a rhetorical remark taken out of context) appears to equate the whole thing to a lottery,and calls for the whole thing to be scrapped and the funding distributed via the RAE/REF. This strikes me as an odd view, though not one, I’m sure, confined to the person quoted. But it’s not a majority view, not even among the select number of academics approached for comments. All of the other academics named in the article seem to be calling for more funding for social sciences, so it would probably be legitimate to wonder why the focus of the article is about “questions” about the ESRC’s “future”, rather than calls for more funding. But perhaps that’s just how journalism works. It certainly got my attention.

While I don’t expect these calls for greater funding for social science research will be heard in the current politico-economic climate, it’s hard to see that abolishing the ESRC and splitting its budget will achieve very much. The great strength of the dual funding system is that while the excellence of the Department of TopFiveintheRAE at the University of Russell deserves direct funding, it’s also possible for someone at the Department of X at Poppleton University to get substantial funding for their research if their research proposal is outstanding enough. Maybe your department gets nothing squared from HEFCE as a result of the last RAE, but if your idea is outstanding it could be you – to use a lottery slogan. This strikes me as a massively important principle – even if in practice, most of it will go to the Universities of Russell. As a community of social science scholars, calling for the ESRC to be abolished sounds like cutting of the nose to spite the face.

Yes, success rates are lower than we’d like, and yes, there is a strong element of luck in getting funded. But it’s inaccurate to call it a “lottery”. If your application isn’t of outstanding quality, it won’t get funded. If it is, it still might not get funded, but… er… that’s not a lottery. All of the other academics named in the article seem to be calling for more funding for the social sciences.

According to the ESRC’s figures between 2007 and 2011, 9% of Standard Grant applications were either withdrawn or rejected at ‘office’ stage for various reasons. 13% fell at the referee stage (beta or reject grades), and 21% fell at the assessor stage (alpha minus). So… 43% of applications never even got as far as the funding panel before being screened out on quality or eligibility grounds.

So… while the headline success rate might be 12%, the success rates for fundable applications are rather better. 12 funded out of 100 applications is 12%, but 12 funded out of 57 of the 100 of the applications that are competitive is about 28%. That’s what I tell my academic colleagues – if your application is outstanding, then you’re looking at 1 in 4. If it’s not outstanding, but merely interesting, or valuable, or would ‘add to the literature’, then look to other (increasingly limited) options.

So…. we need the ESRC. It would be a disaster for social science research if it were not to have a Research Council. We may not agree with everything it does and all of the decisions it makes, we may be annoyed and frustrated when they won’t fund our projects, but we need a funder of social science with money to invest in individual research projects, rather than merely in excellent Departments.

Academics v. University administrators…. part 94…

A picture from the TV programme 'Yes Minister' This week’s Times Higher has another article about Benjamin Ginsberg’s book The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters. It’s written about the US, but it has obvious implications for the UK t00, where complaints from some academics about “bureaucrats” are far from uncommon. Whether it’s that administrators are taking over, or that the tail is wagging the dog, or that we’re all too expensive/have too much power/are too numerous, such complaints are far from uncommon in the UK.

There’s two ways, I think, in which I would like to respond to Ginsberg and his ilk. And it’s the “ilk” I’m more interested, as I haven’t read his book and don’t intend to.

The first way I could respond is to write a critical blog post, probably with at least one reference to the classic ‘what have the Romans ever done for us?‘ scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (“But apart from recruiting our students, hiring our researchers, fixing our computers, booking our conferences, balancing the books, and timetabling our classes, what have administrators ever done for us?”). It would probably involve a kind of riposte-by-parody – there are plenty of things I could say about academics based upon stereotypes and a lack of understanding, insight, or empathy into what their roles actually entail. Something about having summers off, being unable or unwilling or unable to complete even the most basic administrative tasks, being totally devoid of any common sense, rarely if ever turning up at work… etcetera and so on. I might even be tempted to chuck in an anecdote or two, like the time when I had to explain to an absolutely furious Prof exactly why good governance meant that I wasn’t allowed to simply write a cheque – on demand – on the university’s behalf to anyone she chose to nominate.

The second way of responding is to consider whether Ginsberg and other critics might have a point.

On the whole, I don’t think they do, and I’ll say why later on. But clearly, reading the views attributed to Ginsberg, some of the comments that I’ve heard over the years, and the kind of comments that get posted below articles like Paul Greatrix’s defence of “back office” staff (also in the Times Higher), there’s an awful lot of anger and resentment out there – barely constrained fury in some cases. And rather than simply dismissing it, I think it’s worthwhile for non-academics to reflect on that anger, and to consider whether we’re guilty of any of the sins of which we’re accused.

I didn’t want to be a university administrator when I was growing up. It’s something I fell into almost by accident. I had decided against “progressing” my research from MPhil to PhD, because although I was confident that I could complete a PhD (I passed my MPhil without corrections), I was much less confident about the job market. Was I good enough to be an academic? Maybe. Did I want it enough? No. But it gave me a level of understanding and insight into – and a huge amount of respect for – those who did want it enough. Two more years (at least) living like a student? Being willing to up sticks and move to the other end of the country or the other side of the world for a ten month temporary contract? Thanks, but not for me. I was ready to move towards putting down roots. I was all set to go off and start teacher training when a job at Keele University came up that caught my eye. And that job was on what was then known as the “academic related” scale. And that’s how I saw myself, and still do. Academic related.

My point is, I didn’t sign up to be obstructive, to wield power over academics, to build an ’empire’, or – worst of all – to be a jobsworth. I’ve never had a role where I’ve actually had formal authority over academics, but I have had roles where I’ve been responsible for setting up and running approval processes – for conference funding, for sabbatical leave, for the submission of research grant applications, and (at the moment) for ethical approval for research. When I had managerial responsibility for an academic unit, my aim was for academics to do academic tasks, and for managers and administrators to do managerial/academic tasks. That’s how I used to explain my former role – in terms of what tasks that previously fell to academics would now fall to me. Nevertheless, academics were filling in forms and following administrative processes designed and implemented by me. While that’s not power, it’s responsibility. I’m giving them things to do which are only instrumentally related to their primary goal of research. I am contributing to their administrative workload, and it’s down to me to make sure that anything I introduce is justified and proportionate, and that any systems I’m responsible for are as efficient as possible.

So when I hear complaints about ‘administration’ and ‘bureaucracy’ and university managers, whether those complaints are very specific or very general, I hope I’ll always respond by questioning and checking what I do, and by at least being open to the possibility that the critics have a point.

However, I don’t think most of these complaints are aimed at the likes of me. Partly because I’ve always had good feedback from academics (though what they say behind my back I have no idea….) but mainly because I’ve always been based in a School or Institute – I’ve never had a role in a central service department. Thus my work tends to be more visible and more understood. I have the opportunity to build relationships with academics because we interact on a variety of different issues on a semi-regular basis, which generally doesn’t happen for those based centrally.

And I think it’s those based centrally who usually get the worst flack in these kinds of debates. I’m not immune from the odd grumble about central service departments myself in the past when I’ve not got what I wanted from them when I want it. But if I’m honest, I have to accept that I don’t have a good understanding of what it is they do, what their priorities are, and what kinds of pressure they’re under. And I try to remind myself of that. I wonder how many people who posted critical comments on Paul’s article would actually be able to give a good account of what (say) the Registry actually does? I would imagine that relatively few of the academic critics have very much experience of management at any level in a large and complex organisation.

I’m not sure, however, that all of the critics bother to remind themselves of this. It’s similar to the kinds of complaints about the civil service and the public sector in general. ‘Faceless bureaucrats’ is an interesting and revealing term – what it really means is that you, the critic, don’t know them and don’t know or understand what it is they do. ‘Non-job’ is another favourite of mine. There many sectors that I don’t understand. and which have job titles and job descriptions which make no sense to me, but I’m not so lacking on imagination or so arrogant to assume that that means that they’re “non-jobs”. In fact, I’d say the belief that there are large groups of administrators – whether in universities or elsewhere – who exist only to make work for themselves and to expand their ’empire’, is a belief bordering on conspiracy theory. Especially in the absence of evidence. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That’s not to say that there is no scope for efficiencies, of course, but that’s a different scale of response entirely.

By all means, let’s make sure that non-academic staff keep a relentless focus on the core mission of the university. Let’s question what we do, and consider how we could reduce the burden on academic staff, and be open to the possibility that the critics have a point.

But let’s not be too quick to denigrate what we don’t understand. And let’s not mistake ‘Yes Prime Minster’ for a hard-hitting documentary….

“It’s a bad review, we got a bad review …oh lord”

A picture of Clacton Pier — A large sandpit and a pier (re)view

A healthy portion of food for thought has been served up by the publication of a RAND Europe report into alternatives to peer review for research project funding. Peer review is something that I – as an alleged research funding professional -have rather taken for granted as being the natural and obvious way to allocate (increasingly) scarce resources. How do we decide who gets funded? Well, let’s ask experts to report, and then make a judgement based upon what those experts say. I’ve been aware of other ways, but I’ve not given them much thought – I’m a poacher, not a gamekeeper.

The Guardian Higher Education Network ran a poll over the second half of last week, and a whopping 70.8% of those who voted ~~said that they had had a research proposal turned down~~ thought the process should be changed. I’m aware of the limitations of peer review -it’s only as good as the peers, and the effort they’re prepared to make and the care they’re prepared to take with their review. Anyone who has had any involvement in research funding will be aware of examples where comments come back that are frankly baffling: drawing odd conclusions, obsessing over irrelevancies, wanting the research to be about something else, making unsupported statements, or assertions that are just demonstrably false.

[Personally, I hate it when ‘Reviewer Q’ remarks that the project “seems expensive”, without further comment or justification about what’s too expensive. That’s our carefully crafted budget you’re talking about there, Reviewer Q. It’s meticulously pedantic, and pedantically meticulous. We’ve Justified our Resources… so how about you justify your comment? I wonder how annoyed I’d get if I wrote the whole application…..]

One commentator on the Guardian poll page, dianthusmed, said that

Anyone voting to change the peer review process, I will not take you seriously unless you tell me what you’d replace it with.

And that’s surely the $64,000 question (at 80% fEC)…. we’re all more or less familiar with the potential shortcomings of peer review as a method of allocating funding, but if not peer review… then what?

In fact, the Rand Europe report is not an anti peer-review polemic, and deserves a more nuanced response than a “peer review: yes or no” on-line poll. The only sensible answer, surely, is: well, it depends what you want to achieve. The report itself aims to

inspire thinking amongst research funders by showing how the research funding review process can be changed, and to give funders the confidence to try novel methods by explaining where and how such approaches have been used previously.

But crucially…

This is not intended to replace peer review, which remains the best method for review of grant applications in many situations. Rather, we hope that by considering some of the alternatives to peer review, where appropriate, research funders will be able to support a wider portfolio of projects, leading to more innovative, high-impact work.

A number of the options in the report seem to be more related to changing the nature and scope for calls for proposals than changing the nature of peer review itself – many in ways that aren’t unfamiliar. But I’d like to pick out one idea for particular comment: sand pits.

I believe the origin of the term is from computing, where the term ‘sand box’ or ‘sand pit’ was used to describe an area for experimentation or testing, where no damage could be done to the overall system architecture. I guess the notion of harmless – even playful – experimentation is what advocates have in mind.

They sound like a very interesting idea – get a group of people with expertise to bring to bear on a particular problem, put them all in same place for a day, or a number of days, and see what emerges from discussions. It’s not really caught on yet in the social sciences, although social scientists have been involved, of course. The notion of cooperating rather than competing, and of new research collaborations forming, is an interesting and an appealing idea. As a way of bringing new perspectives to bear on a particular problem – especially an interdisciplinary problem – it looks like an attractive alternative.

There are problems, though. If there are more applications to participate than there are places, there will inevitably need to be choices made and applications accepted and rejected. I would imagine that questions of fit and balance would be relevant as well as questions of experience and expertise, but someone or some group of people will have to make choices. From the application forms I’ve seen, this is often on the basis of short CV and a short statement. So… don’t we end up relying on some element of peer review anyway?

Secondly, I wonder about equal opportunities. If a sand pit event is to take place over several days in a hotel, it will inevitably be difficult or even impossible for some to attend. Those who are parents and/or carers. Those who have timetabled lectures and tutorials. Those who have other professional or personal diary commitments that just can’t be moved. For a standard peer reviewed call, no-one is excluded completely because it clashes with an important family event. Can we be sure that all of the best researchers will even apply?

I should say that I’ve never attended a sandpit event, but I have attended graduate recruitment/selection events (offered, deferred, and finally declined, since you ask), and residential training courses. They’re all strange situations where both competitive and cooperative behaviours are rewarded, and I wonder how people react. If I were a funder, I’d be worried that the prizes might be going to the best social operators, rather than those with the best ideas. It’s a myth that academic brilliance is always found in inverse proportion to social skills, of course, but even so, my concern would be about whether one or more dominant figures could ending up forming projects around themselves. I also wonder about existing cliques or vested interests of whatever kind having a disproportionate influence.

I’m sure that effective facilitation and chairing can go a long way to minimising at least some of the potential problems, and while I think sandpits are an intriguing and promising alternative to peer review, they’re not without problems of their own. I’d be very interested to hear from anyone who’s attended a sandpit – am I doing them a disservice here?

Although I’m open to other ideas for distributing research funding – by all means, let’s be creative, and let’s look at alternatives – I don’t see a replacement for peer review. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t scope to improve the quality of peer review. Because, Reviewer Q, there certainly is.

And perhaps that’s the point that the 70.8% were trying to make.