How can the higher education sector make the most of its PhD talent? Two London conferences raised plenty of ideas.
Paul Wicks
If you’re an early career researcher, there are two organisations you really need to know about: UK GRAD and UK HERD, both of which held their national conferences last week.
UK GRAD improves the transferable skills of PhD students through residential ‘GRAD Schools’, working with universities and employers to highlight the strengths of people with PhDs, and via a network of ‘hubs’ that coordinate local activity. UK HERD (Higher Education Researcher Development) is a smaller body involved in the development of researchers after the PhD – contract research staff, particularly at the post-doc level.
UK GRAD: enlarged remit and the problems of Generation Y
UK GRAD Director Janet Metcalfe opened the conference with the announcement that they have won their bid to continue activities for PhD students and have had their remit expanded to cater to researchers too. At this stage it is still unclear what impact this will have on UK HERD’s activities.
Over the past few years, UK GRAD has been instrumental in improving the career prospects of PhD students. To ensure they do the same for researchers, UK GRAD will consult with interested parties and announce a plan at their September 2008 conference. Organisations such as the National Research Staff Association will make sure activities are relevant, pitched at the right level, and address needs properly.
Dr Paul Redmond from Liverpool caused a stir in defining ‘Generation Y’, the first to grow up with the internet. According to Redmond, universities and employers are having great difficulty engaging this cohort (born from around 1982 onwards). In their favour, he said, they are intimately familiar with technology, can find answers quickly, and excel at multitasking. On the downside, they consider attendance to be optional (whether for meetings, social events, or just showing up for work), they demand immediate feedback on their performance, and as the corollary of their multi-tasking prowess, they only ever pay ‘continuous partial attention’ (CPA) to anything.
Redmond suggested universities might consider wooing the parents of potential Gen Y students as they often act like professional agents for their children. He also highlighted companies who allow Gen Y employees to move rapidly around within a business to keep their attention occupied.
Redmond added: “What many organisations, including universities, are suddenly discovering is that Generation Y is quite prepared to walk away if their employers are unable or unwilling to live up to their values and concerns.” He believes Gen Y is far more aware of corporate social responsibilities and the environment than previous generations.
One survey last year by the Association of Graduate Recruiters found that 72% of final year students would have to feel happy with an employer’s ethical record before agreeing to work for them. Redmond quoted one graduate: “If we don’t like a job, we quit, because the worst thing that can happen is that we move back home. There’s no stigma”.
All of this presents universities with a significant challenge. Says Redmond, “Get it right – provide the sort of culture, incentives, contacts and development opportunities that Generation Y responds to – and you get to attract and keep the brightest researchers. Get it wrong and the chances are they’ll walk.”
UK HERD: Where are the jobs in academia?
During the UK HERD conference, it became clear that researchers need to improve their career planning. According to the recent CROS survey, almost three quarters of PhD students said they intended to pursue a career in academic research. In reality, only one in twenty will actually achieve tenure. Increasingly, therefore, researchers need access to independent and well-qualified careers advisors. Too often, there is a conflict of interest where a researcher’s career mentor is also their line manager, keen to hold on to the brightest individuals and happy to let the rest drift off to other careers. Several speakers mentioned the pervasive belief in academia that moving to industry somehow reflected a failure.
An interview with the chair of the UK Research Councils, Dr Iain Cameron, examined the potential impact of the recently drafted Researcher Concordat. This is a set of voluntary guidelines for universities and funders that sets out expectations for staff management, including provisions for appraisals, maternity leave, and training. The new concordat has arisen partly due to changes in legislation, and partly due to a recognition that the working culture of researchers has changed since the last version, published in 1996. Importantly, it contains a section on researchers’ responsibilities, which makes clear that it is they themselves who are responsible for their own personal and professional development, with appropriate support from their employers.
The overall mood on both days was very positive, with comments from international contributors from the US and continental Europe that in many ways the UK is seen as a world leader in researcher development.