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LOOKING FOR A job in Irish universities was demoralising as there were no permanent contracts for the type of role I was applying for.
In Ireland, you get a graduate visa for two years after completing a postgrad in order to find a job. This is difficult when the role you want doesn’t offer permanent contracts, which is the case for most graduate jobs in third levels these days.
Being from Malaysia, temporary and short-term contracts weren’t an option for me as I needed job security in order to apply for a work permit.
While completing my research masters in immunology in Trinity, I had become passionate about communicating science and public engagement. After graduation, I stayed in Trinity and worked in a science communication role developing a public science programme and organising events.
Low wages and no security
Even though this wasn’t a research role, I was classified as a research assistant, one of the lowest paid roles in academia. I was hired for four months initially and this was extended to six months.
These roles are highly skilled and they require a minimum of a masters or PhD yet they don’t get any recognition in terms of pay or security. Some positions I came across when job hunting were classified as admin roles which is ridiculous given the skill level they were looking for.
This lack of recognition affected my confidence, as you start to wonder if people are taking your job seriously and whether it’s just a tick box exercise to fulfil a requirement of their funding grants.
Currently, the Irish Universities Association research assistant payscale starts at under €23,000 which is not a livable salary in Dublin right now. With the way jobs are being offered in Irish universities, people are looking to move abroad for better conditions and lower living expenses.
Academia is going to end up with a lack of diversity and different voices, which will have a huge impact on the quality of work that Irish universities produce.
The harsh reality of academia
There’s so much emphasis on bringing international students to study here but not much support when you need to find a job. I felt like there was nowhere to go if I wanted to stay in this field.
The answer I received most often when job hunting was: ‘That’s just the way it is’. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to give me the role or interview, it was that I wasn’t going to have a future with them once my graduate visa expired.
Younger lab heads and lecturers are having conversations about how academia needs to change and evolve but there’s a lot of old thinking among senior scientists who feel because they went through this, then the younger generation should too.
It shouldn’t be that way. That’s a whole culture in academia that needs to change.
I feel very much at home in Ireland, having been here since starting my degree in bioscience in IT Carlow. However, I had to face the reality there was a chance I would have to go back to Malaysia or move out of the area I was qualified for and loved.
I kept fighting and looking for jobs but in the end I had to give up hope of finding a permanent job in an Irish university.
Luckily, a month before my graduate visa was about to expire, I was offered a public engagement job in a non-profit, Sense About Science. I’m really enjoying my new role and they’re really supportive.
This entire process was very stressful and a constant worry for two years. I only realised the effect it was having on me once I settled into my new job and a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.
Ilaina Khairulzaman is a public engagement professional and a Malaysian cailín who fell in love with Ireland.
Academic Uncertainty Investigation
Do you want to know more about how prevalent precarious contracts are in the third level sector in Ireland?
The Noteworthy team want to do an in-depth investigation into how universities and institutes of technology are allowed to employ so many researchers and lecturers on these contracts.
They also want to look at the impact that short-term and temporary contracts are having on the sector as a whole.
Here’s how to help support this proposal>
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With all due respect to the lady, nobody is owed a job and the state is under no obligation to provide one. On the other hand, she’s gained transferable skills that can benefit her and her homeland. Just because someone comes here as a student doesn’t mean they have an entitlement to settle here for life. I really don’t understand this article
@De20: This issue of finding permanent roles affects Irish born students as well. The author is highlighting the issue for all, not just immigrants
@De20: Universities gain reputation and standing based on the academic research they produce and the how well the students they teach do after graduating. This requires building a stable and long term research community of academics who work together at an institution / university department, sometimes for decades, who become national and even international experts in their field.
They teach undergrad students, oversee graduate programs and research projects, and they in turn seek funding from government, the EU and industry based in their track record. They may even establish university linked companies based on the work/research they do. But temporary / short term contracts gravely undermines that goal.
I saw this change happen during my PhD studies. I saw tenured professors and senior lecturers, who had worked at my department from the time they were young lecturers 1970s – 1980s retire. During their time at my department, they became national and even international experts in their respected fields and due to their standing, their track record of academic publication and the graduate students they mentored, they attracted funding that furthered their own and the departments research goals.
Eventually, they retired and were replaced by young, very talented, junior lecturers on short term contracts, of mostly 3 years. Most of them left after 3 years and they too were replaced by another cycle of junior lecturers on short term contracts. Many left of them for permanent and better paying positions in Universities in Europe and the States.
So this new paradigme of temporary / short term contracts undermines the essential nature of academia, it makes it more difficult to establish first rate and self-sustaining teaching and research institutions, it makes it harder to attract funding. It is causing Irish universities to fall drastically in university rankings and fail at attracting funding. Universities are also suffering from a lack of government funding, and are responding to this by increasing class sizes, lowering entry requirements, seeking foreign students and speeding up graduate programs. It really seems that universities are being forced to focus on numbers rather than quality.
@talkingsense: Then stop studying courses that offer no future.
@De20: Yip, be better studying a course that results in gainful employment. Maybe too specialised.
@D’oh: Immunotherapy is the future. I’ve been on two different PD1 Inhibitors since 2013 for Lymphoma and it’s the only treatment that has any long-term hope for me. The monoclonal antibodies fairly rock.
@David Jordan: Nail on the head. That is precisely what is happening.
@De20: my daughter is a 28 year old young woman recently conferred with her Doctorate. She is Irish. Her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents etc. are all Irish. She was educated in Ireland and has skills and an education that the State are quite willing to see leave Ireland for the benefit of another country. She would love to be able to give back but the system in this country for young academics is appalling. It needs to be more transparent and less personality based. By that I mean positions should be awarded on merit and not on who their supervisors or friends are .
Unfortunately that attitude of senior people saying ‘well, I went through hardship, so should the generations after me, sure, look how well I turned out’ is prevalent in many industries in ireland where some element of patronage or tutelage is required.
It is also correct, look how well they did turn out, short sighted and incapable of embracing new attitudes, ideas and ways of thinking, destroying their industries in the process
@Vocal Outrage: People who were in their 20s and 30s in the 80s did have as hard a time as young people today, apart from the housing crisis. But they’re rarely the mean ones. There was a brief period of prosperity in Ireland and a very spoilt and mean generation came out of it.
You’re completely right that it destroys their own industry. Look at England. They started treating teachers badly and now they have one of the lowest performing education systems of any rich country. It is not something we should copy. And look at the massive expense we put into training doctors only to treat them so badly they leave.
@SC: so all we have to do is convince our kids to get mortgages that are 7x or 8x their salaries, since the home my parents bought in the 80s was 1x their salary and their relative wealth today is broadly a function of me accepting to pay 3x mine to get the same house, except it’s also 30 years older.
Alternatively, we’d probably want to look at taxing the Hell out of the older generations assets left behind in the hope of funding a better functioning society.
God loves a trier; I hope thing work out well for you.
@Mary’s Abbey: this is nowhere near the toughest story from people in this line of work. One of my good friends, born, raised & educated in Dublin with PhD has been working research contracts for the past 10+ years in various universities, getting a little lecturing when he can but no opportunities of a permanent job. You can’t get proper work unless you have a history of securing finding, but you can only do that if you’re in a university for more than 12 months. Chicken, egg.
The government rattles on about getting kids into the sciences. What they don’t say is WHY they have to entice students in. The reality: the years of study are long and tough. Industry alone generally looks for PhD level. And the pay and conditions are poor. A secondary teacher now starts on close to 40k, while an academic or industrial scientist gets a raw deal and they are now getting out.
Unfortunately for this lady the standard route into academia is a series of short term badly-paid contracts followed by an eventual permanent posts. For people with multiple qualifications (PhDs, etc), the pay is low compared to roles for workers in business/technology with similar qualifications. On the other hand, you choose your own career and the world doesn’t owe a favour.
@Conall: Perfectly summed up. Thank you, Conall.
Almost all the jobs in universities are gone before they are advertised and I know because I work in one. Nepotism is alive and well in third level in Ireland and it is never challenged because they are a law onto themselves.
Educational attainment has been proven to help cohorts of people to attain a higher employment status but at the same time helps to reproduce inequalities just as much as it addresses them. I enjoyed the article and I’m glad the author has found employment. It appears from the article that the academic field is very competitive. It is important that high standards are maintained by people who are working in our educational institutions. The comment about ticking ‘a box for funding research’ appears to be at the root of the issue of the fixed term contract culture. That’s an issue not just confined to academic positions – it’s an issue in the wider employment sector. It’s a culture enabled by employment legislation exposing potential employees to risk of exploitation.
I can’t understand this when their is such a need for communicating and organizing events.
@Pete Lee: that would be in the private sector, cant blame anyone for seeking public sector work given the very obvious advantages but the vast majority have to go with the private sector despite the downsides by comparison because there are probably 5 times the number of jobs in that sector of the economy.
Never understood why people spend 000’s on getting a degree that won’t get them a job.
This isn’t a research role though and public engagement roles are typically funded by large research grants which have a funding term for typically max 6 years more more often 3-5 years, unless they are renewed. It’s tough but the nature of the game unfortunately.
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