UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE UNION (UCU) PRESS RELEASE
EMBARGOED: 00:01 Friday 21 February 2025
Manifesto launched as data shows over 6 in 10 university research staff denied permanent jobs
The University and College Union (UCU) today (Friday) launched its ‘Research Staff Manifesto’ as new data confirms more than six in ten (65%) university research staff are employed on fixed-term contracts, some less than a year in length.
University researchers conduct world-leading research, helping to develop vaccines, create computer chips and solve novel engineering problems. They draw in billions of pounds in research funding. Yet most are denied a permanent post. The lack of job security can prevent research staff from getting a mortgage and being able to plan for the future.
The manifesto calls on university employers to sign up to five key principles with UCU:
- To implement policies that improve the security of employment of research staff with a view to breaking the link between an individual job and a specific piece of grant funding. This would include a pooled resourcing model and the transfer of research staff to genuine open-ended contracts that are not linked to funding periods.
- To move to a situation where genuine open-ended contracts are the norm, reducing the use of fixed-term contracts.
- To limit fixed-term contracts to specific circumstances, such as parental leave cover.
- To put systems in place that support the continuity of employment and minimise the risk of redundancy at the end of a funded research project. Such as redeployment, bridged funding and extended notice periods.
- To create development opportunities and secure career paths for our research staff.
A university researcher said: ‘I am tired of seeing my colleagues in pain, talking about how they can’t make plans for the future, how they must delay decisions about starting a family, and how they cannot access secure housing. Too many of us experience the harmful consequences of casualisation on a daily basis, and in all corners of our lives. We are forced to work for free, we forgo holidays, and our ability to do our jobs or develop careers is constantly frustrated. For those of us who face other and multiple forms of structural oppression, the situation is even more damaging.’
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: ‘It is scandalous that most of the staff who actually do the work behind the UK’s world-leading research output are denied secure jobs. Researchers bring billions of pounds worth of funding each year into university coffers and enable institutions to tout their credentials as research powerhouses, yet more than six in ten are on a fixed-term contract, some of which last mere months.
‘In this manifesto we set out how universities can reduce the use of fixed-term contracts and move their research staff into genuinely secure jobs. University bosses must stop making excuses for keeping research staff in perpetual limbo and begin working with us to provide them with the job security they deserve.’
Ends
Media Contacts
Nathan Gayle m: 07970 145 368; e: ngayle@ucu.org.uk