This includes increased collaborations which are needed to produce the best possible knowledge which can help manage COVID and the broader, equally urgent, challenges facing the world. The worldwide search for a solution has changed the way research is “done”. There are signs that COVID-19 could help to change this. Last year, the Wellcome Trust in the UK launched a campaign to “ reimagine research” which director Jeremy Farrar states is driven by the realisation that “the relentless drive for research excellence has created a culture … that cares exclusively about what is achieved and not about how it is achieved”. The maxim of “publish or perish” has created a competitive, often unkind, research culture. Perhaps this signals an opportunity for academia to reconsider how it measures merit, and the ways in which those measures are pursued.Ĭoronavirus lessons from past crises: how WWI and WWII spurred scientific innovation in Australia They do this often with high teaching loads, inadequate professional development and career support or, unfortunately now for some, without any means of income.ĬOVID restrictions have highlighted that despite attempts to create equity, the basic structures of academia still put an unequal burden onto some. These academics also need to generate their own publications and grant applications to demonstrate their merit. This is no doubt worse for casual and non-tenured academic staff without job security. Within some institutions there is the expectation that saying no and protecting “family time” could be detrimental to career progression. In comparison to academics in other countries, Australian university academics have higher levels of work-related stress and burnout due to workload demands. However flexible working conditions can only go so far, and academia is not a typical 9-to-5 job. The tertiary sector was well positioned to make this transition with just over 80% of these organisations reporting they had flexible working arrangement policies and strategies before COVID. One thing COVID-19 stay at home restrictions immediately showed is that, when the nature of the work allowed, flexible working arrangements became mainstream very quickly. But, before COVID, flexible working was not yet ‘mainstream’ – for either individuals or organisations. Flexible jugglingįlexible work arrangements are one means of trying to create equity, to help those with caring responsibilities to better balance their professional and private lives. It is probably fair to assume Newton was able to develop calculus and theories on optics because he wasn’t trying to look after kids and someone else was doing the cooking and cleaning.Ĭaring responsibilities and academia are largely incompatible, yet academics are evaluated and compared using the same metrics irrespective of their non-work commitments. Isaac Newton, who self-isolated for two years during the Great Plague of the 1660s, was a commonly tweeted example of what could be achieved during isolation. Within academia, women – and all those with caring responsibilities – are at a disadvantage, even when schools and day care are open. However the editors also note women are absent from this productivity push. A recent article from Inside Higher Ed magazine suggests this is the case, with editors of some journals reporting a 25% increase on submissions from the same time last year. A potential silver lining of isolation for some academics may be the opportunity to focus on their research or finally get that paper written. Determining meritĪcademic merit is determined largely by publication output and grants. For some academics, these inequities have created chasms between opportunity and progress. Yet despite some efforts within the sector to create greater equity, progress has been slow. Others draw on unseen social capital and ideas of “ prestige” to provide a cumulative advantage to the select few. Some are overt, like under-representation of women at senior leadership levels. There are systemic inequalities that exist and persist in the academic workforce. There are 10 catastrophic threats facing humans right now, and coronavirus is only one of themĪcademia is not an even playing field.
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