Half Permanent Secure
Aug. 11th, 2016 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatFor the past few years my job status has been permanent insecure, meaning that my post was funded by money from grants and should those grants end without another being obtained then I would be made redundant. As of 1st September, half my time will be permanent secure meaning they need a better reason than the money has run out to sack me.
As of 1st September for half my time I will be a Knowledge Exchange Support Officer which means my job will be turning my Lego Rovers public understanding activity into an Impact Case for the 2020 REF. The other half of my time will continue to be a permanent insecure job as a postdoc on the Verifiable Autonomy grant.
I'm fairly sure this was prompted the fact I started looking for lectureship jobs earlier this year and so some money was found in order to keep my in place to work on the Impact Case. So it's sort of nice to be wanted, though it would also have been nice to have got an interview for one of the lectureships. That said, this wasn't a done deal. I had an interview today with a five person panel consisting of the head of school (of computer science and electrical and electronic engineering), both heads of department (CS and EEE), the university head of impact and the school manager.
The job does allow me to apply for grants in my own name, however, so the opportunity is there for me to turn this into a full time academic post (with a heavy emphasis on public engagement) if I can make that work out.
Still, Yay! for being half time permanent secure!!!
As of 1st September for half my time I will be a Knowledge Exchange Support Officer which means my job will be turning my Lego Rovers public understanding activity into an Impact Case for the 2020 REF. The other half of my time will continue to be a permanent insecure job as a postdoc on the Verifiable Autonomy grant.
I'm fairly sure this was prompted the fact I started looking for lectureship jobs earlier this year and so some money was found in order to keep my in place to work on the Impact Case. So it's sort of nice to be wanted, though it would also have been nice to have got an interview for one of the lectureships. That said, this wasn't a done deal. I had an interview today with a five person panel consisting of the head of school (of computer science and electrical and electronic engineering), both heads of department (CS and EEE), the university head of impact and the school manager.
The job does allow me to apply for grants in my own name, however, so the opportunity is there for me to turn this into a full time academic post (with a heavy emphasis on public engagement) if I can make that work out.
Still, Yay! for being half time permanent secure!!!
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Date: 2016-08-11 08:51 pm (UTC)Very happy for you!
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Date: 2016-08-12 12:26 am (UTC)The consequence of the FTW directive means if they want to make you redundant then they have to do an assessment of EVERYONE they employ on a similar basis to you and decide whom to make redundant. Now, yes, if you are a specialist in research area A and it's research area A that is without funds then they can make the decision to render you redundant. However, other rules also kick in about re-deployment. If they make you redundant then they are not allowed to recruit anyone for (I think) 18 months on any job into which you could have been re-deployed and which it is reasonable for them to have known would be coming up. They must do this on the basis of "are you able to do the job" and not on "could we get a better candidate if we advertised this job". In particular if you have been given an "at risk" notice during a period when they are advertising a lecturing post, then making you redundant and appointing someone else to the lesturing post is very iffy considering you have been a lecturer at a similar institution before, from which post your resigned and shifted jobs rather than being dismissed with cause.
If you are already a UCU member, or if you join, then I advise asking for proactive advice on your situation from the local association, and/or from the legal advice line, so that you have a clear knowledge of the legal ramifications of your situation and can make decisions with an appropriate set of information.
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Date: 2016-08-12 09:55 am (UTC)However, the fact remains there is a difference between being paid from a selection of short term grants and funds and being paid out of the departmental salary budget. I'm lucky in that my PI takes getting grant money and retaining a team of happy long term postdocs very seriously so, for the past 10 years, there has always been another relevant grant for me to move to. However he obviously can't promise there will always be another grant (indeed we lost Matryoshka more or less because we didn't have anything for her to move to which could guarantee more than a few months work and Bergen were offering her 4 years) and the rest of the department isn't overburdened with grant-getting superstars - particularly not in areas that match well with my background (possibly if I wanted to get into economic algorithms and big data the story would be different). Obviously, similarly, one can't count on there being a steady supply of new lecturer appointments given the way the university planning and budgeting process works either.
I was beginning to feel a little that I'd been lucky that the juggling balls had all remained in the air for 10 years. I was also beginning to think there were things I'd like to do which were difficult as a postdoc and points where my PI and I wanted to take research in different directions and pursue it in different ways, so moving out into a more independent role seemed desirable.
I was UCU (AUT then) departmental rep at Nottingham. The experience soured me strongly against the union and I left when I came to Liverpool.
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