In June 2021, a doctor diagnosed a woman in her 70s with “climate change” after she showed up at an emergency room…
What happens after the party?
As a doctoral student finishing up my thesis work, I suddenly realized that there is an ‘after’ after the PhD studies. What happens after the party, so to speak? In this post I will argue for better work conditions and career paths in the academy, taking the Swedish context as an example.
In certain subject areas, a PhD may be a springboard to a career path outside of academia, making you more attractive on the work market. But if you wish to stay in the academic field as a researcher, there are limited alternatives available as I will show.
The paradox is that in Sweden, most of the universities are authorities directly governed by the Swedish government. Even so, the distribution of basic funding for research and education at the doctoral level has decreased over the last couple of decades, meaning that research heavily relies on external funding. Politicians have constantly prioritized governmental research funding bodies such as the Swedish Research Council rather than providing basic funding for higher education institutions (HEI). Sure, competition is usually great for increasing quality, but in the academic field, this insecurity may have a detrimental effect on the quality of research. For universities and their staff, this means that an increasing proportion of research funding must take a costly detour via state research funds and a more precarious work environment with unclear career paths.
External funding grants are scarce and competitive, and most often allocated to larger and long-established research groups with senior researchers. Since the final year of doctoral studies also puts high demands on finishing a high-quality thesis, writing funding proposals for coming projects may not be possible due to time constraints. Additionally, how encouraging is it to apply for funding, knowing that, in general, only 19% of applications are granted? Furthermore, the figures for women with 0–7 years of career age are only 9%, while men with 0–7 years of career age are 10%. Is it even worth the time? As a fresh PhD, the competition seems impossible. Furthermore, some (or most) of the grants require you to already have a PhD at the time of the application deadline. Thus, a catch-22 seems to appear. How, then, can you make a seamless transition from PhD student to researcher?
The Swedish welfare system is great in many aspects, but there are also things that need improvement. For example, there are generous labor law benefits, making it possible to take a leave from your current job (for more than four years) while earning a PhD. Thus, your situation is secure since you can always fall back into your old workplace when your thesis is completed. However, the Swedish Employment Protection Act from 1982 (LAS) may be problematic in the academic field if you wish to continue on this track. This law stipulates that after two years you must be offered permanent employment. Unfortunately, this makes, contrary to its purpose, work conditions worse for researchers. The Swedish Universities state that since they depend on external funding, and the size of these is greatly uncertain, they are afraid to offer permanent employment to researchers. And if they do, it is under the condition that the researcher funds themselves (i.e., pay their own salary); when the money runs out, they’re fired.
The insecurity in work conditions as described earlier causes great stress for early career researchers, both on a personal level, but it also has an impact on the quality of the research. According to SULF, the Swedish Association of University Teachers and Researchers, one of the main issues is that more PhD graduates are examined than there are positions at the universities.
I argue that all universities and HEIs should take responsibility for creating excellent research. The Swedish system creates problems that the universities must compensate for or at least put some pressure on the government to change the system by, for example, increasing the basic funding for HEIs, thus strengthening the individual researcher’s opportunities for an academic career path. Otherwise we are just wasting tax money and people’s time and academic aspirations.