International Higher Education, Summer 1999

Employment and Working Conditions of Academic Staff in the European Union

For 20 years, the academic profession has come under increasing scrutiny. A growing body of literature has emerged on the academic profession in comparative perspective, focusing on closely interrelated problems.

First, the academic profession seems to have suffered a more rapid status loss than in the past. In many countries, the professoriate is seen as having lost its high rank in reputation among various professions, relative losses of income are reported, and junior positions are becoming more risky and less well paid. The notion that academics--the members of an expanding profession with growing importance for society--might consider themselves losers has arisen over the last two decades more strikingly than during previous periods.

Second, the resources at institutions of higher education have become more constrained than in the past. In many industrial countries, the allocation for teaching staff has increased, while basic funding for research has declined. Some of the developments might be called "efficiency gains," but overall the feeling of the impoverishment of higher education is widespread.

Third, the academic profession might lose a considerable portion of its academic guild powers. We note a rise in managerial power within higher education as well as increasing regulatory activities as regards the performance of academics.

Fourth, the academic profession is increasingly publicly blamed for not providing the necessary services to society. The critique ranges from a claim that the academic profession is not adequately ensuring quality standards to the widespread accusation that graduates have not acquired the knowledge and skills required and that research is not sufficiently addressing the most pressing problems of our times.

The sense of "crisis" in the academic profession, the changing role of government in higher education, and hopes for the managerial “miracle” have coincided to create a perception of changing environments and a loss of traditional patterns within the academic profession. The current context involves a decline in status--in terms of public reputation and remuneration; deprofessionalization--in terms of loss of control over tasks and working conditions; a loss of trust in self-steering as opposed to accountability and evaluation; a decline in the specific privileges of the professoriate; an increase in the flexible and casual nature of the academic work force; and a decrease in the attractiveness of the academic career.

In summer 1998, the Center for Research on Higher Education and Work in Kassel, Germany initiated a project called "The Employment and Working Conditions of Academic Staff in Higher Education: A Comparative Study in the European Community." The project's aim is to deepen our understanding of recent developments in this area, thus contributing to an international discussion in which widely held claims about the academic profession are not just taken for granted, but also tested. Experts from 15 countries--Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom--have been invited to write country reports highlighting developments over the last two decades and the state-of-the-art of the academic profession in the different national contexts. Publication of the first results in comparative perspective is expected in winter 1999.

The study has three main objectives: first, to analyze major traditional features of the academic profession and its occupational ranking and career structure and to gather up-to-date information about the employment and working conditions of academic staff in the European countries involved. The data and analysis cover issues related to staff structure, academic appointment and employment arrangements, and academic careers. Second, the study analyzes the distribution of responsibility and power among the relevant actors and changes in the rules and regulations covering staffing in higher education. Third, the study is analyzing changes in the employment and working conditions of academic staff over the last several years and current debates on these issues: to what extent are various aspects of employment and working conditions an explicit or implicit target of reorganization? What are the underlying assumptions and aims? What are the perceived impacts of these developments on the positioning of the academic profession?

The preliminary results were discussed by the country experts and higher education policymakers in an international project conference held in April 1999 in Kassel. The study appears to have been a mostly timely one: many European countries are in the midst of reorganizing the actors and procedures in higher education and the rules and regulations covering employment relationships among academic staff. The study is, therefore, examining a moving target of growing concern for the future of higher education and its most important asset--the academic staff.