Conference Agenda

In Finland, structural, ideological and functional changes in universities have often been linked to the change in the University Act 2010. In line with the Modernisation Agenda, several New Public Management approaches have been applied to the activities of Finnish universities (de Boer & Enders 2017). Furthermore, international attractiveness has increasingly motivated university reforms, and the demand for internationalisation has challenged the national role of universities (Saarinen & Talas 2017).

This presentation is based on a research project Changing University and Equalities in Academic Work (Haapakorpi, Plamper, Tapanila, Jauhiainen, Laiho, Leinonen, Ylijoki & Jauhiainen 2023), which examined the tasks of university researchers and teachers in various positions, the conditions and possibilities of doing the work, and related changes. There is no established and shared definition of the concept of equality, it receives its content within a given time and context. Different actors – political and administrative actors or employees, for example – pay attention to the different meanings of equality and there is ongoing debate on the concept. (Kantola, Koskinen Sandberg & Ylöstalo, 2020) Equalities in academic work are intertwined not only with gender equality but also with age, social background, position, discipline, the possibility of attaching themselves to the university community and time resources.

The equality and non-discrimination work of universities is linked to national policies, legislation and international commitments. The promotion of equality at the university has traditionally meant actions aimed at individuals, especially women, but the individual perspective has shifted to structural and cultural factors. In international comparisons, progress on equality has been observed to slow down or halt (Tanhua 2020, 4). The Ministry of Education and Culture's report on the state of equality and diversity in Finnish higher education institutions noted, among other things, that women working in universities experience discrimination slightly more often than men, and ethnic minorities experience discrimination twice as often as ethnic Finns (Jousilahti, Tanhua, Paavola, Alanko, Kinnunen, Louvrier, Husu, Levola & Kilpi 2022).

In this presentation, we are interested in how representatives of the middle management of three case universities approach equality and non-discrimination in academic work and what challenges they talk about in terms of equality and non-discrimination. We also highlight the experience of international researchers and teachers in the field of equalities of academic work.

Current literature relating to academic employment suggests the academy is approaching a crossroads. There is evidence that the academy is reaching a period where a significant portion of staff intend to leave the profession within the next five years, which would seem to make way for new entrants into the workforce. However, casualisation of the academic workforce has steadily increased over the last two decades, resulting in fewer permanent academic staff positions. Sparked in part by long-term funding cuts occurring, despite student numbers increasing, and then the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (Heffernan, 2022); a scenario has formed where a growth in casual labour practices is the norm (Crimmins, 2017). These academics are widely known as being precariously employed and may be known as ‘sessionals/teaching assistants’ (for teaching-related work) or ‘research assistants/fellows’ (for research-related work) and can be employed on contracts, sometimes ranging from hours through to fixed-term contracts that can extend from months to years. For the purposes of this paper, the term ‘precarious’ is used to include all academics employed on short-term and casual contracts (Mula et al., 2022). Similar to ‘tenured academics’ in the United States, some Australian academics have ‘continuing’ employment, while academics in Canada, Europe, and the United Kingdome have ‘permanent’ roles which denotes a degree of security and permanency to their positions. For the purposes of this paper, the term ‘permanent’ is used for academics in these roles.

Varying rates of casualisation exist with reports of between 16 to over 70 per cent of the academic workforce now engaged in casual employment or short-term contracts (Byers & Tani, 2014; Crimmins, 2017). While countries such as Canada and Finland have had a less pronounced oversupply of qualified candidates, the massification of doctoral programs means that the number of PhD holders seeking academic employment now outstrips available academic jobs in many countries (Heffernan, 2022). While figures differ between countries, institutional type (research vs teaching focused), and disciplinary areas, but in a majority of cases, the trend is that casual employment has increased at a time when the market continues to be flooded with graduates seeking academic employment (Heffernan, 2019).

One might have expected that academics leaving the profession due to retirement or other professional opportunities would have made way for sessional employees to gain permanent positions; but this has not proven to be the case. Instead, staff with permanent positions leaving the academy have been replaced by cheaper-to-employ workers on contract (Heffernan, 2020; Ryan et al., 2013). The COVID-19 pandemic has had further repercussions for the higher education sector. Although COVID’s impact differs between countries, institutions, and faculties, overall, the pandemic has driven universities into times of austerity. Blackmore (2020) highlights that though these levels of austerity are institution dependent, any form of financial downturn is often met with hiring practices that shift resources to cheaper forms of employment such as casual and contract staff. It has also been noted that COVID has not significantly altered the higher education employment landscape; but has exacerbated already existing trends for replacing continuing staff members with casual/contract workers; diminishing permanent positions, and increasing competition for permanent employment (Doidige & Doyle, 2020).

Although persons with graduate degrees increasingly occupy leadership positions, certain minoritised ethnicities remain underrepresented in these degrees, particularly at the doctoral level (Mateos‑González & Wakeling, 2021; Williams et al., 2019).

Evidence from a recent survey hints at possible challenges within candidate selection processes. In the 2021 UK Council of Graduate Education survey of doctoral research supervisors, only 38% of 3,435 of respondents had supervised a UK-domiciled ethnic minority candidate in recent years (UKCGE, 2021). Although 75% of respondents agreed that increasing candidate diversity would enhance their workplace research culture, only 11% included improving access to underrepresented candidates amongst their top three selection factors. On the one hand, this contention may highlight supervisors’ concerns around merit. On the other, it may indicate that supervisors lack knowledge about how to integrate equity and diversity considerations into selection practices or, as the survey itself suggests, institutional processes may not be conducive to doing so.

Potential modalities of integrating equity and diversity considerations are alluded to in the survey due to some supervisors’ identification of other, primarily non-cognitive, selection attributes, e.g., enthusiasm, motivation, etc. Evidence from the US which highlights equity issues with cognitive selection criteria such as the Graduate Record Examination imply the equity quotient of non-cognitive attributes (Michel et al., 2019; Miller et al., 2019). There is therefore greater scope to understand the range of attributes which contribute to doctoral success and how they do, particularly in the UK context and particularly from the perspectives of academics with substantive supervision experience. While much evidence around doctoral experiences focuses on the student-supervisor relationship or students’ perceptions of the factors contributing to their individual success (or lack thereof), relatively limited evidence exists specifically on the perspectives of academics who typically select and supervise students.

Among the few studies is that of Kyvik & Olsen (2014) from the Norwegian context (where doctoral candidates are considered staff) which suggests that doctoral success factors include the doctoral training system; programme and research environment; student characteristics; cultural and social context such as institutional prestige and norms and expectations; as well as the differences between diverse fields. From the Finnish context, supervisors’ views of factors contributing to the doctoral success included the social dimensions of the process and the student-supervisor relationship (Cornér et al. 2019). Offering a Europe-level view, Mantai & Marrone (2022) analyse over 13,000 cross-disciplinary PhD advertisements across different European countries to examine the desired skills, attributes and qualifications of doctoral students. The most desired criteria were degree and achievements (81% of adverts); communication (52%); research, i.e., research experience (45%); interpersonal (43%); and personal attributes (39%). In the UK, interpersonal and personal attributes ranked lowest (17% each).

As seen, the literature suggests two categories of influences: student characteristics and institutional factors. As such, our study adopts Lovitts’ (2005) ecosystem model which conceptualises three broad factors, i.e., macroenvironment, microenvironment and individual resources (or individual students characteristics, consisting of cognitive and non-cognitive attributes) that influence PhD degree completion and dissertation quality. Though individual resources appear most prominent in the model, they interact with and are influenced by the micro- and macroenvironments. In this paper, the model is used to explore the following research questions:

• What [valued] attributes do supervisors believe contribute to doctoral success, defined as completion?
• How do supervisors perceive that these contribute to doctoral success?

In addition to the importance of the perspectives of experienced academics in understanding doctoral success factors (Manathunga & Lant, 2006), the answers to these questions potentiate possibilities for equity in supervisors’ doctoral selection processes and practices.