Changing University Institution and Equalities in the Academic Work

Research Plan

Background

The environment of academic work is a combination of institutional and organisational restructuring, new systems of administration and new managerial styles and discourse, domestic and international competition, restructuring of career trajectories and digitalized systems and related work practices and methods. The environment shapes academic work in many ways, but the impacts on different academic groups vary. The managerial and administrative reforms in university organisations have contradictory outcomes, for they reinforce managerial processes, but at the same time increase the workload of academic personnel. The reforms and increasing competition for research funding have polarized the personnel into winners and losers, in other words, indirectly increased inequality (Ylijoki & Ursin 2013).

The studies related to the new University Act (2010) argue that the opportunities for democratic participation into management of the university organisation have decreased, bureaucracy and hierarchy strengthened and work well-being weakened. In addition, the academic personnel regard that the Humbouldian ethos has turned into market-based competition for funding and status and positions. (See: Rinne, Jauhiainen, Simola, Lehto, Jauhiainen & Laiho 2012; Wennberg, Korhonen & Koramo 2018).

In universities, equality is usually promoted as an isolated and self-referential policy, in other words, not included into organisational strategies or reforms. In the Finnish education and science policy, equality is a separated question, excluded from the main agenda. (Brunila 2009). Our perspective on equality source from this phenomenon, and we assume that the experiences of inequality originate from this policy-related shortage. When striving for equality, the policy is of primary importance.

The program of Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s Government 2019 (2019, 168-171) emphasises education as promoting equality, which reinforces trust and democratic practices and patterns. Universities produce higher expertise and train professional experts to solve problems and questions in society, in addition to R & D. Equality-sensitive expertise promotes recognising and solving problems in complex society, which are related to different needs of social groups in society.

The promotion of equality in university have implied to measures addressed to individuals, to women, but recently cultural and structural perspective has replaced the individual-based perspective. Despite this, inequality in career formation is persistent (Husu 2020, 166) and the measures aimed at promoting equality have been ineffective (Tanhua 2020). In addition, other dimensions in equality, such as ethnic background, have not gained attention (Tanhua 2020).

The question of equality in the academy falls on, not only gender, but also age, social and ethnic background, discipline, position and involvement in the academic community and decision-making and working hours as a resource for meaningful tasks.

Goal, tasks and methodologies

The aim of the research and the tasks

Our research deals with changes in academic work. When investigating the changes, we ask, what are the terms and conditions for decent academic work in university institution. Our perspective for studying academic work is equality as a multidimensional phenomenon, in other words equalities. As academic work is shaped with the academic institution and university organisation, we investigate the structural reforms and reorganisation of universities for framing the research problem.  Academic work is increasingly related to academic career trajectories because some of the tasks, particularly those related to international collaboration and successful funding applications to the Academy of Finland, support the promotion in academic career. Tenure track – system has been applied for providing a systematic trajectory for the academic career, but at the same time, it has excluded part of academic personnel.

We study the changes in academic work in three case universities, which have been restructured. We focus on the experiences and views of leaders / mangers and academic staff in research and teaching. The subtasks are following.

Task 1. The structural and organisational frame for the academic work. The systems of administration and management have been reorganised and most university organisations have been restructured after the University Act 2010. We study the reorganisation of university management and administration as a frame for the changes in the academic work and career trajectories. We study following themes for constructing a comprehensive understanding on university organisation as the frame for academic work.

• What kind of leadership and management is applied in university organisations regarding the following dimensions: community spirit, goal orientation and personnel management?
• How the academic leaders and researchers and teachers see the goals and patterns of leadership / management? How are the goals and patterns domesticated at the different levels of university organisation?
• How are the support functions organised? Are they regarded as util?
• Do the experiences of the academic personnel differentiate in respect to their position, background and discipline?

The leadership and management have been professionalised with the new system of governance (OKM 2019, Korkeakoulutus ja tutkimus 2030-luvulle). With the professionalisation, managerialism has been introduced into universities. The power and responsibility have been strengthened at the highest managerial rank, in turn, the collegial decision-making in universities has become less powerful (Rinne & co. 2012). The tasks of strategic planning, promoting effectiveness of academic work and related assessment and applying and allocating resources are emphasised in academic management. From the perspective of academic values, the collegiality is increasingly challenged with managerialism  (see for example Välimaa 2017).

The leadership and management may, however, vary with faculty, discipline and university organisation. In addition, line management is not always applied. Research work is based on external funding, which is applied by the researchers. This provides the academic staff autonomy to certain extent. Along with the reform of management and administration, leadership and management are differentiated into the spheres of research and education. The academic ideal is to combine education and research for providing research-based education, which may not be achieved with the differentiated spheres of education and research.

The studies in this research field report growth of administrative work for the academic staff despite the increase of support functions for research and education (see for example Kuoppala, Pekkola, Kivistö, Siekkinen & Hölttä 2015). The digitalized systems of administration provide the environment for ”administrative self-service” and with the reporting duties, they make extra workload for academic personnel without any benefits  (Haapakorpi 2011). The administrative systems weaken the trust between academic personnel and management (Rinne & co 2012). However, this kind of workload does not treat equally academic staff, for the duties and related workload vary with the discipline and position in the academic organisation (Rinne & co 2012).

University institution is the infrastructure for science, culture and innovations. However, the universities are targeted increasingly with multiple expectations and demands, which may be contradictory and lead to incoherent management. An example comes from education policy: there are parallel demands to increase enrolment and to enhance the quality of education.

After the new University Act 2010, merging of university organisations have been common, which have been motivated with the expectations of increasing effectiveness. The number of universities has decreased with the mergers. The fusion have not been a success story on the basis of some studies on this theme (see Koschke, Arminen, Mälkiä & Lumijärvi 2011). However, the fusions have been carried out in different ways, which may shape the outcomes.

Restructuring of university institution and governing universities on the basis of science policy have shaped research work in the academy.  A study focusing on structural development in the Finnish universities (Aittola & Marttila 2010) show following outcomes: in all disciplines, the proportion of external research funding has increased, research is carried out in research groups and consortiums instead on individual research work, and multi / interdisciplinary research has become more common. Respectively, the position of basic research has weakened. The structure of research personnel has changed and the proportion of those with a fixed-time contract or award and doctoral student position has grown. However, there is significant variation between disciplines, and, for example, humanities and technical science are the extremes of the continuum (Ylijoki, Lyytinen & Marttila 2011). These differences come out in funding sources, collaboration relations and modes of research work.

The impacts of the structuring of university institution on the academic work are intended and unintended. The effectiveness and economy and internationalisation have strengthened, but, in turn, there are also negative consequences, such as weakening equality and community spirit, problems in trust between the top management and academic personnel, and diminishing work well-being, meaningfulness and academic identity. Performance-oriented and competitive culture and the ethos of excellence have increased insecurity, which have fragmented the commitment to academic work. These trends challenge also academic leadership and management.

Task 2. The patterns, practices, contents and change in academic work. We study academic work with the following problem: how the patterns, practices and tasks have changed in the last five years in the case universities?

We study the experiences and views of the academic personnel: how they define their core tasks (research and education), administrative tasks and invisible tasks (such as activities in academic journals and associations, tasks in academic conferences, communication with media and influence on society, etc.)?  We also investigate the challenge of applying research funding, for it has been described as stressing and demanding. We ask, how this task could be supported. We ask following questions.

• How has the academic work changed regarding the different tasks, patterns, practices and discourses?
• How has the digitalization of systems changed academic work?
• Do the academic personnel experience involvement in their community?
• What kinds of challenges do the academic personnel experience in their relations with stake holders? How this work could be supported?
• Do their experiences vary with the discipline, position, task, organisation and the background of the individual person?

The core tasks of the academic work, education and research, are increasingly governed and developed as separate functions in the universities despite the idea of their interrelatedness. The background for this trend is the growth of performance requirement, projectisation of research work, and non-standard employment contracts (see for example Laiho & Jauhiainen 2012.) The quality of employment contracts and insecurity shape the commitment to the teaching task and the division of teaching tasks. The personnel with their main duties in education face the expectations of striving for excellence in research, innovations and engagement to society (ks. Laiho, Jauhiainen & Jauhiainen 2020.) The duty for applying research funding is laborious and the related time spending is reflected to shortage of time resources for the core tasks; and the proportion of those receiving the funding is small.

The short-term projects endanger long-term research work, the quality of research and decrease the junior researchers’ willingness to commit to academic career (Aittola & Marttila 2010; Kuoppala ym. 2015; Ylijoki & co 2011). The short-term research funding and the growth of requirements increase workload and stress also for those with permanent contracts. However, the expectations for receiving research funding vary, for the relation between the number of applications and granted funding vary with discipline. The funding sources are discipline-specific to some extent. The time resources and the position in university organisation shape the opportunities for working on the applications and the success in the competition for funding.

The previous research report differences between men and women in respect to their funding sources and quality. The difference has been recognised even on the phase of doctoral studies. In sciences, men have got an employment contract in the academic institution and have been recruited to the academic communities, whereas women carry out their doctoral thesis with awards, with a loose relation to the academic community (Haapakorpi 2008). The membership and involvement to the academic community provide opportunities to positions in education and research groups, which promote the accreditation into the academy. The award-based funding may result in weak career trajectory.

Digital systems and tools have changed the practices in the academic work, and in education, the change is striking. It is probable that digitalisation has impact in the structure, patterns, practices and culture of academic work. Efficiency and economy is the rationality behind digitalisation (OKM 2019), which shapes the academic work. Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic the digital tools and systems for education have become the core in training. Although support has been added in the introduction of the digital environment, the teacher has the responsibility for the provision of education and related digital environment.

The third task in the academy is interaction with society, which refers to the stake holders in public and private sector. The interaction may be formal, but often it is based on informal relations and interchange, which cannot be documented in official documents. In addition, the disciplines are different in respect to their patterns of interaction with society.

Administrative and organisation-specific restructuring has shaped the academic work, teaching and research directly and indirectly. Contemporary administration and management and their mechanisms of power have challenged academic identity. The reforms have increased the workload, changed the academic work and tightened the time resources (Jauhiainen, Jauhiainen, Laiho & Lehto 2014; Laiho ym. 2020; Rinne ym. 2012; Ylijoki & Mäntylä 2003.) They have changed the terms and conditions for decent academic work.

Task 3. The changes in the academic career trajectories.

The aim is to study the structural and practical terms and conditions for academic careers and particularly the introduction of the new tenure track – system as shaping academic work and careers of those in tenure track and those outside the system.

The aim is to study the structural and practice-specific terms and conditions for academic careers and particularly the introduction of tenure track – system as shaping academic work and the careers of those in tenure track and those outside the system. The aim is to also pay attention to the flexibility of working time as a varying resource in different academic positions, which may support career formation. Domestic and international academic mobility and the terms for it will be investigated. The study focuses on the equalities in academic career by asking whether  the experiences differentiate with the background of the individual, the position in the university organisation and the academic community and with the discipline. The research questions are following:

• What kinds of structures and practices shape the academic career?
• How has tenure track – system changed academic work and career trajectories for those in tenure track and for those outside the system?
• How time resources are allocated into different positions and how they are benefited in the career promotion?
• What kinds of structures and practices shape domestic and international academic mobility? How the mobility could be supported?
• How academic staff with foreign background are recruited into Finnish universities? On what terms they stay and have a decent career in Finnish universities?
• Are the experiences of the academic personnel different in respect to their position, background and discipline?

Tenure track originates from USA and it has been introduced 2010-2020 in Finland for reinforcing internationalisation in the academy (Pietilä 2018). At the moment, every Finnish university applies the system, although the applications vary with the resources and local practices. Promotion in the tenure career track is based on criteria of performance, which sets the academic personnel in tenure track under surveillance and assessment. Tenure track 6 is addressed to the personnel in their early or middle career, which tends to leave mature academic personnel or those coming outside the academia outside the recruitment. For the recruitment to tenure track is addressed to a certain phase of life cycle, to the mothers and fathers of young families, the gender may become a critical issue regarding the performance and terms for promotion.

The domestic and international mobility is crucial for promoting networking and enhancing the quality of research work. Digital work environment and remote work may remove some of the  obstacles for domestic mobility. The policy of science and education emphasises internationalisation (see: Medvedeva 2018), and for the research funding of Acdemy of Finland, which is highly ranked in the funding system, international mobility is of primary importance (OKM 2019). We may assume that international mobility is gendered, for family responsibilities fall particularly on women (Nikunen & Lempiäinen 2020; Siekkinen, Nokkala, Välimaa & Pekkola 2016). In addition, the recruitment of international personnel is highly gendered as only 1.5 % of the academic personnel with foreign background were women at the fourth level of tenure track career. This implies to the intersectional closure mechanisms, which may hit particularly on the women with foreign background.

Research subjects: university organisations and groups in academic personnel

We choose the universities and the groups in the academic personnel with the following criteria.

1. Restructuring of university organisation and reforms of management and administration
2. Academic personnel from different disciplines and faculties. Soft / hard science and basic / applied sciences are represented in the data collection.
3. Age, gender, ethnic background of the individuals of academic personnel
4. Different positions and tasks in the academy: staff in research / education, employment patterns / other income pattern, personnel in tenure track /outside tenure track.
5. Managers and leaders at the highest and middle ranks

Methodology

We apply qualitative and quantitative methodologies; interview data and surveys are the methods for collecting data.

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