Research workforce issues

The Society has adopted a multi-faceted approach towards addressing research workforce issues:

• In her 2020 presidential address, President Wendy Larner addressed the growth of the academic precariat – tenuously employed researchers who move from short term contract to short term contract both nationally and internationally.  The issues confronting Early Career Researchers are systemic, not the result of individual choices and decisions. 

• In August 2020, the Society’s Early Career Researcher Forum produced a discussion paper ECRs in Aotearoa: Safeguarding and strengthening opportunity after COVID-19, which sets out how COVID-19 had exacerbated and accelerated many of the issues that early career researchers facing.

• On 30 November, 2020 the Society hosted a research sector-wide workshop to look at the factors contributing to a significant mismatch between the fields of study and aspirations of those seeking to enter the research workforce and the actual employment opportunities.  Read the Research Workforce of Aotearoa New Zealand briefing paper and workshop outcomes document that sets out the data, proposes a range of causative factors, proposes some suggestions for change and includes a summary of outcomes from the workshop. The Society intends to keep working with other organisations in the research community to advance the workshop outcomes.
   
  

• The Society is aware of a growing body of evidence that, at least in universities, there are major career progression issues within even long term employment for under-represented groups, and in particular Māori, Pacific and female researchers. Useful links to recent publications include:
  • Tara G. McAllister, Jesse Kokaua, Sereana Naepi, Joanna Kidman & Reremoana Theodore (2020) Glass ceilings in New Zealand Universities: Inequities in Māori and Pacific promotions and earnings, MAI Journal, DOI:10.20507/MAIJournal.2020.9.3.8
  • Tara G. McAllister, Sereana Naepi, Elizabeth Wilson, Daniel Hikuroa & Leilani A. Walker (2020) Under-represented and overlooked: Māori and Pasifika scientists in Aotearoa New Zealand’s universities and crown-research institutes, Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, DOI:10.1080/03036758.2020.1796103
  • Sereana Naepi, Tara G. McAllister, Patrick Thomsen, Marcia Leenen-Young, Leilani A. Walker, Anna L. McAllister, Reremoana Theodore, Joanna Kidman & Tamasailau Suaaliia (2019) The Pakaru ‘Pipeline’: Māori and Pasifika Pathways within the Academy, The New Zealand Annual Review of Education, [S.l.], v. 24, p. 142-159, mar. 2020. ISSN 1178-3311.  DOI:10.26686/nzaroe.v24i0.6338.
  • Ann Brower, Alex James (2020) Research performance and age explain less than half of the gender pay gap in New Zealand universities, PLOS ONE, DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0226392 
• A recent report from the Council of Canadian Academies (January 2021) Degrees of Success: The Expert Panel on the Labour Market Transition of PhD Graduates highlights the lived experiences of students and recent graduates and their entries into the workforce. It details the challenges faced by PhDs as they begin their careers, key factors contributing to these challenges, and promising practices to address them.

• The Society is progressively addressing under-representation in its Fellowship which is largely drawn from the research workforce. In 2020/21, there is an initiative to boost the representation of Māori researchers. In 2018 on the centenary of the selection of the first 20 (all male) Fellows in 1919, it commenced a strategy to improve gender balance in its Fellowship.