This has gone round on facebook, and some of us have made a protest by sending in spoof applications - ranging from 'since you are taking the piss by posting this, I am taking the piss by applying' right through to carefully-crafted excellent applications that only gradually reveal themselves as satire. The more of us who do this (with fake names on fake email accounts) the better it might be.....! ;-)
Academic work should be paid, and not privilege those who have private income and can afford to 'volunteer' their way into a high-powered career path.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=420451&c=1 an update.

Interesting! A good result I'd say. If this had been allowed there would be no end of other attempts to secure 'voluntary' staff to take on the usual repsonsibilities of research assistants etc. I also work in a research centre for mental health problems which has a very good record of employees gaining places in the clinical psychology doctorate and we always have people asking for experience/voluntary work here. We do have a couple of people doing voluntary work but it's strictly that- there are no responsibilities that would normally go to paid staff, and there aren't minimum hours etc. Psychology graduates are falling over themselves trying to gain enough experience to get on a clinical training course but this is no reason to take advantage to that extent. Best, KB

Couldn't find anything about this on facebook but there are a lot of comments on Twitter. I just hope this is the last we hear of honorary research assistant posts within academia. There's a lot of people qualified to do these posts but they want and expect to be paid. That's why they invested so much time and effort on advancing their studies.

I still can't see anything on facebook but I'm not sure what I should be searching for.

Thanks for posting the article.

In the U.S., we're seeing a new trend in paid internships - that is, secondary and tertiary school graduates PAY to work as interns. They're so desperate for entry level experience that they PAY to work for free. Some of these positions at major companies and organizations are quite expensive, which renders internship opportunities out-of-reach for young people from lower economic backgrounds regardless of the person's transcripts or talents. Is the strategy to start them young so that by the time they're postdocs they'll be fully acclimated to exploitation?

(down)

Sadly Dalmation we have those here in the UK as well (example here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-16052301)

I do wonder about the actual success of internships nowadays. It used to be they were a good way for employers to get to know people coming into their business and then decide whether they were good a fit to be offered a job at the other end. Now they seem to be little more than free labour and it's getting rarer that anything comes out of it. So much for that "vital work experience" it offers, when everyone else is being forced to do the same it means there is no differentiation anymore.

Not that I have a solution, I do just really wonder where it's all going to end.

If anyone wants to pay me to clear up my office, then please do - I'm taking offers above £20 an hour. While you do it I'll tell you about how difficult it is to track down participants, so you get some research experience :p

Another unpaid research post was advertised very recently. See the link below:

http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=6209

Shameful behaviour and they know it. This advertisement was also promptly taken down by the university in question, but someone in the comments section below the article has archived it. Looking at the scope of what the 'successful' applicant is expected to do, even the minimal wage is an insult.

They're tweeting about this on Twitter and are collecting signatures on facebook to protest against it.

Bad times...