Hi

I understand most academic jobs in UK often for "EU" only...

I am not a British citizen but I'm a permanent resident which I don't have any restriction to work in UK.
Does anyone know whether I can apply for "EU only" academic job? It's not normally specified on the job description.

If not, can I assume it's really hard to get an academic job in UK without being a EU citizen?

Thanks

Why on earth do you think academic jobs in the UK are EU only, when a quick glance through the staff lists anywhere will quickly reveal that this is not the case? Nearly half my department are non-EU citizens. British academics in fact often feel it's a bit unfair how open the academic job market is here, when this openness is not reciprocated in most other countries! If you have a PhD and excellent publications (as understood by the REF definitions of excellent so basically in good journals) then you stand as good a chance as anyone else (particularly in your case they don't even have to worry about a work permit). However, you need to understand that it is an extremely competitive academic job market with many extremely well-qualified job candidates - it will be a case of whether your application is strong enough, not whether you possess an EU passport or not.

======= Date Modified 11 Feb 2012 00:26:56 =======
I think the reality lies somewhere in between your two perspectives on this.

Bewildered, international (non EU) visas have been significantly reduced in recent years, to the concern of some senior academics:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11490403
So yes, departments have a healthy international mix, but many of those academics will have come here before the rules tightened. I don't know if it has become harder to appoint new non-EU people as a result.

Human, I suggest that for any job that you think is suitable, unless it clearly says that it is for UK/EU only, you are probably fine to apply. If you are the best person for the job, then you will get it. If you're in doubt then you can always email an administrator before you fill out the forms.

For PhD funding the picture is a little different - as you will see on findaphd.com most studentship are UK only or UK/EU only. But things are more open for post doc jobs.

Dear all

Thanks for the reply-I raised up this concern because I have been talking to a few professor about job opportunities lately. They all mentioned about the importance of filling in "nationality" in the CV as nowadays many academic jobs (i.e., postdocs, lectureship, teaching) are funded by EU organisation. Hiring a non-EU person is not easy anymore as they need to go through a lot of procedures to explain why they did not choose to hire a EU person (i.e., they can't find any suitable EU person for the job)...some department dot not want to go through this hassle hence the jobs are always posted for EU only..

Sadly, I do notice almost all of my department academic staff are from EU hence the worries...

Thanks for all the info- I really appreciated it

Hi Human,

Someone is not being very honest with you. The EU does not fund lectureships or teaching (with two very small exceptions - it offers some extremely limited funding for the teaching of European integration modules (so in politics, economics and law) and it does offer funding for Erasmus Mundus, which is mainly Masters courses offered jointly by a consortium of EU and non-EU universities). This would have no bearing on anyone employing you as they don't fund posts but rather enable courses and modules to go ahead where the costs of working with other international partners might have made it impossible.
It does fund some research - the European Research Council is probably the most prestigious form of funding http://erc.europa.eu/funding-schemes - if you have a look at the early career grants scheme for example, you will see researchers of any nationality can apply. If there is an EU office at your university, their website will probably have an easy to follow guide to all of the various schemes but as a big aim is to improve international mobility of researchers, they really are pretty open as far as nationality is concerned. The only thing I can think of is Marie Curie funding, where I think you'd be eligible but just not to stay in the UK - like any British-based researcher, you'd have to apply to go elsewhere in the EU.
Is it possible that these people are trying to tell you gently that you need a plan B and cannot rely on finding an academic job in the UK? If so, I think they should just tell you the truth. The academic jobs market is really horrendously overcrowded with well-qualified people and so pretty much everyone needs a back-up plan.

Thanks a lot for the information, Bewildered. I'm rather surprised to see your source seem to be quite different from what I have been told. Some of the professors actually made it quite specific by saying, "if you are from EU, you are fine. If you are not, then it is slightly problematic". They also mentioned this is not about working visa but more specifically about the requirement from the funding bodies. They said it used to be quite straight forward to hire a non-eu (i.e., tick some columns in the job description stating that this person best fit the job than a EU), but now they have to write an essay to "prove" that.

It's really good to know about your source though, it's really helpful. And you are right, we need a backup plan because of the overcrowded academic jobs.

Thanks again for your advice- much appreciated!

======= Date Modified 14 Feb 2012 14:38:10 =======
============= Edited by a Moderator =============
--deleted advertising--