Right, I've been scaring myself silly listening to radio programmes and reading the news papers regarding the impact the recession is going to have on public services over the coming years. I also understand that there is going to be a cut in funding to universities, and have read on this forum that lecturing jobs are becoming increasingly difficult to come by. Really, I'm quite worried about how this may impact on a future career in academia. This may sound an obvious question, but does anyone think they'll be much less money around for doing research - fewer grants, etc? And how long will this last? Will things eventually go 'back to normal'? The doomsday scenario for me is getting my PhD and then having to get a job, longterm, that never uses the skills I have develop. Selfish or childish as it may sound, it's not why I've worked my arse off and made so many sacrifices for so long. Would be interesting to hear what other forumites have to say about this. :-)

I think it depends on your subject area. if you are doing research into things that are considered worthwhile then I doubt funding will run out. e.g doing research on the motivation of employees in financial institutions without the bonus culture ;-)

I think it also depends on other factors - what kind of government we get come the election, will they support higher education or raise tuition fees and undermine the whole system?

A lot of people I know have suggested that the olympics has taken a lot of funding out of universities. Not directly, but the money that would have been allocated to research councils etc. has gone to the olympics instead.

Well it won't get any easier to get an academic job, that's for sure. And the research councils are generally focusing their funding on much larger projects, meaning that the chances of any individual project being funded have fallen quite significantly since 2006. Quite a lot of unis have effected a de fcto recruitment freeze until they know more about what is going to happen to their budgets (although the new OECD report suggests we actually spend 10% less on HE than most developed nations, so that might provide an impetus to maintain levels rather than reduce them).

On the other hand, quite a few acdemics I know seem to think that the numbers of peopel interested in an academic areer will slump in the near future as those paying £3000 per year UG tuition fees reach the point whereby they would be eligible for PhDs. It seems that the prospect of not getting a job until one's early 30s whilst remaining £25k or so in debt is not going to be particularly attractive. So there might be fewer candidates for positions in about 4-5 years' time, just as large numbers of current academics retire.

But these things are always conjecture. What is lacking is any truly systematic work into the current and future state of the academic job market, and there is generally resistance on the part of the profession to have such research undertaken (I think academics are scared that if it transpires that significant levels of taxpayers' money are going into PG training for people to get what become white elephant qualifications then it will reflect very badly indeed on the profession as a whole).

You could have a look at www.vitae.ac.uk to see what PG researchers generally go on to do. I currently work in market research, although I am actively trying to leave and either get back into academia or else work for the government.

my experience over the last few months has actually been that more and more students want to go onto do PhDs - they see it as a great way to duck out of the unstable employment market, avoid tax, yet still receive a salary in a stable 3 year post.

Hi Walminskipeas, I can't claim to be a great expert on this subject, but I think the trend in financial shrinkage, all round, will continue. But! I also know this trend goes across the employment board, so, personally, I'm seeng jumping ships as futile - that it would, most probably, be a case of 'out of the frying pan and into the fire'. I'm humanitites, it might be a different story for science folks.

Maybe this is completely naive, but if the plan is still to send more and more people to Uni every year, surely someone is going to have to teach them? (OK, they might be paid for by higher tuition fees etc. rather than through government funding, but still...)

Then you get into the whole tuition fees mine field! - eventually it will probably mean that you get researchers and teachers, completely separate (as some are already) because students will demand they get teaching quality for their money - not just some bumbling researcher who wants some extra cash on the side. - hence the introduction and enforcement of the PGCHE or whatever its called - teaching qualification in HE.

This will then result in students not being taught the most up to date research (because the researcher is off doing his own thing) and the whole concept of the learned teaching the learning has gone out of the window! Hmph! :-s

As I understand it- the government gives money to the research councils, who then pass it on to researchers by way of grants. If the government has less money due to the recession, then the research councils will have less money. This means that some grant applications that would previously have been accepted will now be refused. If there are less research grants, then there are less post-doc positions available. The government has also reduced the amount of money universities receive, so presumably there will be fewer teaching positions available as well.

This all sounds really grim and depressing, and I'm sure it won't be that bad (I certainly hope it won't). My experiences are based on recent events in my lab. A grant application that we had been told was really strong and had good reviewer feedback was turned down a few weeks ago. Now one of our post docs has to leave as well as our technician. I know quite a few other labs around the country who have also had similar situations. That said, not everyone is having similar problems. You only need to look at some of the academic job advertisement websites and there are still loads of advertisements, so plenty of people are still getting grants to employ post-docs. It just might be a bit harder or more competitive than it used to be.

I think it will turn around eventually. Investing in research is important, and even the government knows that. I really don't think that all us PhDers will end up having to take jobs unrelated to our research just to make money. If we're commited and look hard enough I don't think all the hard work of a PhD will be in vain. But maybe it will come down to what your discipline is- science and engineering areas seem to fair better than social science subjects in levels of funding during a recession (based on the experiences during the last recession of an old prof in our dept)

Btw- I don't think it's selfish or childish to have these worries. Getting a PhD is seriously hard work and we deserve to get jobs that we enjoy/want at the end of it.

Teaching is already affected with universities reluctant to take on new permanent teaching staff and in some cases offering incentives for voluntary or compulsory redundancy. Research will see a hit but the full effect may not be observed for another 12-18 months because research council spending plans tend to operate over 3-5 year cycles.