Academic Careers from a European Perspective: The Declining Desirability of the Faculty Position

Academic Careers from a European Perspective: The DecliningDesirability of the Faculty Position

Huisman, Jeroen.Weert, Egbert de.Bartelse, Jeroen.

The Journal of Higher Education, Volume 73, Number 1, January/February2002, pp. 141-160 (Article)

Published by The Ohio State University PressDOI: 10.1353/jhe.2002.0007

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Jeroen HuismanEgbert de WeertJeroen Bartelse

This research was funded by the Dutch Advisory Council for Science and TechnologyPolicy (AWT) and carried out by the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies(CHEPS) of the University of Twente, the Netherlands. Several foreign colleagues par-ticipated in the CHEPS project by delivering national studies of the United Kingdom,Sweden, Finland, Flanders, and Germany. We are grateful for the contributions by BeateBaldauf (Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick, United Kingdom),Jurgen Enders (Center for Research on Higher Education and Work, University of Kas-sel, Germany), and Lillemor Kim (Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Re-search, Stockholm, Sweden). Because of limited space we have excluded the countrystudies for Flanders and Finland.

Jeroen Huisman, Egbert de Weert, and Jeroen Bartelse are researchers at the Centerfor Higher Education Policy Studies, Faculty of Public Administration and Public Policyof the University of Twente, the Netherlands.

The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 73, No. 1 (January/February 2002)Copyright © 2002 by The Ohio State University

Introduction

Internationally, the fault lines of an uncertain acad-emic career are becoming increasingly apparent. Despite extensivepreparation, young academics confront restricted opportunities to be-come regular members of the academic community. Many of them areon a temporary contract, often with poor working conditions and uncer-tainties about reappointments. A long academic career seems unobtain-able, which can lead to a negative image for academic employment.Those who opt for an academic career run the risk of moving from onecontract to another without the opportunity to establish a particular re-search program. Finkelstein, Seal, and Schuster (1998) found that alarge segment of the new academic generation in the United States haveentered into “temporary” positions not part of the traditional academiccareer ladder.

Academic Careers from a European Perspective

The Declining Desirability of the Faculty Position

Farnham (1999a) and Altbach (2000) have shown that this phenome-non is not limited to the United States. In some countries, the transitionfrom elite to mass higher education has occurred in a time of substantialdecline in government funding and changes in resource allocation meth-ods. Funding has not kept up with rising student numbers. This trend hasled to significant retrenchments, privatization, debates about fees, a de-cline in academic salaries relative to average earnings in other employ-ment sectors, and heightened perceptions of uncertainty among acade-mics (Welch, 1998).

Universities have reacted to these developments by realizing changesin the balances of tenured, permanent, fixed-term, and part-time ap-pointments. A larger proportion of temporary personnel relative totenured personnel would increase the adaptive power of universities to-ward varying external circumstances such as changing student numbers,budget cuts, and other financial variables. In most European countriesuniversities have placed younger staff in the nontenure-track appoint-ments. Although in the United States many of the staff on temporarycontracts focus on teaching, in European countries individuals on fixed-term contracts often focus on research.

These limited career prospects within academe have raised questionsabout the attractiveness of an academic career. Recent reports in theUnited Kingdom (UK) and the Netherlands warn that recruitment andretention of academic staff is worsening by the year, and that the numberof students pursuing the doctorate is decreasing. Some European coun-tries have created new institutional forms for the early socialization offaculty members. Others have made major adjustments to the doctoraldegree. Some recent proposals focus on enhancing the career prospectsof junior researchers.

The widely held belief in the United States is that the faculty positionis attractive and prestigious enough to encourage a sufficient supply offuture faculty members irrespective of the current poor labor market. Re-search by Baldwin and Chronister (2000) and by Gappa and Leslie(1993) support this view. They found that many nontenure-track staff andpart-time faculty members, respectively, aspired to full-time faculty posi-tions despite less-than-happy experiences in nontenure-track positions.

This perspective is not universal. In particular, we challenge thepremise that academic positions in Europe are so desirable that labormarket supply will “naturally” take care of the projected future facultyshortages. Indeed, we argue that European countries must carefullyscrutinize the pre- and early career stages of potential faculty membersand make important changes or their universities will face severe facultyshortages.

142 The Journal of Higher Education

In this article we first provide an overview of the academic trainingsystem in four selected European countries: the United Kingdom (UK),Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. These countries vary consider-ably in their organization of scientific careers in universities and re-search institutes. Next we examine the training system for potential aca-demics (structure, admission, funding), the status of young scientistswith a special focus on women, and factors affecting academic staff re-cruitment and retention. In the final section we reflect on the potentialside effects of current career environments and the key policy challengesfor the recruitment and retention of new academic staff.

Data and Methods

Data for this article were derived from an international comparativestudy of academic careers in Western Europe. The Dutch AdvisoryCouncil for Science and Technology Policy commissioned the study. Itsmain objective was to investigate the issue of academic careers in anumber of Western European countries (Finland, Germany, Sweden,United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) and to observe the present-daystate of the art and developments in the Netherlands from a comparativeperspective. Country experts were approached and asked to delivercountry reports, utilizing an outline drafted by the project coordinators.We asked an expert in each selected country to describe and analyze,quantitatively and qualitatively, doctoral education (e.g., number of PhDstudents and graduates, financial aspects, transfer to post-PhD period)and academic employment (e.g., rank structure, salaries, career perspec-tives) in the context of their higher education systems. These project co-ordinators used national data sources, reports, and archives to provide acomparative analysis. For this article we used these reports for a com-parative analysis across European countries and between Europe and theUnited States.

United Kingdom

The Training System

Traditionally, postgraduate study in the UK is an inseparable featureof a seamless educational path flowing from undergraduate, to graduate,to postgraduate studies. Postgraduate education is an important sourceof revenue for higher education institutions, which have been grantedsubstantial autonomy in setting fees for postgraduate students. Prospec-tive PhD recipients either take a one-year master’s degree after the bach-elor’s degree or enroll in a three-year doctoral program directly after

Academic Careers in Europe 143

completing the bachelor’s degree. In the social sciences and humanities,students most often take the former route. Part-time students are grantednearly double the time of full-time students to complete PhD require-ments.

By the end of the 1980s the traditional one-on-one model of doctoralpreparation where a student worked almost exclusively with a majorprofessor through completion of the dissertation had been replaced inthe UK by a curriculum incorporating formal research training. Re-search training courses were made part of the PhD to increase comple-tion rates. Since the mid 1990s some institutions have considered mak-ing compulsory a master of research prior to pursuing doctoral studies,but opinions on this initiative differ by discipline. In the UK, the ulti-mate aim of the PhD is to make an original contribution to knowledge asevidenced by submitting a thesis of between 70,000 and 100,000 words.The submission is followed by a final oral examination.

Formal qualifications and a thesis outline are the most important cri-teria for admission into a PhD program, supplemented by interviews toestimate the candidate’s motivation. PhD students applying to researchcouncils for funding must demonstrate even higher levels of perfor-mance, including top grades in a good honors first degree.

The financial situation for doctoral students differs by type of enroll-ment (full-time versus part-time), and by discipline and status (being aresearch council student or not). In contrast to some European countries,most PhD students in the UK are not university employees. PhD stu-dents—like other postgraduate students—pay study fees. Recent data onPhD students in science and technology (OST, 1999) indicate that re-search councils are the most important sponsor of doctoral work (35%of the funding), followed by other public sources (26%). One-fifth of allPhD students pay their tuition fees. For part-time students this propor-tion is much higher, almost 50%.

PhD students funded by research councils receive a grant for a three-year period. This grant is less than 40% of the mean starting salary forgraduates, implying that the PhD track is not a very attractive financialoption. The situation is better for the relatively few students funded byspecific trusts (e.g., the Welcome Trust promoting biomedical research),but much less favorable for part-time students, who only recently weremade eligible for research council support.

In the past two years universities in the UK awarded some 10,000 to11,000 doctorates, about one-third to overseas students. This total repre-sents an increase from 7,500 in 1995–95. On average students take morethan three years to complete their doctoral programs. Almost all—80%to 90%—of doctoral students complete the degree. The average age of


PhD recipients is well below the age of thirty. In 1998–99 PhD degreesrepresented 3.2% of all degrees awarded in higher education in the UK.Despite the increasing number of degrees awarded in the past four years,recently the number of PhD students has decreased (OST, 1999). The at-tractiveness of other employment possibilities seems particularly impor-tant in this trend.

Position of Young Scientists

Although the PhD has become an almost necessary entry ticket to theacademic career in British universities, it is less prevalent in the formerpolytechnics. Studies monitoring the positions acquired by PhD recipi-ents show that the percentage working in universities decreases consid-erably over time. In contrast, private sector employment has increased.

Entering academics encounter several barriers to a successful career.Academic committees make promotion decisions based on guidelinescreated by national organizations (e.g., CUCO, 1997). Particularly im-portant is the Research Assessment Exercise, which has increased theimportance of research productivity in assessing faculty performance. Inaddition to status, faculty research productivity is tied to the amount ofgovernment money awarded to each university.

Besides quality of work, promotions depend largely on the financialconstraints of the institution. These constraints can make institutionalleaders cautious (Fulton, 2000). Also, promotion is inextricably boundto the rank structure of lecturer, senior lecturer, and professor at univer-sities, and to lecturer, senior lecturer, principal lecturer, and professor atthe former polytechnics. Although salaries depend in part on nationalnegotiations, institutions retain some flexibility, particularly for higherranks. The historical division among universities, particularly betweenthe traditional universities and the former polytechnics, is still reflectedby considerable salary differences between old and new universities.

Women are substantially underrepresented among the professoriate inthe UK as are members of ethnic minorities and the disabled commu-nity. The percentage of female students receiving a first degree is 54%;at the PhD level this percentage drops to 37. Only 10% of the professo-riate are female. In addition, women occupy less secure positions, in-cluding contract staff and part-time positions, and earn less than theirmale colleagues, even if grade and mode of employment are the same(Bett, 1999).

The Bett Committee, following up the work of the 1997 National In-quiry into Higher Education (Dearing Committee), noted that pay in theacademic sector has fallen behind equivalent positions in industry. Apay-gap of between 10% and 30% is common (Bett, 1999). Several stud-


ies have indicated that the low salaries are among the reasons individu-als leave academic positions or consider leaving them (NCIHE, 1997).

Factors Affecting Academic Recruitment and Retention

In the last decade the supply of PhD students exceeded the demandfor university faculty positions. Many graduates looked beyond academefor alternative careers. This pattern led to proposals to broaden post-graduate training to include skills relevant to other sectors of the labormarket through a “professional doctorate.” Today the conversation hasshifted from oversupply to potential shortages of faculty because of dra-matic declines in doctoral enrollments in some disciplines. To increasedoctoral enrollment, the UK government recently increased financialsupport to research councils to support doctoral study.

Increasing staff load, a decrease of autonomy, long-term decline insalaries, and rewards biased in favor of research have made academicpositions in the UK less and less attractive (Farnham, 1999b; Fulton,2000; Keep, Storey, & Sisson, 1996). This trend confirms the 1992Carnegie survey where faculty members expressed concern about salary,status, and conditions of work (Fulton, 2000). Job certainty does nothelp; 30% of the staff in traditional universities, 40% in former poly-technics, and 95% of contract research staff are employed on temporarycontracts. Although the 1999 Bett Committee publicized these trendsand conditions, it was not successful in generating additional publicmonies for universities.

Germany

The Training System

Germany’s higher education system is rooted in the ideals of the uni-versity that emerged at the beginning of the 19th century. Independenceof scholars, the autonomy of teaching and learning, and a genuine scien-tific culture were among the key elements of these ideals (Paulsen, 1906,p. 520). In practice, these principles lent themselves to multiple inter-pretations (see Clark, 1995, pp. 21–24), and the ideals took disparatepaths across the universities. However, some of the original beliefs arestill vital and remain reflected in education and research. Still standingis the unity of teaching and research, which can be found in the appren-ticeship model of doctoral research: the Doctorvater who in a one-to-one relationship guides the doctoral student by way of learning bydoing.

Several institutional forms advanced science and the training of scien-tists. The first was the teaching-research laboratory (Clark, 1995, pp.


24–30) such as the laboratory of the chemist Justus Liebig founded in1826 in Giessen. Another form to combine research with teaching wasthe research-oriented seminar. The classic model here is the Neumannseminar in physics established in Königsberg in 1834. The laboratories(later named research institutes) and seminars were autonomous, rela-tively small organizations headed by the chair-holding professor. Theseinfluential figures ran the institutes and seminars and were sovereign intheir scientific pursuits. The institutes and seminars gave the Germanhigher education system its high esteem in the late 19th century (Geiger,1986).

Between World War II and the early 1990s, individuals aspiring to adoctoral degree have sought a junior research post. The doctoral candi-dates in these positions combine their research work with teaching andother activities. This approach provides professional experiences andskills but lengthens completion times (Baldauf, 1998). Research trainingat the doctoral level is not formally organized. German universities inthe 1980s did not “offer doctoral programmes incorporating a minimumsystematic institutional effort to qualify candidates further. It is entirelya matter of the individual master/apprentice relation between the candi-date and ‘his’ supervisor whether he gets training and advice in his workand, if so, how much” (Huber 1986, p. 302). Since the early 1990s Ger-man doctoral education increasingly has relied on formal courses—upto half of the junior staff working on a doctoral thesis now takecourses—although candidates still perceive doctoral study as an infor-mal learning process (Enders, 1996, p. 165). This process varies consid-erably by discipline.

The most visible reform in German doctoral education is the intro-duction of a system of graduate schools in 1989, the so-calledGraduiertenkollegs. Although the Graduiertenkollegs have not replacedthe traditional doctoral pattern, they mark the beginning of a formal al-ternative. Among the elements that gave impetus to this reform is the po-sition of the young scientist (Wissenschaftsrat, 1994).


About 63,000 doctoral candidates currently work on the thesis in Ger-many today. These doctoral candidates may work in various types of positions (Wissenschaftsrat, 1995, pp. 23 –36). Universities employroughly seven out of ten doctoral candidates in ‘junior positions’ (usu-ally called wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter). Often the contracts are tem-porary. Doctoral candidates may go through several of these contractsduring their doctoral work. Mainly because of the growth in contract re-search, the number of wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter grew between 10


and 15% in the 1990s (Baldauf, 1998, p. 169). Research institutions out-side the universities employ another 4,500 doctoral candidates, usuallyon three-year contracts. Doctoral work is also funded by grants. Otherorganizations provide about 8,500 additional stipends. The Länder grantsupports about 2,500 stipends yearly. The DFG funds approximately2,300 doctoral students through its graduate school program. Politicalparties, churches, and trade unions provide about 2,700 doctoral grantswith strict eligibility conditions. Approximately one out of ten doctoralcandidates prepares a dissertation without any external financial support(Wissenschaftsrat, 1995, p. 36).

The doctoral degree is relatively highly esteemed in the German labormarket. Enders and Boorman (2001) indicate that apart from the self-reproduction of the academic profession, PhD holders can be found inresearch positions in the public and private sectors and in professionaland semiprofessional leadership positions in government and private or-ganizations. A study of junior staff working on their doctoral thesis con-cludes that “data show that the academic work and further qualificationsof doctoral staff cannot be interpreted as the preparation for an academiccareer, but must also be interpreted a preparation for future employmentoutside higher education. The majority of doctoral staff do not intend tocontinue an academic career and . . . nearly all of these junior staff mem-bers in all fields expect that they will have to leave their university andthe area of higher education” (Enders & Teichler, 1994, p. 31). This sit-uation is in part a consequence of the systemic characteristics of thestructure of academic careers in Germany, which we discuss below.


Three characteristics describe academic staff in Germany (Baldauf,2000; Enders, 2000), some of them stemming directly from German tra-ditions in higher education. First, the professor functions on top of a hi-erarchically structured academic organization. The state grants a profes-sor life-long tenure and a high degree of autonomy. Second, aspiringprofessors are legally required to take their first position outside of theirhome university. Thus aspiring scholars must focus more on personalachievements than on university needs to better prepare them for subse-quent academic employment. Third, the gap in status between the privi-leged professoriate and the larger group of less privileged, predomi-nantly untenured assistants, researchers, and lecturers is substantial andbuilt into the German pattern of academic staffing.

In this context, individuals pursuing an academic career must first ob-tain the position of an assistant or postdoctoral fellow to prepare for theHabilitation. Aspiring academics use the Habilitation as a period to


demonstrate research capacity and teaching qualifications. The next stagein the academic career is the position of the private lecturer. This positionholds the right to perform the tasks of a professor without being con-nected to formal employment status. Appointment to a professorship re-quires successful navigation of a competitive appointment procedure con-ditioned by a strict set of regulations to assess scholarly qualifications.

The many haphazard steps in the academic career create large oppor-tunity costs for prospective faculty members. “Young” PhD recipientsand especially “young” academics in Germany are older than their for-eign peers. At various stages, an individual may step out of academia orfail to reach the next stage. On average 20 to 40% of PhD holders willwork in academe over the long run.

Reforms for postdoctoral researcher careers focus on three issues.First, promotion possibilities for junior staff currently are too uncertainand too dependent on senior professors. Because promotion to a profes-sorship is not possible at the institution where the researcher works, ca-reer prospects are dependent on local affiliations. Promotion ladders forjunior staff depend on the situation within the university—the internallabor market—whereas the external labor is dominant in nonacademiccareers. Second, postdoctoral researchers spend many years in juniorpositions and are relatively old when starting a formal research positionin universities. Third, postdoctoral researchers who aspire to a profes-sorship face an “all or nothing” situation. Enders (1996) points out thatthis situation leads to low job-satisfaction among the nonprofessorialstaff.

Academic and governmental leaders currently are considering both anew academic career path, including assistant or junior professorships,and lifting the ban on appointing members of the university to vacantprofessorships. Another proposal is to introduce a tenure-track model in-stead of the current contract model for postdoctoral careers. The mostradical proposal is to abolish the Habilitation (see Enders, 2000). Thosefavoring this proposal refer to other countries that do not have this qual-ification. In the natural sciences, substitution of the Habilitation withother criteria (such as publications in refereed journals) seems to comeclose. However, in the humanities and social sciences proponents of theHabilitation are still numerous.

The Netherlands

The Training System

Most faculty members enter the academic profession through the research trainee program called the AiO-system (AiO, Assistant-in-


Opleiding). The AiO system originated from university reforms in themid 1980s to reduce the length of university education and to restructureresearch training. Until that time research training was an integral partof the standard university education amounting to six or seven years.Graduates who obtained a position at a university could carry out theirown research leading to the doctoral degree. The AiO-system made re-search training a formal part of postgraduate education. Today a first de-gree takes four years full-time, after which graduates are eligible to be-come a research trainee.

Contrary to postgraduate research training elsewhere, Dutch researchtrainees hold a distinct academic position. They have a temporary ap-pointment in principle for a standard four-year period and are treated asmembers of the academic staff. Although research trainees receive re-search training and supervision, they are also supposed to contribute tothe research output of their faculties. Usually they are charged withteaching and other obligations up to a maximum of 25% of their totalworking time. The candidates are successful when they deliver and de-fend their thesis, after which they receive the doctoral degree.

The Dutch postgraduate education system has an alternative to theAiO, the scholarship or bursalen system. Scholarships offer financialbenefits to Dutch universities because the institution is not charged un-employment benefits if the graduate is unable to obtain a position at theinstitution after graduation. As employees, research trainees in the AiO-system are entitled to such benefits. The scholarship program hasbeen criticized and challenged, but the courts have held that the bursalen system is legal, because the education and training benefits individual scholarship holders rather than the university. In general,bursalen holders are students and AiO-system participants are employ-ees. To date only a few universities offer scholarships. Typically thesescholarships are offered to students in the humanities and social sciences which have fewer research funds for young academics. Lessthan 25% of all PhD students have a scholarship; the others are in theAiO-system.

The AiO system has expanded steadily since its start in 1987. Itpeaked in 1992 with a total of 2012 trainees. Since then it has varied be-tween 1800 and 2000 participants. About 9% of all university studentsenroll in a research trainee position. This percentage varies considerablyby discipline: it is much larger in natural sciences (about one out of threegraduates) and medicine (one out of five) than in other subjects. Admis-sion is based on an open selection system, although the mobility of grad-uates to apply for a place at another university is rather low.



The AiO-system has successfully attracted promising young scientistsinto academia. The AiO-system is credited in part with increasing thenumber of doctoral degrees awarded in the Netherlands. It provides astructured way of learning to conduct research. The establishment of re-search schools, cooperative bodies of similar faculties across universi-ties, also has had a positive effect (Bartelse, 1999). The overall comple-tion rate of the candidates after 6 years is 55%. There is pressure onresearch trainees to finish within four years because university fundingpartly depends on completion rates and the number of doctoratesawarded. The salary of the AiO’s is based on a special salary scale witha built-in reduction for the training and supervision they receive. The de-duction decreases from 45% in the first year to 15% in the fourth year.These cuts reflect the hybrid character of the AiO-position: recipientsare neither full-time employees nor full-time students.

Recently the AiO-system has come under attack. The salaries do notreflect the actual research work required. Although the AiO-system is anecessary step in an academic career, the career prospects are rather un-certain with few possibilities for tenure-track appointments. The AiO-system was never meant solely as preparation for an academic position,but most individuals who accept an AiO position are interested in anacademic career. A recent survey among AiO’s (Keijzer & Gordijn,2000) revealed that the majority are unsatisfied with the salary and theunfavorable career prospects. Most of them have a strong preference tocontinue their research after they finish the PhD degree. At the sametime they judge their chances of getting a faculty position as very lowbecause of the few posts available.

Most new PhDs who remain in academe find a postdoctoral appoint-ment. Although a post-doc position can be a bridge between the PhD anda permanent position, in practice most post-docs are caught in thesqueeze of increased supply amid declining opportunities. Most post-docs have a series of two or three-year contracts, becoming in practicenontenure-track staff (Crum & Ball, 1998).

Low financial rewards and uncertain future prospects for universityemployment have led to declines in research trainees, especially in fieldswith high private sector demand. Institutional leaders and politicianshave expressed concern about the declining attractiveness of the re-search system and the difficulty in retaining young researchers. Thisdilemma is crucial, because a large part of the permanent academic fac-ulty will retire in the next five years. The Netherlands Bureau for Eco-nomic Policy Analysis (CPB) indicates that the combination of retire-


ments and declining AiO participation will result in a shortfall of 2,886full-time faculty by 2008, about 12% of all faculty. Shortages are fore-cast for all functional categories, especially among associate and assis-tant professors (Van Dijk & Webbink, 2000). One national report urgednew policies to encourage doctoral enrollment before the influx of talentis too small to fill needed positions (Projectgroep Wetenschapsperson-eelsbeleid, 2000).

The situation for women is especially problematic. Women constituteabout 50% of the student population overall, about 30% to 38% of AiOparticipants, depending on the discipline. This percentage dwindles bycareer stages, particularly in the tenured positions. The Netherlands hasone of the lowest proportions of female professors (7% in 1999) in Eu-rope. Noordenbos (2000) portrays the Dutch university as a monastery.Explanations for gender disparity include the emphasis on full-time ap-pointments, which disadvantages women who want to work part-time(Portegijs, 1998), a masculine university culture, and gender bias instaffing review procedures (AWT, 2000).


Several initiatives have been taken to retain young promising acade-mics for the university. Some universities are offering higher salaries forthe trainees, particularly in subject areas with projected faculty short-ages such as engineering. Other fields have introduced new types of ap-pointments, such as tenure-track appointments and junior professor-ships. Some institutions have reduced the four-year AiO period to makethe PhD more attractive to young people who want to speed up prepara-tion for careers outside of academia. Other faculties cater to the interna-tional graduate market and attract a growing percentage of their gradu-ate students from Asian and Eastern European countries.

Some research councils try to encourage potential academics to stayin the university to fill future faculty vacancies by extending temporaryresearch contracts with the condition that the university guarantees apermanent position thereafter. In addition, government, research coun-cils, and universities have jointly made funds available to enable a selec-tive group of young researchers to carry out innovative research pro-grams. Another government initiative funds promising scholarsspecifically for positions where the sitting professor will retire in a fewyears. This temporary double staffing is intended to ensure that a re-placement is ready when the senior professor retires.

To redress the underrepresentation of women at Dutch universities in1997 the Dutch government passed the Equal Representation of Womenact to require universities to set targets and develop structural plans to


promote women faculty members. In addition, the government initiateda program called Aspasia to invite women to submit research proposalsto research councils that if accepted will result in an offer of a perma-nent position by the university.

Although the number of places available is quite limited, these exam-ples illustrate the Dutch way of improving the careers of young peopleand women in the profession through financial incentives. The afore-mentioned National Committee on Personal Policies recognized thatmore structural solutions are necessary. The committee believes thatuniversities should improve the general conditions under which youngresearchers work.

Sweden

The Training System

To pursue a PhD, individuals in Sweden must first finish a three-yearbachelor’s degree. Increasingly the master’s degree, recently introducedinto the Swedish system, is a prerequisite for admission to postgraduatestudies. In recent years, between 6 and 7% of bachelor’s degree recipi-ents pursue postgraduate studies. This percentage is small in part be-cause only a few undergraduate programs prepare students for postgrad-uate education. The postgraduate track takes four years to complete.

No general regulations govern the selection of PhD students apartfrom these formal prior degree qualifications and the requirement thatcandidates must have guaranteed funding through graduation (stipulatedby the PhD reform of 1998). Increasingly, selection into doctoral pro-grams depends on academic achievement in the master’s program.

Universities, research councils, recently established research founda-tions, and private sources fund postgraduate training. The available re-sources can be used for scholarships and study grants. About 40% of thedoctoral students hold a doctoral scholarship; about 30% receive exter-nal funding. The rest rely on some form of employment or combinescholarships and employment. Although PhD students can receive both agrant and a salary, regulations state that no more than 20% of the timemay be spent on other purposes than study.

The number of postgraduate degrees increased from 1,500 in the early1990s to about 2,000 in 1998–99. The number of PhD students grewabout 60% in the past decade. About 17% of the PhD candidates are for-eign students (SUHF, 2000).

Despite the growing numbers, national and institutional policymakersworry about the skewed distribution of PhDs across the disciplines.Most are in the sciences and engineering. Relatively few are in the hu-


manities and the social sciences. Even more alarming is the time to de-gree. Only in medicine do students finish the doctorate within a nominaltime period. In other disciplines, particularly the humanities and socialsciences, the net time to degree is much longer. The large number ofpart-time PhD students means the gross time to degree is even longer,leading to a relatively high average age at graduation: about 35 years(again with large variation across the disciplines). PhD students com-plain about limited financial support, excessive thesis requirements, andother duties such as teaching that prevent them from finishing the dis-sertation (SUHF, 1999). Representatives from industry also criticizedoctoral preparation as inadequate for careers in industry.


Employment prospects for PhD graduates are fairly good in Sweden.The employment rate is high, and students shortly after graduation finda job, many of them in permanent positions. On average, postgraduatedegree holder salaries are 45% higher than the salaries of recently grad-uated first degree students. Of all PhDs, 45% stay in the higher educa-tion sector, 29% work in the private sector, and 26% move to the publicsector (SUHF, 1999).

Despite this relatively rosy picture, the salaries for academic staff inSweden are lower than salaries in many other European countries. Theyare generally lower than comparable positions in industry. According todata from Statistics Sweden and the Swedish Association of UniversityTeachers, in the last decade the salaries of professors and other acade-mics at universities increased less than did salaries of other professionalgroups in the public sector. On the other hand, academics have been lesssubjected to cutbacks in their sector than professionals in health care,primary education, and social welfare (Askling, 2000). Recent changesin national policy have given academic institutions more control overpersonnel hiring and pay. This policy change has resulted in substantialand growing salary discrepancies between institutions and even withininstitutions by discipline.

Promotion within the professoriate is based on the peer judgmentsabout the competence of the individual teacher. The previous approachfollowed the German tradition, where professors did research and seniorand junior lecturers taught undergraduate students. Recent reforms ofthe faculty career system try to end this distinction, creating a single ca-reer track where both research and teaching productivity are expected.

The postdoctoral phase is a bottleneck in the system. There are rela-tively few positions in academia to meet the demands of the new gener-ation of PhD holders. The growth of academic faculty has not kept pace


with the rise in student demand. Reductions in administrative staff tocontrol costs have shifted many administrative duties to junior re-searchers and doctoral students. Faculty today work an average of 49hours per week (NAHE, 2000).

The striking feature of the Swedish academic labor market is low mo-bility. Only a minority of Swedish faculty members ever moves fromone institution to another. For example, the vast majority of studentscontinue postgraduate studies at the same institution where they re-ceived the first degree. Two-thirds of the professors at an institution re-ceived the PhD from the same institution.

Although somewhat improved over time, the position of women inSwedish academic life is still problematic. Of the postgraduate studentsin 1998, 42% were female. Only 10% of all Swedish professors are fe-male. In addition to being more likely to be junior in rank, women inSwedish universities must produce more than twice as much research astheir male colleagues to be assured of financial support (Wennerås &Wold, referred to in Askling 2000).


Although Sweden is not confronted by a shortage of PhDs, otherproblems exist. The relatively unstructured and long PhD track deterssome students from pursuing postgraduate study. The introduction of amore structured program in 1998 and the current proposal to introduceresearch schools were meant to streamline the degree process.

In 1999 the Swedish government introduced new rules and regula-tions concerning employment, recruitment, promotion, and workinghours for academics. These regulations attempted to reduce the oddcombinations of national rules and local responsibilities, combine re-search and teaching into the faculty job description, and encourage asystem to replace retiring faculty members. The legislative reforms cre-ated a new faculty career track where both research and teaching areconsidered in promotion decisions. This legislation also required acade-mic institutions to develop formal staff management policies (Askling,2000). The new policy combining research and teaching in the facultypromotion process has increased the percentage of women professors inSwedish universities.

Comparative Analysis and Key Policy Challenges

These four European countries have different postgraduate trainingtraditions, ranging from the relatively informal arrangements in the Ger-man apprentice model, to standard training courses for PhD candidates


in the UK. Since the 1980s, many European countries have reexaminedpostgraduate training. Inspired by the American example, the Dutch,German, and Swedish governments are developing graduate schools toorganize postgraduate training. The key feature in all of these graduateschools is bringing together the various aspects and capacities of doc-toral education into a single location or process. The format of this con-centration takes various forms, ranging from loose collaboration be-tween institutions to the establishment of special institutions forresearch training. Although in its infancy, recent trends suggest thatgraduate schools can increase the number of doctorates awarded by European universities.

More effective and efficient production of doctorates, however, doesnot solve many internal and external labor market pressures. The privatesector often offers better salaries and career prospects, which adverselyaffects the recruitment of PhDs into academe. Increased production ofPhDs to date has not been matched by expansion of full-time faculty po-sitions in European universities. These factors combine to make the aca-demic career less attractive to prospective faculty members.

Gender bias remains. Although the proportion of women in postgrad-uate training has increased, the proportion drops precipitously in post-doctoral programs and in tenure-track faculty positions (most visibly atsenior levels) (ETAN Working Group, 2000).

The initial response to these dilemmas in the UK and the Netherlandsis to increase pay as an incentive for doctoral students to complete theirstudies and consider academic positions. This injection of funds is seenas a necessary condition for universities to effectively recruit and retainyoung talent. Increased funding may be even more important in retain-ing junior faculty members, especially in high demand fields.

Yet by itself increased pay and resources do not address key policyquestions about what constitutes an optimal academic career and howthis career should be developed. The keys to making academic positionsin German universities more attractive to young PhDs are to breakthrough the prevailing strong hierarchical ladder, making junior staffless dependent on their professors, and to reduce the duration of post-graduate studies by abolishing the Habilitation. Another strategy is todevelop genuine tenure tracks, providing a career path based on concretecareer steps. This approach requires considering the distinction betweentenured and temporary positions and the rigidities between them. DeWeert and Van Vucht Tijssen (1999) advocate the establishment of morevaried faculty career paths and a less sharp demarcation between tenuredand temporary staff by linking tenure to regular assessment procedures.

The attainment of senior professorships, and the dominance of these


positions in most European universities, rests on high research produc-tivity. Increasingly, European institutions of higher education have ques-tioned the traditional belief that research productivity assures goodteaching. Feldman’s (1987) research in the United States supports thisconcern. He found a negligible correlation between research productiv-ity and teaching quality, concluding that the two skills are more inde-pendent than mutually reinforcing. Boyer (1990) and Fairweather(1996) have questioned the dominance of the role of research in acade-mic careers, advocating other forms of scholarship including the schol-arship of teaching. The UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands recently ac-knowledged the importance of teaching qualifications and initiatedteaching professional development training programs on a voluntary or acompulsory basis. Advances in technology and the use of ICT in theteaching process will trigger this development further. A few Europeanuniversities now permit a faculty member to become a professor on thebasis of teaching qualifications, although this approach is still the excep-tion and not the rule. Whether or not these developments will lead to anew structure for academic positions remains unclear.

The Athena project in Britain and the Aspasia program in the Nether-lands are examples of efforts to increase the number of women acade-mics. Critics have argued that these programs are but a drop in theocean, and that more radical measures are needed. Although theprogress to date is limited, it appears that women promoted throughthese programs are more likely to develop their own research lines.

Finally, the content and character of postgraduate training affects de-gree completion and commitment to pursue an academic career. Al-though doctoral education in Europe is traditionally seen as a mechanismto create the next generation of scholars, our research shows that an in-creasing number of graduates seek employment outside the academy.The question arises whether or not the doctoral process is properly de-signed to meet society’s demand for highly educated professionals oreven adequate to prepare the next generation of faculty. Doctoral study,as Boyer states, is all too often “a period of withdrawal—a time whenmany students are almost totally preoccupied with academic work”(Boyer, 1990). Doctoral candidates should be encouraged or given theopportunity to see connections between their academic training and theirfuture careers. In Britain, the professional PhD has gained acceptance inthe field of education, as an example. In the other countries, we observedsome collaborative arrangements between universities and industry tomake technological research part of postgraduate training. Universitiesand industry may end up creating dual, co-operative systems of postgrad-uate education where students alternate their research and their work.


Conclusion

The European experiences show that the academic career is sur-rounded with many uncertainties. Because of the limited chances of pur-suing a career in academe, many universities have difficulty in attractingPhD students. Recruitment and retention of academic staff is increas-ingly problematic, making staffing a priority area. Poor academic pay isundoubtedly a factor behind the drain of young brains to the private sec-tor. There is increasing awareness, however, that the problem cannot befixed simply by creating more positions and increasing salaries. Thefundamental problem in Europe is the loss of appeal of the faculty job.Several policies hold promise for making the faculty job attractive again,especially to the younger generation in Europe. These include develop-ing alternative forms of doctoral preparation, creating opportunities foryoung scholars to develop challenging research programs, cuttingthrough the strong hierarchical ladder particularly in continental Euro-pean systems, promoting of equal opportunities for women, and improv-ing facilities and working conditions.

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Academic Careers from a European Perspective: The Declining Desirability of the Faculty Position

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