University Research

I am surprised that there has not been more publicity on the fact that around 40% of academics are inactive in terms of research.

When I was on the University of Otago Council, I made myself mildly unpopular with some staff by actually scrutinsing sabbatical leave reports and the level of research done.

The requirement do perform research is the major factor why many academic staff have less than 20% contact hours in a term week, and have around five months a year of non term time. The study I did at Otago found (like the TEC) that many academics had not produced any research for years or even decades.

It is great we do have some top class academics. But I think universities still have some way to go in terms of policies on tenure, research and lecturing ability to pay more and retain the best ones but weed out the bad ones.