Archive for Stipends

The Land of Inadequate Research Stipends

Posted in Education with tags , , , on October 13, 2023 by telescoper

I noticed yesterday that the Irish Government has announced that the stipend for PhD research supported by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Irish Research Coucil (IRC) will increase by €3,000 a year. The increase will bring the rate of stipend to €22,000 a year for doctoral researchers from January 2024. While this is €3,000 less than the €25,000 recommended by a report published earlier this year, and the Government itself has already tacitly admitted that a level of €28,000 is needed to attract the best students, this is at least a step in the right direction.

Current levels of funding for research students are simply exploitative, forcing research students to take on extra work – often low-paid teaching duties – in order to make enough money to make ends meet. That is, unless they are students from affluent backgrounds. The discriminatory aspect of this policy is plain for all to see: should a career in research only be possible for the wealthy?

Of course this applies only to PhD students funded by SFI and IRC. It remains to be seen whether other funders – particularly Universities themselves – will match this increase. If they don’t, it will create an unhealthy division between students doing similar work but receiving vastly different levels of remuneration.

In related news I notice the Irish Universities Association has proudly announced a new agreement to fund Chilean students undertaking PhD and Research Masters courses in Ireland. Sounds great, I thought when I saw the announcement, astronomy being a likely area for research projects involving Chilean students.

Strangely (?) the website advertising this scheme doesn’t mention the level of stipend offered, but I found out independently that it is $15,000 per annum. That’s about €14,250, completely inadequate for a research student in Ireland, especially in the Dublin area, and especially for one who has travelled halfway round the world to get to Ireland. I certainly won’t be encouraging any students to apply for this scheme unless and until the miserly bursary is increased to the same level as SFI/IRC.

The IUA, of course, knows full well that this stipend is insupportable, so it is reprehensible for it to have agreed to these terms, the only possible outcome of them being to create an underclass within an underclass.

I had my university education for free, without tuition fees and with a full maintenance grant. The stipend I received for my PhD, although by no means luxurious, was adequate too. At times like this I wonder yet again why my generation spends so much time shitting on the young?

11 Comments »

State Supports for PhD Researchers

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on February 27, 2023 by telescoper

By sheer coincidence, the very same day that I posted a piece in which complained that the issue of PhD stipends for Irish postgraduates had apparently been “kicked into the long grass”, the consultation has at last opened.

You can contribute your submission or submit your contribution, whichever seems appropriate, here.

Leave a comment »

PhD Stipends in Ireland

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , on July 29, 2022 by telescoper

Some time ago I posted an item about the planned introduction of a higher PhD stipend (€28K) for a small number of research students in Ireland. It being obvious that he current level of PhD stipends (e.g. €18.5K per annum for IRC-funded studentships) being far too low, my main comment on that was that if that level is a fair level for a PhD then all PhD students should get it.

Now there’s an open letter going around signed by over 400 PhD students arguing for an uplift in their stipends. I support this wholeheartedly. I’m surprised there aren’t even more signatories than that, actually, but I think they have now opened it up again and let others sign it who didn’t know about it. I encourage all PhD students reading this to sign it

With inflation rampant at over 9%, even the IRC level of stipend is difficult for a student to live on (especially in the Greater Dublin area) yet many receive even less than that. Maynooth University, for example, funds many of its PhD students at the paltry level of €10K per annum. This is completely impossible to live on and it forces recipients to undertake large amounts of tutoring or other work (including bar work and retail) in order to get by financially. In my opinion stipends paid at this level are simply exploitative. I have argued repeatedly, but without success, for these to be scrapped.

The deliberate impoverishment of PhD students exists in order to force them to undertake extensive and poorly paid teaching duties because there aren’t enough teaching faculty to cover what is required. That situation is a direct result of the chronic underfunding of higher education in Ireland. Universities will argue that they don’t have any choice, but that doesn’t make the situation is acceptable.

Third level institutions don’t care. If they did they’d do something about it. Maynooth University ran up a surplus of €13.2M during the first year of the pandemic largely by exploiting unpaid overtime by lecturers and tutors, the latter predominantly PhD students. It could be used to provide emergency relief for PhD students but I bet it won’t be. In fact has anyone working at Maynooth received anything at all in return for generating this surplus?

It is of course good for a research student to get some teaching experience during their PhD but this should be on a voluntary basis. A PhD student who chooses to teach will probably do a better job than one who is forced to do it in order to pay the rent. My basic point, though, is that a full-time research student should be funded to do research full time, and it is grossly unfair to pay them too little for this to be possible.

1 Comment »