Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland (RI) is the Government of Ireland’s research funding body, with its Postgraduate Scholarship Programme funding around 30% of all PhDs in the country.
It has been announced internally - to research managers, admin staff and principal investigators - that this funding is ending, along with the Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme.
The reported termination of the Postgraduate and Postdoctoral Fellowship Programmes are likely to have a significant effect on working conditions and research career progression. This move is particularly expected to have dire consequences for PhD candidates in Ireland.
The end of this scheme has the potential to reduce PhD wages in the long term. After extensive lobbying by the Postgraduate Workers’ Organisation (PWO) and Aontas na Mac Leinn in Eireann (AMLÉ), in 2023 the government conducted a review recommending RI funded PhDs be raised to €25,000. After this, other universities and HEIs slowly started raising stipends to come into line with this, under pressure from the PWO and local Student’s Unions. Despite only funding approximately 30% of PhD candidates, RI stipends have been the highest and created a benchmark for other funding to come into line with. By ending the Postgraduate Scholarship Programme, we will likely see the end to this benchmark in PhD stipends.
As RI funding was awarded to PhDs, they had more independence from their supervisors. The end of this funding stream will mean worse working conditions. Because PhDs are considered students, we have no workers rights or protections. The PWO has repeatedly found that PhDs who are on their supervisor’s funding are more precarious and are more likely to be bullied by their supervisor during the PhD. This is partially because they cannot change supervisor in the case of conflict. Conflicts between PhD and supervisor are managed not by an independent body, but by a Thesis Committee which is composed of colleagues of the supervisor, rather than an impartial body. By instead giving block grants to HEIs and supervisors to hire PhD researchers, we expect they will be more prone to exploitation.
There will likely be an impact on the type of research that will be funded, with less critical and independent research being funded. Research that is less commercially viable or critical of institutions, or academic areas that have been less valued by universities will potentially see a reduction in PhD and Postdoctoral researchers funded.
We find it worrying that relevant bodies representing researchers were not consulted, like trade unions e.g. IFUT, the groups representing PhDs like PWO or student unions like AMLÉ. These stakeholders should have input on both the decision to terminate funding programmes as well as what replaces them. The funding conditions put upon the projects supported by the “block grants” given out to HEIs will be critical to reduce the negative impacts described above.
For example, the implementation of workers rights would address the vast majority of the issues created. It is has been the position of IFUT, PWO and AMLÉ that provision of worker status for PhDs is the most justifiable and equitable framework for PhDs. These concerns were noted in a number of motions passed at Comhdháil AMLÉ, the supreme decision making body of the national students union, demanding Research Ireland funding model to be fit for purpose and not lead to worse working conditions for researchers. It additionally adopted positions on establishing a research career framework for Ireland and setting a minimum PhD salary in line with Eurodoc recommendations.
AMLÉ, the PWO and IFUT are important stakeholders in the research ecosystem in Ireland due to the researchers we represent, and it is concerning that this change was made with little to no consultation of us or our members. We thereby call on Research Ireland to:
- Immediately release a statement offering clarity to the researcher community on this decision, the steps that led to it and an explanation for the lack of consultation with representative organisations
- Involve researchers at all stages of the research career framework in the implementation of a new funding model for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers that protects the right to independent research and researcher autonomy
- Work with AMLÉ, PWO and IFUT, DFHERIS and other funding agencies to develop an employment framework for PhD researchers to ensure that these researchers have career stability and guaranteed minimum salaries and employment rights