Recent Surveys in universities world wide where professors are required to teach, conduct research, and provide services to the university and link with the industry, indicated that professors spend little time on research. Teaching, research supervision and “management and organisational tasks” were all bigger commitments. Associate and assistant professors are little better carving out research time for themselves.
Therefore, if your are a full professor who love research, working in academia may your best choice. It may be easier to pursue your intellectual interests outside the university system. what do you think?
The European University Institute (EUI) provides a summary of the Academic Career Structure of each member country, including the proportions of academic time allocated to research, teaching, and administrative tasks. For the UK, it says that, in general, the proportions for a member of academic staff is "40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% administrative tasks" (emphasis added). It adds that, in practice, the proprtion of time allocated to research and teaching "differs greatly between and within institutions in the UK" (for instance, Cambridge University reported in 2003 that 64% of its academic staff at that time were on research-only contracts"; ie 100% of time on research); see: https://www.eui.eu/ProgrammesAndFellowships/AcademicCareersObservatory/AcademicCareersbyCountry/UnitedKingdom.
The European University Institute (EUI) provides a summary of the Academic Career Structure of each member country, including the proportions of academic time allocated to research, teaching, and administrative tasks. For the UK, it says that, in general, the proportions for a member of academic staff is "40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% administrative tasks" (emphasis added). It adds that, in practice, the proprtion of time allocated to research and teaching "differs greatly between and within institutions in the UK" (for instance, Cambridge University reported in 2003 that 64% of its academic staff at that time were on research-only contracts"; ie 100% of time on research); see: https://www.eui.eu/ProgrammesAndFellowships/AcademicCareersObservatory/AcademicCareersbyCountry/UnitedKingdom.
I am now retired but in my work (45 years) as a professor I allocated roughly 50% of my time to research and 50% to teaching. Much of my research time was spent reading relevant papers and writing project reports. As I told our junior faculty repeatedly ( as a department chair and as a senior faculty member), remember that no one really cares about your service, your committee work, or even your teaching (assuming it is at least minimally effective). Folks get tenured and promoted (and hired when they decide to leave their current job). At least at the three research I universities where I was employed it was only the most productive researchers who got promoted and who got large salary increases, year after year. I was also lucky enough to work at three different federally funded educational research centers. Of course, I was also lucky enough to generate over a million dollars in external research funding outside the research centers by submitting research proposals to federal agencies and to private foundations. Roughly half of all the assistant professors we hired ever received tenure, primarily because they failed to follow the guidelines I set out above.
Thank you Professor Richard Allington for sharing your thoughts and experiences on the subject. Wishing you joyful retirement time and best of health and happiness for long years ahead. Your wise advise is highly appreciated.
My school is a teaching and learning institution, not a research university. Virtually all of my research and scholarly writing is done "on my own time" at home , away from the institutional context.
Thank you Dr. Michael W. Marek for your inspiring thoughts And experience.
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