in Italy much of the work of intellectuals and researchers, it is underpaid. Many can not survive on what they earn and are forced to do other jobs to supplement income or to leave the profession. This article opens up the possibility that the problem is larger than I thought.
This is the correct link, sorry for the error.
http://www.alternet.org/education/professors-making-10000-year-academia-becoming-profession-only-elite-can-afford?
http://www.alternet.org/education/professors-making-10000-year-academia-becoming-profession-only-elite-can-afford?goback=.anb_3779180_*2_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1
The link to the article doesn't work, can you post it again please?
Giorgia, thank for warning me about the link,I couldn't edit the original, I put the correct one in the text of the details.
John, the Reuters video is interesting, seems that is a worldwide problem.
The global crisis and rough cuts are one of the main reasons of the problems of underemployment of intellectuals, and on the other side is possible that there are a sort of saturation of the market. But I'd like to understand if there are other forces in the game: i.e. the acces to the scientific production is principally gated in pay (a lot, if you have not access with a academic account) for reading databases. But most of the scientific produciton is payed with citizens taxes, and anyway generally are not the research institutions that benefit of the income.
The expenses in my country are not so big....you can always apply for a scholarship abroad and do your BA, MA or/and PhD there. The problem is more that the jobs are given to people with the right connections, belonging to the ruling political party or relatives. That is why our educational system is going down the drain, because there are rarely good quality experts who teach at the universities. Call me naive, but I think in the Western countries the whole process is more transparent and based on fair competition....And by the way, I live in the Republic of Macedonia (South-Eastern Europe.)
I am thinking of this for a very long time already.
Could it be that industrial companies are partly taking over the role of universities? In Germany since the Bachelor / Master degrees were introduced I observe many companies are opening universities of applied science where students work already while they are studying at the company owned or partly owned university. I think that theoretical models without practical use in daily life are not welcome as much as they used to in the past. Research has to be practical. And the companies take over those students who did a good job and worked hard during studying.
Another phenomena I observe is that there are clusters of universities, ie. that universities work in cooperations on certain subjects. These universities are closely located and don't offer all subjects anymore.
Next public funding seems to decline and private funding, e.g. of companies seems to increase.
What do you think? What are your observations?
There are interesting insights in the answers. Yes, the private funding and the strong economy influence in research are one of the possible forces in the 'field'. We have to say that for social sciences isn't easy to demonstrate 'how much money' is their value.
En Italy we have to deal with a academic system that is strongly permeated with the conviction that most of the intellectual work in research will be paid with increasing the academic curricula,. Year ago, I was writing the budget for a research project, and I had a interesting exchange with the director of the research: he thought that the work of writing articles and research report should not be paid, because the compensation of the work will be the new publications in the researcher curricula. My position was that it could be acceptable for a graduate student during a stage, not for a Phd experienced researcher. If we want to have good researches and good articles we have to assure that the people can eat and pay bills. Otherwise the selection will be not on the quality of researcher, but between who can self fund his research and who cannot.
There are many people who disregard the importance of the research, and espcially of the researchers role in the society. Once,I talked to an important institution, hoping to get a sponsorhsip for a congress that our institute was about to organize. The man that I talked to, told me that we should better work, instead of asking for money, because they make efforts to get their salary. So, the conclusion was that we do nothing in Romania.
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