Tag: Higher education

Since 2014, there have been a series of policy initiatives to increase the proportion of women in senior academic positions in higher educational  institutions (HEIs) in Ireland (O’Connor and Irvine 2020). This focus has been criticised for excluding a focus on precarity (Meade et al., 2023; O’Keefe and Courtois, 2019). Since women now make up seven of the 12 university presidents (a change that has occurred over three years), this objective can be depicted as achieved, although even yet 15 per cent of the male academic staff cohort are full professors compared with less than eight per cent of their female counterparts (HEA, 2022a; see also EC 2021: 187).  It is suggested that precarity is another manifestation of the impact of a male academic elite in HEIs, in this case driving a research focused agenda which necessitates the employment of large numbers of precarious researchers and support staff with no career prospects.