Page 34 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

32 CHAPTER 2
This chapter investigates how the recruitment and selection for project-based postdoc positions are organised in the current academic landscape characterised by increasing temporary research funding and how principal investigators construct the ‘ideal’ postdoc. The findings are based on a qualitative comparative multiple-case study in Social and Natural Sciences departments of universities in four European countries. This study contributes to the literature on the neoliberal university and academic staff evaluation by using a systemic, power-sensitive approach that examines how postdocs enter the academic system and how manifestations of precarity are exacerbated. Our critical analysis reveals three manifestations of precarity that the current academic system creates for postdocs, related to control, contracts, and careers. We discuss the effects for individual postdocs and their careers and the quality of knowledge production in public funded higher education institutions.
2.1 Introduction
Contemporary universities are situated in a context of neoliberalisation, where academic work is market-driven and focused on performance, excellence, competition, project-based working, entrepreneurialism and cost-reductions (Bozzon et al., 2018; Clarke, Knights, & Jarvis, 2012; Deem, 1998, 2001; Lam & de Campos, 2015; Prichard, 2012). Due to declining government funding of higher education in Western countries, universities (and academics) have to search for new sources of finance (Deem, 2001; Prichard & Willmott, 1997; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). Therefore, and part of the trend toward the neoliberal university, reliance on external research funding has increased. Academics engage in strong competition for collaborative and commercial research funding to acquire money for their work (Lam & de Campos, 2015). Furthermore, the increasing reliance on competitive external funding also “is the organizational response to the drive and demand for transdisciplinary, fixed-term, solution-oriented research on specific phenomena that are defined as problems at a given time” (Ylijoki, 2016, p. 11).
As external research funding mostly finances temporary research projects the amount of project-based research has grown (Ylijoki, 2010). We refer to this trend as projectification (Ylijoki, 2016). As a result of the projectification of academia, the number of precarious jobs has grown and still grows, especially for early-career researchers, as large numbers of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers are hired for temporary positions (Lam, 2007; Wöhrer, 2014). We argue that these developments have important implications for the recruitment and selection of early-career