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Globalisation, Societies and Education
ISSN: 1476-7724 (Print) 1476-7732 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgse20
Globalisation of researcher mobility within the
UK Higher Education: explaining the presence of
overseas academics in the UK academia
Nabil Khattab & Steve Fenton
To cite this article: Nabil Khattab & Steve Fenton (2015): Globalisation of researcher mobility
within the UK Higher Education: explaining the presence of overseas academics in the UK
academia, Globalisation, Societies and Education, DOI: 10.1080/14767724.2015.1067763
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2015.1067763
Published online: 18 Sep 2015.
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Globalisation of researcher mobility within the UK Higher
Education: explaining the presence of overseas academics in the
UK academia
Nabil Khattab
a,b
and Steve Fenton
a
a
School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK;
b
Department of Sociology,
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we argue that the power structure that lies within the UK elite
universities dictates a division of labour through which the inflows of
overseas academics into the UK academic labour markets are skewed
towards these elite academic institutions where they are employed
primarily in research-only posts. These posts, are less valued and are
difficult to fill by UK academics. This explains the over-concentration
non-UK academics within these posts and suggests that it is not a
coincidence, but a result of a division of labour in which they are ‘used’
as a replacement labour.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 28 April 2014
Accepted 26 June 2015
Keywords
Higher education; overseas
academics; selected;
globalisation; academia;
manual labour
Introduction
Universities and research centres have become global institutions within a global economic and cul-
tural system; they have become increasingly open to international flows of students (Vita and Case
2003), staff, ideas and international funding (Cha 2000). However, different countries and different
academic institutions within these countries are not evenly affected by these flows (Mahroum 1999).
Countries within the English-speaking world, particularly the USA and the UK, have become a
powerful magnet for a major part of these flows (Marginson and van-der-Wende 2006; Mohrman,
Ma, and Baker 2008; van-der-Wende 2007).
According to the UK Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data in 2004–2005, there were
approximately 24,751 non-UK national academic staff (in all employment functions) within the UK
universities constituting about one-fifth (20%) of all university staff in the UK.
1
In the academic year
2009–2010, the proportion of non-UK academics in UK universities has gone up to about 24%.
2
During the same period, the proportion of the non-UK workers in the general labour market has
increased from 5% in 2005 to 8% only in 2010, indicating the greater openness of the UK higher
education (HE) labour market compared to the UK other labour markets.
This paper builds on two previous descriptive papers by Smetherham, Fenton, and Modood
(2010) and Fenton, Modood, and Smetherham (2011). In the current paper, we go beyond those
descriptive papers both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, we draw on Mann’s idea of
the ‘diffused power’(Mann 1986,1993), the work of Foucault on power and knowledge (Foucault
1987,1982), Bourdieu’s notion of ‘symbolic power’(Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) and on other
more recent work (Hey 2001; Reay 2004) to explain the incorporation of overseas academics within
the UK labour market focusing on those working in research-only posts (contract researchers). We
argue that these overseas contract researchers would benefit greatly from joining some of top UK
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
CONTACT Nabil Khattab nabil.khattab@bristol.ac.uk
GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2015.1067763
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universities by gaining experience, knowledge and skills and of course benefiting symbolically from
the prestige that is attached to these universities. However, the inferiority of these posts, relative to
lectureship posts for example, and their declining attractiveness for local academics, suggests that
some of the overseas academics might be taking the least desirable posts in the UK academia.
Empirically, this paper utilises data covering the period from 1998 to 2010, which provides more
depth to the analysis. It directly examines the factors that are associated with the presence of non-UK
academics presence by looking at the key factors within four types of HE institution, treated separ-
ately by the regression model. Thus, we develop the previous descriptive analysis by employing four
logistic regression models to account for the institutional differences in the presence of non-UK con-
tract researchers within the UK universities. Additionally, the current paper increases the indepen-
dent variables that are used in the analytical models including the use of interaction terms as will be
described later on in the section of data and methods.
The paper proceeds as follows: in the next section, we will discuss the context within which this
paper is been written while highlighting the main argument, then we will discuss some of the com-
mon explanations for globalisation within the HE. In this section, we will discuss the ‘attractive-less’
of the academia in the UK –for local academics –in an era of growing numbers of international
students and marketisation of the HE (Vita and Case 2003). In the third section, we will discuss
some of the theoretical ideas in relation to the division of labour and structures of power. In the
Fourth section, we will discuss our data and methods followed by the findings’section. In the last
section, we will discuss the findings and provide some interpretations and draw some conclusions.
The changing demography of the UK academia
We begin this section by presenting a graph (Figure 1) showing the proportion of UK and non-UK
academics by year (from 1999 to 2010) and employment function (research only –RO, teaching only
–TO, and research and teaching –RT). The pattern that emerges from this figure is that there is a
decline in the proportion of UK academics within each of the employment functions. However, the
most noticeable decline is in relation to RO posts. Consequently, overseas or non-UK (will use both
terms exchangeable) academics are concentrated in RO posts. For example, in 2009–2010 academic
year, about 41% of all the researchers in RO posts were non-UK, whereas this proportion is only
about 20% within RT posts in the same academic year.
The above figure provides a clear indication for a constant decline in the proportion of UK aca-
demic staff, which is met by an increase in the non-UK academic staff. The declining number of UK
Figure 1. The proportion of UK and non-UK academics by year and employment function, HESA 1998–2010.
2N. KHATTAB AND S. FENTON
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academics is a result of changes within the profession and within the more general UK labour mar-
ket. In what follows, we will discuss this process.
The ‘attractive-less’of the academia and the fall in UK Ph.D. students
A number of scholars have previously argued that within the UK academia, there is a clear hierarchy
based on class, gender and ethnicity. It is a territory that is ruled by men, upper and middle classes
and whiteness (Hey 2001; Reay 2000,2004). White men of middle and high classes predominate in
the most prestigious and secured positions within the British academia. Women and minorities,
similarly to the gender and ethnic inequalities found in the general labour market, face structural
barriers in accessing or gaining promotion in academia. When they finally do, they seem to occupy
the least attractive and least desirable positions within the academia. Reay (2004) makes an
intriguing distinction between academic labour and academic capital. By doing so, she, like others
(Fulton and Holland 2000; Hey 2001), highlights the division of labour in which ‘proper’academics
holding positions of lecturing and research are being serviced by contract researchers in the process
of building and increasing their academic capitals. According to Reay (2004) and Hey (2001), the
better and the more secure academic positions, would normally be taken by members of the elite
groups. Other positions such as short- and fixed-term contracts, in teaching and particularly in
research, are filled by other groups. In the 1980s and 1990s, these positions, but not only, were filled
by women of working-class background (Reay 2004), especially due to the exit of the upper middle
classes from the academia.
It is possible that the upped middle classes have moved out of academia due to the decline in
social and economic rewards and employment security within the profession. Furthermore, there
is some evidence to suggest that the academic profession has become more egalitarian, in that people
from classes other than the elite class, women and immigrants were able to enter the profession (Hills
2010). It has been argued by Fulton and Holland (2000) that academia in the UK, especially during
the 1990s has undergone a kind of proletarianisation due to the spread of part-time, short-term pos-
itions. In their words:
An army of causal ‘proletarian’labourers (part-time, fixed-term, without the traditional right to the unity of
teaching and research activity) is being recruited to support or, as often’substitute for declining numbers of
‘traditional’academics. (321)
In a more recent study, Huisman, de Weert and Bartelse (2002) have addressed the issue of the
declining attractiveness of the HE labour market for young academics in the UK. Similarly to Fulton
and Holland (2000), Huisman, de Weert and Bartelse (2002) point out that it has been increasingly
more difficult for young academics to become regular members of the academic community. Many
are hired temporarily with poor working conditions and uncertainness about long-term employ-
ment. These conditions have led Scott (2006) to argue that:
Many (most?) of these graduates no longer aspire to be researchers with the hope of one day becoming pro-
fessors (just as they are much less likely to aspire to be high public officials and more likely to become entre-
preneurs). It is not simply a question of changes in the values and priorities of graduates; the culture and ethos
of the system have also been profoundly changed by massification. (21)
Thus, it is not surprising that UK academics express low satisfaction of their profession. In
a recent study, Cavalli and Moscati (2010) found that in general, UK academics report low
satisfaction due to a decline in their political power, in their pay level and an increase in their
workload (S47).
It is likely that under these conditions, many UK academics would either leave the academia or
even not seek jobs there in the first place. Moreover, many UK university graduates, as argued above,
might decide not to pursue a doctorate. Indeed, a report published by Higher Education Funding
Council for England (HEFCE) has shown that between 1996 and 2010, the proportion of UK
Ph.D. full-time students has dropped from about 60% to about 52%, while the proportion of EU
GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 3
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and other international Ph.D. full-time students within the UK universities has increased. (HEFCE
2011). Thus, the lower percentage of UK Ph.D.’s in conjunction with the decline in the attractiveness
of the academic profession for many young UK graduates would have led to a shortage of doctoral
graduates, especially in key subject areas, and academic posts which become difficult to fill with UK
graduates. Such positions are likely to be in the IT (Millar and Salt 2007) and in science and engin-
eering (Roberts 2002; Smetherham, Fenton and Modood 2010). In order to meet this shortage, many
universities would then import these skills from Europe and beyond or recruit from among the
growing number of non-UK Ph.D. students who study at the UK universities.
The skewed distribution of non-UK academics in UK universities
Recent decades have seen much greater mobility of high skilled workers, in the global market for
technical and professional expertise. Many countries in the industrialised world, such as in Europe
and North America, have opened up their borders to the highly skilled individuals, especially in areas
that are necessary for the advancement of economy, but are undersupplied within the national labour
markets, such as in the IT sector (Millar and Salt 2007). Additionally, importing technical/pro-
fessional workers, home-based corporations and universities can achieve a kind of ‘wage control’,
with foreign workers driving down wages. This was clearly at stake in the USA corporate importing
of Indian IT workers (Valle and Torres 2000, 17).
3
While the main supplier of highly skilled workers
for the UK different labour markets was Europe until the late 1990’s (Mahroum 1999), in recent
years, the growing competitiveness for the most talented individuals has broadened the recruitment
circles to include countries outside Europe (Mohrman et al. 2008).
Many universities within the UK are involved in recruiting large numbers of overseas academics
(in all functions) in increasing numbers since the early 1990s. Mahroum (1999) has pointed out that
in 1994–1995, there were about 5449 overseas academics in the UK and in 1996–1997, this number
has increased to 11,314. According to the HESA 2009–2010 data, almost one in four academics in
UK HE is a non-UK national. However, these overseas academics are more likely to be found in
elite universities than in other pre- or post-92 universities. This trend has even become stronger
in recent years as it can be seen in Figure 2. The figure shows that across the entire period, and
more so in 2009–2010, the non-UK academics are over-concentrated within the universities of
the Golden Triangle
4
(GT). For example, of all the non-UK academics in the UK, about 42%
were employed by these six universities in 2009–2010, an increase of about 8% compared to
1998–1999.
Much lower proportions of the non-UK academics (28.1% and 26.5%) were employed by Russell
Group (RG)
5
universities and other pre-92 universities, respectively. The figure also shows that post-
92 universities and other HE colleges are the least likely to recruit non-UK academics.
The concentration of non-UK academics within the GT universities is not a coincidental out-
come. There are a number of factors at play here. In what follows, we will discuss some of these
factors:
The global model
The UK top prestigious universities (mainly the GT universities) can be included within what Mohr-
man et al. (2008) describe as the ‘Emerging Global Model’(EGM) of the research university in the
twenty-first century. According to this model, the top stratum of research universities (worldwide/
EGM) have eight characteristics: global mission, research intensity, new roles for professors, diver-
sified funding, worldwide recruitment, increasing complexity, new relationships with government
and industry, and global collaboration with similar institutions (5). These universities are competing
globally for funding, students and research staff, and in the same time promote collaborations with
similar institutions around the world (van-der-Wende 2007). Achieving both goals depends on the
initial performance of the institutions involved in these processes. For example, Hoare (1994) found
that those universities with lower academic performance, measured by research funding, had the
4N. KHATTAB AND S. FENTON
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highest levels of localism (i.e., locally recruited staff), whereas those with the best performance had
the highest level of imports. Thus, the strong and highly performing UK universities (RG including
the GT universities) would be able to compete more successfully within the global labour market of
researchers and recruit the best of them, whereas the other UK universities will recruit locally, or
attract the second-class international researchers.
The concentration of capital
Elite universities seek to retain their reputation and prestige as centres of excellence by attracting the
best researchers worldwide (Millard 2005). In part, these universities are able to do this due to the
huge concentration of research funding, post-doctoral fellowship and Marie Curie fellowships (Mill-
ard 2005, 351). For example, Smetherham et al. (2010, 419) have pointed out that the GT universities
were much more able to attract US academics than anybody else. The concentration of the massive
resources within these universities creates an uneven distribution of overseas researchers across the
UK universities (Mahroum 1999).
The above two processes have been reinforced even further as a result of the EU decision to build
up the European Research Area and the European Higher Education Area (Marginson and van-der-
Wende 2006; Musselin 2004; Smeby and Trondal 2005; van-der-Wende 2007). For many academics,
Ph.D. students and those newly graduated Ph.D.s looking for post-doctoral posts, it has become
easier to move across the national borders and broaden their research opportunities.
The mobility of Ph.D. students and post-docs is made much more economically possible and
easier due to the Marie Curie Fellowship Scheme (Ackers 2001; Millard 2005). A study by Mor-
ano-Foadi (2005) has pointed out that while the EU promote mobility of academic staff in order
to create a ‘European science’model, there is uneven scientific personnel flows between the
countries; some countries are largely senders, others mostly receivers (Casey et al. 2001). The elite
UK universities have utilised their reputation and power to attract a large proportion of the new
Figure 2. The proportion of non-UK academics within the UK universities by year and type of institution, HESA (1998–2010).
GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 5
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flows of these EU academics. However, as this study shows quite clearly (see Table 2 in the findings
section), the concentration of non-UK staff within the elite universities, especially the GT univer-
sities, is not evenly spread across the different employment functions (RO, TO and T&R). There
is a clear clustering within the RO posts. Among the UK academics within these universities, the pro-
portion of academics who are employed in RO posts is far lower than the equivalent proportion
among the non-UK. We argue that these academics (contract researchers hereafter) are being
recruited to fill the gap at the lower end of the HE labour market. However, for many of these over-
seas academics, moving to the top UK universities is seen as a part of a career development process.
In what follows, we discuss this argument further.
According to the elite university model, academics are attracted to prestigious universities by the
institutions’elite status in the academic world. Both the staff and the departments at these univer-
sities are considered to be the esteemed top-tier in the academic world. In this model, the mobility is
motivated by personal interests to be a part of elite academic circles and to benefit from the global
reputation of these institutions (Fenton, Modood, and Smetherham 2011).
Morano-Foadi (2005) argues that mobility is seen as a way to achieve better research opportu-
nities, diversify experience, expand knowledge and develop international networks. Many young
researchers and academics are increasingly involved in international mobility. They realise that
the competition within the higher educational labour market over jobs and funding is tough, and
that in order to increase their chances of getting good jobs and securing research funding, mobility
is no longer a choice; international experience is a requisite for any scientist who aims to achieve
progress or be eligible for career opportunities in his home country. The motivating force that com-
pels migration decisions and mobility of academics is not necessary financial gain, but rather
exposure to international competition that would enhance skills and contribute to career develop-
ment (Ackers 2001; Mahroum, 2000; Millard 2005). Academics who choose to accept faculty pos-
itions abroad realise that in order for them to optimise their international experience, gain the
most developed skills and subsequently increase their chances of getting good job opportunities
when they return to their home country, it is crucial for them to be in the most prestigious university
where the best research environment, expertise, trust, and credibility can be found (Mahroum, 2000;
Millard 2005; Morano-Foadi 2005; Musselin 2004).
A number of studies focussing on the mobility of the highly skilled within the EU have noted that
there is a clear tendency among the highly skilled to be attracted to the UK universities (Millard
2005), and, within the UK, the most prestigious and prominent universities are the primary hosts
of non-UK academics, while less prestigious universities lag far behind in attracting foreign aca-
demics (Mahroum 1999, Mahroum 2000, 517, Smetherham et al. 2010). Other previous studies
show that many young scientists and academics use the mobility as a way to enhance their career,
and by doing so to improve their chances to be recruited by the best universities in their home
country (presumably meaning the country of which they are a national –but many academics
will remain global movers, not necessarily returning to their ‘home country’(Musselin 2004).
These training periods can be relatively short since young academics see them as a stepping
stone, though, in some cases, some will make a career in the institution where they take a post-doc-
toral post. We argue that the nature of the short-term mobility is part of the way in which top-ranked
universities run their research industry, which depends mostly on ‘soft money’bid-for projects that
are fixed-term or temporary by nature. Most of the research-intensive universities would prefer the
short-term or fixed-term employment in order to reduce risks (in case of unsuitable researchers)
(Musselin 2004), but more importantly to be able to close these appointments once the project to
which they have been recruited in the first place is over. This method would also allow these univer-
sities to ensure that they are in a market for new talented scientists who just have arrived into the
global labour market seeking to enhance and develop their career. These characteristics of the labour
market for young researchers can be seen as simultaneously fitting an ‘exploitative’and an ‘oppor-
tunity’model. Young researchers are penalised in the sense that they are typically employed in time-
limited research-only posts, with no guarantees about their future careers. Despite the present
6N. KHATTAB AND S. FENTON
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increased uncertainties surrounding teaching and research posts, they remain more ‘permanent’
than fixed-term research posts. The deployment of researchers on a world labour market for aca-
demics could be argued to hold down salaries which might rise if ‘scarce’UK graduates were
appointed. At the same time –and this is especially the case in the most research-intensive univer-
sities like the GT institutions –research-only posts are sought after by non-UK academics as valuable
experience and as a stepping stone to career development. The researchers themselves tend to view
their employment in this way, that is, as an opportunity (Smetherham et al. 2010).
Data and methods
We conduct the descriptive statistical analysis using the university staff record data of the HESA
for four academic years: 1998–1999, 2001–2002, 2004–2005 and 2009–2010. For the multivariate
(regression) analysis, we have only used the 2004–2005 data. The reason for that is that great
dependence between the records in each year as many of the academics are the same in all of
the files. The way the data have been provided by HESA does not allow the identification of
the respondents across the files, which meant that we cannot combine them together. The data
for the year 2004–2005 include individual and institutional information on 124,378 academic
staff employed in 165 different HE institutions in the UK. For instance, the data provide individ-
ual information on age, sex, nationality, employment function and terms, salary, grade, subject
area, highest qualification, institutional affiliation and so on. Moreover, the data allow us to ident-
ify individual characteristics of staff as well as institutional characteristics of the universities in
which these academic staff work.
In this paper, we focus on the market for overseas academics in UK institutions, especially in RO
posts. We use an analytical approach that allows us to account for the different factors determining
the deployment of non-UK contract researchers within the different institutional groups of univer-
sities. In particular, we run four logistic regression models; one for each of the following institutional
groups of universities: post-92, pre-92, RG and GT. In each model, we examine how factors such as
employment function and terms of employment are associated with the presence of non-UK
research staff in the UK HE market place.
Dependent variable
In this study, we are interested in the international (global) composition of the academic labour mar-
ket in the UK. For the sake of examining the influences on this composition, we have defined a binary
variable with two categories of overseas staff (coded 1) and UK staff (coded 0). Non-UK nationality
staff are those whose country of legal nationality is any country other than the UK, whereas UK
national staff are those whose country of legal nationality is the UK including the Channel Islands
and Isle of Man.
Independent variables
Age: used in the analysis as a quantitative continuous factor (by years).
Sex: coded 1 for male versus 0 for female.
Terms of employment: coded 1 for fixed-term contract and 0 for permanent.
Mode of employment: coded 1 for full-time employment and 0 for part-time.
Primary employment function: defined as a series of dummy variables; teaching only and research only. The
category teaching and research was used as the reference group.
Qualifications: coded as 1 for Ph.D. (Doctorate) and 0 for less than a Ph.D.
Subject area (research): The following dummy variables were defined: Business studies,
Medicine, Social science and education, Arts & Humanities, Health, Agriculture & veterinary,
GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 7
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Architecture & planning, Science and Other subject. The subject Engineering &Technology was used
as a reference group.
Institutional type: This factor was used in the analysis to run the logistic regression models. We use
the four main institutional groups of universities: Post-92 universities, Pre-92 universities, RG uni-
versities and GT universities. (We did not run a separate logistic regression for HE colleges where
non-UK academics have a very small presence).The post-92 universities are those created in 1992
when former polytechnic colleges became universities. The pre-92 universities are those which
were universities before 1992 but minus the RG which is an association of universities formed to
protect and further the interests of some of the larger and more prestigious institutions. In our
usage, ‘RG’is that group minus a group of six universities including Oxford and Cambridge and
some London institutions, which are marked by being highly research-intensive, globally prestigious,
and having a disproportionate share of research funding. This last group we have called the GT
universities.
Interaction terms
We have defined an interaction term between terms of employment and employment function, on
the other hand, to examine our arguments. This interaction terms would help us determine whether
the terms of employment (being on FTC) depend on the employment function (i.e., RO) for non-UK
research staff within each institutional group of universities. We have also defined interaction terms
between sex and terms of employment, and between the former and employment functions. These
interaction terms are needed to examine the different ways though which overseas men and women
are incorporated within the UK HE labour market.
Findings
We begin this section by presenting a general comparison between the UK academic staff and the
non-UK academic staff across the main independent variables in the paper. As can be seen in
Table 1, except for the sex distribution which is similar in both nationality groups, there are some
major differences between the two groups in relation to most of the main factors. On average, the
non-UK academics tend to be younger than the UK academics by 6 years with a higher proportion
of the non-UK academics holding a Ph.D. qualification than the UK academics (75% versus 70%,
respectively). Non-UK nationals are underrepresented in the permanent posts, underrepresented
in teaching and research posts and are more likely to work as full-time employees than part-time
relative to UK academics.
When we examine subject or research area, it seems that the non-UK academics are likely to be
found in higher proportions in business studies and in engineering/technology studies and signifi-
cantly underrepresented in social sciences, arts/humanities studies and to a lesser extent in science
and health.
Turning to the distribution of academics across institutional types, Table 1 shows that overseas
academics are overrepresented in the pre-92 universities, in the RG universities and even more so
in the GT universities.
The raw data presented in Table 1 show that the non-UK academics are most likely to be associ-
ated with the most prestigious universities in the UK to fill mainly research posts in business and
engineering studies on the basis of fixed-term contracts. In order to examine this pattern further,
we carry out a three-way cross-tabulation for the non-UK academics by employment function
and type of institution using the data for 2004–2005. The results of this three-way cross-tabulation
are presented in Table 2.
We look first at the institutional differences in employment function for UK and non-UK aca-
demics. There are two main patterns that can be identified here. First, within the new post-92 uni-
versities, there is a clear concentration of staff, among both UK and non-UK nationals, in Teaching
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and Research posts. The more ‘prestigious’the university type, the higher proportion of all staff are
in research-only posts. GT universities have the lowest percentage of academics in T&R posts (50%
and 31% for UK and non-UK academics, respectively). Within the GT universities, we found that a
Table 1. UK/non-UK academics by the independent variables, 2004–2005.
Independent variables
UK
N= 99,627
(80%)
Overseas
N= 24,751
(20%)
Level 1
Age
a
45 39
Sex
Female 39 40
Male 61 60
Terms of employment
Fixed-term contract 31 56
Permanent 69 44
Mode of employment
Part-time 17 10
Full-time 83 90
Primary employment function
Teaching only 11 6
Research only 22 46
Teaching & Research 66 47
Other employment function 1 1
Qualification
Ph.D. 70 75
Less than a Ph.D. 30 25
Subject
Medicine 4 4
Business & admin 30 35
Engineering & technology 6 10
Social science and education 18 12
Arts & Humanities 17 13
Health 9 6
Agriculture & veterinary 1 1
Architecture & planning 1 1
Science 5 4
Other 8 13
Institutional type
HE colleges 4 2
Post-92 34 16
Pre-92 27 33
RG 23 26
GT 11 23
a
Average.
Table 2. Academic staff by nationality, employment function and Institutional group, 2004–2005.
Institutional type
Employment function
TO RO Other T&R
Post-92 UK staff 9 5 2 84
Non-UK 8 17 1 74
Pre-92 UK staff 16 22 1 61
Non-UK 8 41 1 50
RG UK staff 6 35 1 58
Non-UK 5 53 1 41
GT UK staff 3 47 0 50
Non-UK 2 67 0 31
GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 9
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higher proportion of all posts are RO posts among the UK academics (47%) as well as among the
non-UK staff (67%). The second pattern refers to the differences in the concentration of UK and
non-UK staff in T&R posts versus RO posts as we move from the least prestigious universities
towards the most prestigious ones. These differences are larger as we move from post-92 universities
towards the top-ranked GT universities
The type of post held by non-UK academics differs by the type of university in which they are
employed. In post-92 universities, approximately three quarters of non-UK academics are employed
in T&R posts. In the GT universities, just one-third of non-UK academics are in T&R posts. The
reverse is the case for research-only posts. In post-92 universities, less than one-fifth of non-UK
staff are in research posts. In GT universities two-thirds of all non-UK academics are in RO
posts. In the pre-92 and RG universities, 41% and 53%, respectively, are employed in RO posts.
These patterns are likely to be associated with the advantage of the RG and GT universities in
securing research funding over the other groups of universities, and in particular over the post-92
universities. According to Smetherham et al. (2010, 418), in 2006–2007, all RG universities
accounted for 66% (over £2.2 billion) of UK Universities’research grant and contract income,
68% of total Research Council income, 56% of all doctorates awarded in the UK and over 30% of
all students studying in the UK from outside the EU. The extent of research funding in these uni-
versities creates a large number of FTC research posts not all of which can be filled by domestic
supply of graduates and postgraduates. This might be due to insufficient supply of the UK HE sys-
tem, or as argued by Huisman, de Weert and Bartelse (2002), the decreasing attractiveness of aca-
demic careers, in that the number of students pursuing doctorates in the UK and the Netherland is
decreasing (142). As we noted above, those ‘domestic’graduates who do doctorates in ‘scarcity’fields
are attracted to non-academic careers. The inevitable outcome of this process is an imbalance
between the demand and the local supply, which leads many universities to recruit worldwide in
order to fill these posts.
Figure 3 shows that the above pattern has been largely constant over the last decade (1998–2010).
Non-UK academics are more likely to be recruited to fill RO positions than in other types of univer-
sities. In fact, the vast majority of them within the RG and more so within the GT universities work
as RO. Furthermore, Figure 3 shows that in the academic year of 2009–2010, the proportion of non-
UK contract researchers (RO) has dropped below its level 4 years earlier (2004–2005). Instead, there
was an increase in the proportion of non-UK academics in TO and to a lesser extent in T&R
positions.
We will now turn to the multivariate analysis to examine our arguments further. The results of the
multivariate analysis are presented in Table 3. For each institutional group of universities, Table 2
presents two models: one for the independent variables without interaction effects (A), and in the
second, we add these interaction effects (B). The coefficients in the table are odds ratios Exp(B).
Each coefficient can potentially take any value between 0 and + ∞. Hence, a coefficient that is less
than 1 indicates lower odds of falling within the specific category relative to the reference category
(being a UK academic). A coefficient that is greater than 1 indicates that the factor is more associated
with overseas academics, and a coefficient of 1 indicates no influence of the factor. For example, the
coefficient (odds ratios) of age is less than 1 in all models. This means that older age is less associated
with overseas academics. In other words, we see that age is operating in the expected direction, in
that overseas academics tend to be younger than the UK academics. The main effect of being a
male is insignificant in the second model (Model B) where the interaction terms between male
and terms of employment and employment function are included.
Unlike the main effect in the second model, the interaction term between being a male and being
on a permanent post within post-92 universities and within RG universities is negatively associated
with the presence of overseas academics. Likewise, being a male working as TO (the interaction term
TO × Male) is negatively associated with overseas academics relative to working in T&R posts. This
effect is only insignificant within the GT universities .However, the interaction term between male
and RO is greater than 1 in all of the models, suggesting that overseas males are more likely to work
10 N. KHATTAB AND S. FENTON
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Figure 3. The proportion of non-UK academics within the UK universities by year, type of institution and employment function,
HESA (1998–2010).
Table 3. Logistic regression model for overseas academic staff in UK universities (2004–2005).
Post-92 Pre-92 RG GT
ABABABAB
Age 0.95*0.95*0.95*0.95*0.96*0.96*0.96*0.96*
Male versus female 0.84* 1.04 0.96 0.94 0.92* 0.88 0.92* 0.90
Permanent versus FTC 0.58*0.70*0.68*0.76*0.58*0.75*0.67* 0.89
Full-time 1.23*1.26*1.91*1.86*1.86*1.84*1.58*1.55*
Ph.D. 2.15*2.14*1.60*1.62*1.91*1.90*1.39*1.39*
Employment function, base: T&R
TO 0.94 1.40*0.69*0.72*1.26*2.04*1.52*1.93*
RO 1.36* 1.07 1.20* 1.02 1.09 1.03 1.30*1.34*
Other 0.55* 0.92 0.57* 0.93 0.83 0.86 1.80 2.36
Subject, base: Engineering & IT
Medicine & dentistry 0.57 0.60 0.67*0.68*0.39*0.41*0.52*0.53*
Business/admin 0.58*0.59*0.63*0.64*0.55*0.56*0.59*0.59*
Social science/education 0.48*0.49*0.81*0.82*0.58*0.58* 0.91 0.90
Arts/Humanities 0.74*0.76*0.85*0.85*0.74*0.73*0.68*0.67*
Health 0.56*0.56*0.46*0.47*0.35*0.35*0.45*0.45*
Agriculture/forestry/veterinary science 0.48*0.49* 1.00 1.03 0.57*0.58*0.48*0.48*
Architecture & Planning 1.08 1.11 0.75 0.75 1.00 1.00 0.78 0.78
Science 0.73*0.75* 1.14 1.16 0.84 0.85 1.39 1.36
Other 0.97 0.98 1.94*1.97*2.23*2.24*1.25*1.25*
Employment function × Permanent. Base: T&R and FTC
TO ×Permanent 0.62* 1.16 0.58* 0.93
RO ×Permanent 1.20 0.80*0.76*0.50*
Other employment function ×Permanent 0.60 0.60 1.25 0.56
Male ×Permanent 0.73* 0.87 0.83* 0.80
Employment Function ×Male. Base: T&R and Female
Male ×TO 0.67*0.77*0.54* 0.70
Male ×RO 1.46*1.40*1.35* 1.15
Other ×Male 0.75 0.53 0.79 0.96
Constant 1.57 1.32 1.74 1.70 0.96 0.86 1.96 1.79
-2 Log likelihood (final) 23547.663 34156.216 27984.378 20492.616
*P< .05.
GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 11
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as RO than in T&R posts. The impact of this interaction is insignificant for the GT universities, yet it
is in the same direction as for the other institutional groups of universities. The lack of significance
difference between RO and T&R within the GT universities may also be an indication that even in
T&R posts the GT universities attract a lot of overseas academics. This latter issue will be addressed
in a future article.
As expected, overseas academics are less likely to be on permanent contracts than on FTC relative
to UK academics for T&R posts in all models (the main effect). Moving from T&R permanent posts
to TO and particularly RO permanent posts is by and large negatively associated with the presence of
overseas academics.
Contrary to the influence of the employment terms, full-time posts and holding Ph.D. qualifica-
tion are positively associated with overseas academics. It is not surprising that we find this kind of
impact. Overseas academics need to compete with locals –if there are local competitors –and they
can certainly improve their chances of getting a post if they enter the competition well qualified.
However, in order for them to make their employment in the UK economically valuable and to opti-
mise their career development, a full-time employment becomes then an important factor.
Turning to the main effect of the employment function (TO and RO versus T&R), Table 3 shows
mixed patterns of the main effect of TO and RO posts. For most of the institutional groups of uni-
versities, working in TO and RO posts (relative to T&R) on the basis of a fixed-term contract is posi-
tively associated with overseas academics. This pattern is most evident within the GT universities
where both coefficients are greater than 1 and statistically significant. However, within pre-92 uni-
versities, this pattern is reversed, in that TO posts are negatively associated with overseas academics.
The interaction terms of TO × Permanent and that of RO × Permanent provide further evidence of
the association between overseas academics with RO posts on the basis of fixed-term contract,
especially in the top elite universities of RG and GT universities.
The central part of Table 3 presents the impact of the subject area. This part examines the associ-
ation between being an overseas academics versus UK academics and the subject area with ‘engin-
eering and technology’being the reference group. It can be clearly seen that compared to
‘engineering and technology’, almost all other subjects have a smaller than 1 coefficients and most
of them are statistically significant, which means that all of these subject are less associated with over-
seas academics. It seems that overseas academics are more likely to be in ‘engineering and technol-
ogy’than in any other subject, holding all other factors constant. However, there are three other
subjects that broadly speaking, are as likely as the ‘engineering & IT’to attract overseas academics,
especially within the most prestigious universities. In the GT, overseas academics are represented in
‘social sciences and education’; and in the other pre-92, RG and GT universities, overseas academics
are attracted to posts in ‘science’and ‘architecture & planning’. Indeed, the coefficient of ‘science’in
the GT model is even greater than 1 (1.36), yet it fails to reach the significance level of 5%.
Discussion and conclusions
In this paper, we sought to account for the presence of non-UK academics in the UK universities
focussing on contract researchers. The study has shown that these non-UK research academics
are not distributed across the UK universities evenly, but concentrated in the elite research univer-
sities, perhaps due to the availability of research funding and resources within these universities.
Within the elite universities, for example, GT and other RG universities, these non-UK academics
were over-concentrated within RO posts mostly on fixed-term contracts, which do not provide a
long career prospect.
We argued that these overseas contract researchers have been recruited by the elite universities to
fill the least attractive fixed-term RO positions. Due to a local shortage of UK academics, and par-
ticularly contract researchers in certain fields, top research universities have recruited non-UK
researchers to sustain their research industry. Turning to international academics allows these uni-
versities to benefit from the most talented researchers available for hiring in the global labour market
12 N. KHATTAB AND S. FENTON
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and maintaining a maximum flexibility to make redundant or to re-hire overseas academics as dic-
tated by their research interests and needs at each point of time. On the part of the overseas aca-
demics, accepting such jobs is considered as an important phase in their career development and
as an opportunity to obtain new knowledge and skills. Our findings, in general, provide a solid
empirical evidence for this argument. Similar to other previous studies in this area (Mahroum
1999; Mahroum 2000; Millard 2005; Morano-Foadi 2005), non-UK contract researchers are
attracted to the most prestigious universities where the research environment is the most developed,
and where they can optimise their career development, enhance their skills and gain high credibility
and expertise (Mahroum 2000).
Not only that these non-UK researchers tend to concentrate in large numbers within particular
institutional group of universities, but also a greater concentration in a very narrow range of research
areas, with ‘engineering and IT’being the most notable field. This finding is in line with other pre-
vious studies (Millard 2005) and it indicates not only the institutional hierarchy of universities, but
also the different ranking and importance of research fields. The special attractiveness of the ‘engin-
eering and IT’field might be connected to the reputation of the universities located at the South-East
of England as one of the best places for this field (Millard 2005, 348) and to the increased demand for
expertise in this field locally and globally (Millar and Salt 2007).
This paper has shown that UK HE institutions are an important destination for ‘global movers’in
academic careers. The proportion of academics who are non-UK nationals has grown from 15% in
1998–1999 to 24%, almost 1 in 4 of all academics, in 2009–2010. These proportions are even higher
in research posts (‘Research only’) typically occupied by post-doctoral graduates taking time-limited
posts in funded research units or projects. Non-UK academics, of whom the largest proportion
comes from European countries, have become a highly important part of the UK academic labour
force. In fact, we cannot be sure that they are, or will be, ‘global movers’in the sense that we do
not know what proportion will return to their home country, stay in the UK, or move on to a further
country destination. However, what we can see is that the current power relations (power that is
practised by the UK elite universities) dictate a division of labour within which non-UK academics
‘freely’and ‘willingly’accept disadvantaged positions with no guarantees of future position or career
and on top of that earn less money for their labour.
6
Individually they tend to see their mobility as
‘opportunity’(Smetherham et al. 2010) and especially in the so-called prestigious universities, they
are likely to have the chance to build cultural capital for their futures. Their free choice to apply for
positions within these top universities is indeed what allows these institutions to practise their power
(Foucault 1987,1982), and for the actors (the contract researchers) to see this power relations or
their disadvantaged positions as legitimate (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). They are a replacement
labour force who find their way into UK universities which globally are seen as having good reputa-
tions, but locally (i.e., to home graduates) are decreasingly viewed as offering attractive careers,
especially when they can be compared with using similar skills in, for example, a commercial
field. It is likely that some of those who might have considered an academic career are presently
more likely to see academic life as comparing unfavourably with alternatives (Fulton and Holland
2000). This may be more the case for men than for women. The proportion of all staff represented
by men has fallen steadily from 1998 to the present. In the same period, the proportion of staff to be
found in part-time posts has increased significantly –and women are more likely than men to be
part-time. But posts which are undersubscribed by ‘home graduates’– and certainly by male gradu-
ates in the UK –are readily filled by the replacement labour force which we have described. Clearly,
the opportunities in time-limited posts explain a great deal of the presence of non-UK graduates. But
in total numbers of non-UK staff (rather than as proportions of specific academic ‘functions’),
Teaching and Research staff from outside the UK are as great in number as non-UK research-
only staff. This suggests that the demand for replacement labour extends beyond the fixed-term
posts in research. And finally, our presentation of the data confirms what was argued by Smetherham
et al. 2010 –that global movers are greatly disproportionately represented in a select group of high-
prestige research-intensive universities.
GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 13
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Acknowledgements
The support of the UK Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors alone are
responsible for the interpretation of the data. A previous draft of this paper has been presented at the 60th conference
of the BSA and International and the International Workshop on Comparative Education, Hebrew University of
Jerusalem: Beit Maiersdorf 3–5 June 2013.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
The project was funded by the Leverhulme Trust as part of the Leverhulme Programme on Migration and Citizenship
in the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at University of Bristol the Migration Research Unit at
University College London.
Notes
1. By academic staff, we mean staff employed at UK Higher Education Institutions as lecturers, researchers or both.
2. Press release 156 –Staff in Higher Education Institutions 2009/10: see http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=1969&Itemid=161, viewed on 5 May 2011
3. For high-tech industries dependent on highly skilled workers, the region’s ability to attract or ‘drain’highly edu-
cated Asian immigrants provides clear competitive advantages. Not only has another country borne the social cost
of educating these workers, their degrees will earn them more in the USA than they can at home, yet those workers
still cost employers less than their domestic counterparts. The region’s low-tech post-Fordist firms have also repli-
cated the advantages of going abroad, or virtual globalisation, by targeting undocumented immigrants, particularly
Latinas, as their primary labour source (Valle and Torres, 2000, 17).
4. Golden Triangle (GT) universities include Imperial College, King’s College, the LSE, UCL, Oxford and Cambridge
Universities. Most or all GT universities are members of the Russell group so the two categories are not exclusive.
GT is not an officially recognised term, whereas RG is used as a category in HESA data sets. We created GT as a
definition of the top of the top.
5. The RG is an association of 20 major research-intensive universities of the UK. These are: Birmingham, Bristol,
Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial College London, Kings College London, Leeds, Liverpool,
LSE, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Queen’s University Belfast, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, UCL
and Warwick.
6. In a separate analysis for another article, we found that the overseas staff’s annual salary is lower than the UK staff
annual salary by £943.65.
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