Occupational Identity on the Edge: Social Science Contract Researchers in Higher Education

Abstract

Throughout the higher education sector in the UK, recent decades have witnessed the increasing use of fixed-term and part-time labour, to the extent that around 50 percent of academic staff are currently employed on fixed-term contracts and in excess of 90 percent of researchers are employed on fixed-term contracts. Despite the importance of their contribution to the sector as a whole, relatively little research has been undertaken on the lived experience of undertaking contract research. The objective of this article is therefore to explore the reality and complexities of contract researchers’ working lives and the occupational identities and self-images that contract researchers construct and maintain.