Getting the grant may not be enough to survive

Planning for academic staff cuts continue at Macquarie U with management now briefing staff on how those to go will be selected (CMM February 26). Those not “in-scope” are people in academic leadership roles outside the three faculties where cuts are happening (arts made target via VRs) – members of the university executive and people with chancellery portfolios. But not all staff with external research funding are safe.

The plan is to only quarantine academics with 60 per cent or plus of their salary externally funded. But what about academics leading research projects where their salary is not paid but those of their staff are?  “There will be careful consideration given to the impacts of a redundancy prior to any final decision being made and advice may be sought from the Research Office on contractual obligations,” a university briefing paper states.

Perhaps the consideration will include what project staff are supposed to do if the boss, who got the grant goes.