Academic time allocations among Early Career Researchers in Germany and Norway

Paper to be submitted to the STI 2023 conference, Improving scholarly evaluation practices in light of cultural change,
27-29 September, Leiden

Topics: academic careers, equity, diversity and inclusion, science policy, science indicators,

Sabine Wollscheid^*, Kaja Wendt^** and René Krempkow^***

^*sabine.wollscheid@nifu.no

ORCID; ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7376-9820

Nordic Institute for Studies in Research Innovation and Education (NIFU), Norway

^** kaja.wendt@ssb.no

ORCID; ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2430-9067

Statistics Norway, R&D, technology and business development, Norway

^*** rene.krempkow@iu.org

ORCID; ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6760-3285

IU – International University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Research Department, Germany

Abstract (150 words)

In Germany and Norway, there have been vivid discussions about precarious working conditions and challenges to balance work- and private life of Early Career Researchers (ECRs). The focus of this article are ECRs in Germany and Norway. ECRs are here defined as PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. PhD students in Norway are to a higher degree scholarship holders and at the same time employed at higher education institutions than their German counterparts. Germany and Norway differ in their historical approaches facilitating gender equality, even though gender policies are converging in both countries. Drawing on data from the German Science Survey 2019, Time-use survey of Norwegian academic staff at higher education institutions and data from the register of research personal in Norway, we explore time allocation for academic activities among ECRs in Norway and Germany considering different context variables (gender, family model, discipline, doctoral training model) providing implications for further research.

1. Introduction

Across Europe, there is a high use of temporary contracts for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) (e.g., Frøhlich et al., 2018). This article focuses on ECRs in Germany and Norway, two European countries with similar traditions in higher education and research. In both countries, there have been vivid discussions about precarious working conditions and on challenges to balance work- and private life of ECRs. In Germany, the ongoing discussion about precarious working conditions was facilitated by the nationwide campaign “#Ich bin Hanna” (Schwägerl, 2021); in Norway, there have been similar public discussions.¹

ECRs play an important role in a country’s research production (Bégin-Caouette et al., 2020). Teichler (2014) found that junior academic staff in Norway and Germany spend more time for research and development (R&D) activities compared to researchers at later career stages, and despite this group face more ‘precarious’ working conditions than senior researchers (Bégin-Caouette et al., 2020). Additionally, for 2007, Teichler (2014) show that junior staff at universities in Norway on average spent 12 minutes more time on research (65 minutes) than their counterparts in Germany (53 minutes), who spent more time on other activities.

These discussions on precarious working conditions of ECRs, which might hamper an academic career, informed the topic of this paper: ECRs’ time-use and allocation on academic activities, in Norway and Germany. This paper focuses on time allocation on academic activities, conceptualised as an R&D input indicator (Aksnes et al., 2016), and how much it could be – also in relation to different welfare regimes – a condition of a healthier academic culture.

Despite distinct changes in academic career structures, work patterns and award systems across Europe, over the last two decades (Kwiek, 2019), researchers, ECRs included, still identify themselves with their work (Djerasimovic & Villani, 2020). For privileged ECRs research can mean a “lifestyle” or an “expensive hobby” (Krempkow, 2022). Further, ECRs face non-permanent contracts, hard work and overtime over a long period, and high competition (e.g., Wendt et al., 2021). ECRs can be categorised as “time poor and money poor” (Jäckel & Wollscheid, 2007), but high intrinsically motivated (Jacob, 2011). ECRs here comprise PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. Norway and Germany were chosen, as both contexts show similarities and differences in research systems and welfare regimes, which makes them an interesting case for a comparison.

Higher education institutions in both countries have a long tradition of the Humboldtian university and have followed recommendations of the Bologna Declaration, although to a different pace (Kehm et al., 2010). Both countries, characterised by ‘central academic research systems’ (Bégin-Caouette et al., 2016), show relatively high graduation rates at doctoral level in consequence of the interactions between academic traditions and political-economic conditions. Influenced by the Humboldtian tradition PhD students in both systems often work full-time. However, although the Bologna Process has re-enforced a coherent reform of doctoral training with the aim of changing its structure, its organisation and to some extent its purpose, Norway and Germany differ in their implementation and organisation of doctoral training (Ambrasat & Tesch, 2017). Its structure and organisation comprise working and employment conditions of ECRs (e.g., Jacob, 2011) and is embedded in wider academic research systems (Bégin-Caouette et al., 2016).

Representing two different welfare regimes (Esping-Andersen, 1990) the two countries differ in their historical approaches facilitating gender equality. Conservative welfare regimes (Germany) aim at preserving social structures and hierarchies, in particularly traditional gender roles. Socio-democratic welfare regimes (Norway) are characterised by the existence of universal welfare with the aim of de-commodification by treating all citisens (e.g., genders) equally. (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Andres and Pechar, 2013). However, during the last years Germany has converged more to the Nordic model. In 2007, the government passed a reform of the parental leave benefit system in line with the Nordic model (Spiess & Wrohlich, 2008). This means that ECRs in both countries might benefit from similar family policies including parental leave regulations and state-subsidised childcare, even though there still might exist some differences in expansion, in favour of Norway.

2. Literature review and working hypothesis

Below, we provide a literature review and working hypothesis guiding our empirical analysis.

Doctoral training models in Norway and Germany

A first stream of literature looks at doctoral training as the first stage of an academic career (apprenticeship) (Laudel & Gläser, 2008) and its implications for PhD students’ working conditions and time allocation. Since 2000, as a part of the Bologna process, in particularly the project ‘Tuning Educational Structures in Europe’ doctoral education has become included as the third cycle in higher education (Kehm, 2010). Having a doctoral program, universities could demonstrate that they take responsibility for the quality of their doctoral training (Bloch, 2018). However, across Europe there are still significant differences in how PhD students are funded and trained. PhD students differ in access to resources and facilities (e.g., Waaijer et al, 2016), in their time resources and allocation on research (Ambrasat & Tesch, 2017), and in conditions for an academic career (Laudel & Gläser, 2008).

In Norway doctoral training is embedded in a higher education and research system that is regarded to serve the public. Research is largely funded by block grants, divided between performance-based allocation regarding student production, research funding from external resources and research publications (Schmidt, 2007). Further, the university’s budget models have integrated incentives for PhD production (Nyhagen & Baschung, 2013).

PhD students contribute to the production of research to a stronger degree than those in other countries. ECRs (junior staff) in Norway spent for example more time on research compared to their counterparts in a couple of other European countries (e.g., Teichler, 2014, 72). Also, in 2020/2021 the average share of time spent on R&D is high at 70 per cent (Wendt, et al. 2021). In Norway, more than 90 percent of PhD candidates hold a scholarship from a higher education institution (RCN, 2021). These are temporal employed in higher education institutions that implies a regular salary comparable with the entry-level salary for holders of a master’s degree in the public sector (Frølich et al. 2018).

In Germany, doctoral training was not specified until the 2000s, just defined as peculiar right of universities, but at the same time “loosely coupled to the university” (Bloch, 2018, 301). Until the 2000s, PhD students were not enrolled in any structured programme, with the majority employed as research associates, recruited by a professor and not by the university (Bloch, 2018). However, with the introduction of the Excellence Initiative in 2005 the number of structured doctoral programmes in Germany has been increasing. Having a doctoral programme has become the norm signalising responsibility for the quality of doctoral training (Bloch, 2018).

There are, however, some differences between the two countries. Doctoral training in Germany seems to be more diverse compared to that in Norway. In Germany, one can distinguish between five categories of PhD students (except PhD students in medicine, who were not included in the sample): Research assistants, research aids, scholarship holders, external candidates with a job and external candidates without a job. Among these, the largest groups are research assistants (41.2 %), followed by scholars (29.10%) and external candidates with a job (16.10 %). These groups differ on various dimensions including time resources for work on thesis, closeness to supervisor, integration in scientific community, embeddedness in research producing organisation, motives for scientific career, and degree of structuration and formalisation of training. Further, scholars score very high on time resources, while external candidates with a job score very low. (Ambrasat & Tesch, 2017).

In Norway, PhD-student are employed in temporary recruitment positions at the higher education sector. In 2021 almost 70 per cent were funded by the institution, while almost 14 per cent were funded by the Research Council of Norway, 7 per cent by a university hospital and 7 per cent hold another scholarship (RCN, 2021, table 7.12).

The next stage (postdoctoral research) is characterised by more independence to conduct research but also continuation of non-permanent, precarious working contracts, in both countries) (Gunnes et al., 2020 for Norway).

Working hypothesis 1 (H1): We assume that ECRs in Germany are more diverse in terms of time allocation than their more homogeneous counterparts in Norway who are mostly scholarship holder.

Gendered time allocation on academic work

Previous literature has investigated time allocation on academic activities, which can be regarded as an intervening factor for the association between gender and research productivity (Zuccala & Derrick, 2022). Interviewing women and men, holding 5- to 20-year-old doctorate degrees in Iceland, Staub and Rafnsdottier (2020) found differences in terms of agency and work-life balance, in favour of men. Men seemed to feel a higher degree of agency in terms of time management and work life balance compared to female participants. Women more often referred to difficulties in finding a good balance between research and private life and appeared to being more stressed about the fragmented time to combine research career and family life in a good way. They show that even in a country with a high level of gender equality, women compared to men still seem to experience time differently according to individual autonomy.

Further literature identifies associations between research productivity and demographic variables such as the presence and number of young children (Dehdariad, 2020). Several studies have shown a negative relationship between research productivity and the presence of children, in particularly for women. However, for Norway Kyvik (1990) found that women with (older) children are more productive than those without children and just as productive as men in the same situation (e.g., Kyvik & Teigen, 1996).

Working hypothesis 2 (H2): We assume to find differences in time allocation on academic activities for ECRs with and without young children in both countries, even though we assume smaller gender differences for ECRs in Norway.

The literature has shown positive associations between time allocation on research and research productivity and impact. Thus, we assume time allocated to research being positively associated with research productivity and impact (Manchester & Barbezat, 2013). For gender differences, there is a vast literature on research productivity and impact, measured by bibliometric indicators (Larivière et al., 2022). Findings are, however, far from consistent. For Norway, Nygaard, Aksnes and Piro (2022) show only moderate gender differences in publication activities. They found that gender differences were strongly reduced after considering factors like age, academic position, and discipline. Comparing researchers in Italy and Norway, Abramo et al. (2022) show large differences in productivity in favour of men, in particularly for the top 10 per cent performing male researchers. For assistant professors, however, they identify only a little gap between female and male researchers for Italy; for Norway they show an even smaller, non-significant gender gap.

Working hypothesis 3 (H3): We assume to find relatively little gender differences for time allocation on academic activities as a proxy for research productivity for ECRs in Germany and Norway, but larger differences according to other factors e.g., discipline and citisenship.

5. Methods and data

Data: Secondary data

German data

The Science Survey is a nationally representative trend study and an important tool for analysing working and research conditions at German universities and higher education institutions with the right to award doctorates. The survey is designed and conducted every three years as a multi-topic survey.² This article draws on data from the most recent survey conducted in 2019, and on a subsample comprising ECRs. (Ambrasat et al., 2022).

Norwegian data

Time-use survey of Norwegian academic staff at higher education institutions

Using time-use survey data among all academic staff at Norwegian higher education institutions in 2020/2021³ we look at how employees distribute their working hours across different tasks (e.g., teaching, research, supervision), and how much they work each week. In our analyses, we use time-use data for ECRs and demographic variables (e.g., gender, citisenship, and discipline) from the time-use survey collected in 2021.

Register of research personal

For more descriptive analyses, will we use register data covering researchers/university graduated personnel that participates in R&D at Norwegian higher education institutions, as well as research institutes, health trusts and other institutions with R&D activity in the Government sector. The register is based on regularly reports from the institutions to Statistics Norway and includes information on position, age, gender, educational background, and workplace (institution/ faculty/ department/field of R&D). The register is part of the national R&D statistics. We will use data for ECRs form the register collected in 2021 for descriptive analyses.

Table 1 shows the variables we want to use in our analyses focusing on gendered academic activities of ECRs in Norway and Germany.

Table 1: Overview over our data and variables to use

RQ	Germany: DZHW-Researcher Survey 2019	Norway: Time-use survey 2021
Control variables	Gender (female, male) Status: PhD student, postdoctoral researcher	Gender (female, male) Status: PhD student, postdoctoral researcher
Independent variables	Independent variables Discipline Citizenship Family model (Children; no Children) Academic age	Independent variables Discipline Citizenship Academic age
Dependent variable (input indicator: time-use for R&D activities)	Dependent variable Working-time (by contract; actual) Time for teaching (by contract; actual) Share of working time on following activities (on average) Research Review Teaching Supervision of students Searching for funding “academic housework”/administration Other tasks	Dependent variable (actual time-use) Time-use for academic activities Teaching Research Supervision Dissemination Administration

Analysis

We apply bi- and multivariate analyses, for the German data and the Norwegian data, separately.

Based on data from the Science Survey 2019 we conduct descriptive and bi-variate analyses (mean differences) including time-use and share of activities (time allocation) as dependent variable and gender as independent variable, followed by similar analyses including discipline, citizenship, family model and academic age as independent variable.

In the second step, we will include several independent variables in the model to elaborate more nuances (multi-variate analysis; mean difference).

To elaborate H1, we will explore variances in time allocation and construct different categories of ECRs in terms of time restrictions.

We will conduct analyses for ECRs in different categories (e.g., scholarship holder/research-time rich vs. research-time poor). Research-time rich ECRs might be more comparable to the Norwegian ECRs.

4. Preliminary findings

Below, we provide some preliminary findings to investigate our working hypothesis.

H1. ECRs in Germany are supposed to be more diverse in time allocation than counterparts in Norway-.

Table 2: Working hours per week among Norwegian and German PhD students (Mean (SD)

	Norway		Germany
Working hours	PhD students1 (N=1,064)	Postdoctoral researchers (N=262)	PhD students2 (N=2,885)	Postdoctoral Researchers (N=4,216)
Working hours (contract)	-	-	30.3 (9.6)	36.3 (7.9)
Working hours (real)	43.9 (7.6)	44.4 (6.5)	40.0 (10.9)	44.3 (11.5)

¹Source: Norwegian time-use survey 2020/2021.

²Science Survey 2019 (Ambrasat et al., 2022).

Table 3: Time allocation among Norwegian and German ECRs. Share of time in the academic year 2020/2021 (Norway)/ 2019 (Germany). (%).

	Norway1		Germany
Activity	PhD students	Postdoctoral researchers	PhD students2	Postdoctoral researchers
R&D/ work time for research	70.3	66.8	49.8	36.6
Teaching/ work time for teaching	13.6	12.2	17.2	19.8
Supervision	2.7	7.8	10.9	12.7
Administration1 / Funding acquisition + self-management + Management2	5.6	6.0	12.2	19.5
Dissemination1/ Work evaluation2	4.7	5.6	4.3	6.5
Other	3.1	1.6	5.6	4.9
Total	100	100	100	100

¹Source: Norwegian time-use survey 2020/2021.

²Science Survey 2019 (Ambrasat et al., 2022).

According to our assumption, Table 2 indicates that Norwegian PhD students on average spent more time on R&D work, i.e., approximately 70 per cent of their time-budget. In contrast, PhD students in Germany spend only 49.8 per cent of their time-budget on research. Our findings indicate that PhD students in Germany are more heterogeneous in terms of their time allocation. We have classified four groups of PhD students according to their contractual work time (up to 20 hours; 21 to 30 hours; 31 to 39 hours; 40 hours and more) for further analysis.

H2: We assume to find differences in time allocation on academic activities for ECRs with and without young children in both countries; we assume smaller gender differences in Norway.

Table 4: Female and Male PhD students with and without children in Norway and Germany – Allocated time for research – Mean (SD)

	Norway PhD students1		Germany PhD students2 (N=2885)
	Male	Female	Male (N=1542)	Female (N=1220)
Without children	Numbers added later		52.7 (24.6)	50.1 (26.3)
With children			41.2 (25.9)	41.2 (28.3)
Total			50.6 (25.2)	48.4 (26.9)

¹Source: Norwegian time-use survey 2020/2021.

²Science Survey 2019 (Ambrasat et al., 2022).

H3: We assume to find relatively little gender differences for time allocation on academic activities as a proxy for research productivity for ECRs in both countries, but larger differences according to other factors such as discipline.

Table 5: PhD students across disciplines in Norway and Germany – Share of work time for research – Mean (SD)

	Norway PhD students1 (N=1205)	Germany PhD students2 (N=2885)
Social Sciences and Humanities	67.9 (25.0)	41.3 (25.4)
Life Sciences (Medical and health sciences for Norway)	73.2 (24.1)	61.9 (24.9)
Natural Sciences	70.8 (21.8)	60.7 (23.4)
Engineering	75.6 (21.1)	46.6 (24.2)
Without classification	-	(45.7) (25.4)

¹Source: Norwegian time-use survey 2020/2021.

²Science Survey 2019 (Ambrasat et al., 2022).

5. Implications for further research

On the backdrop of ongoing reforms of research assessment in Europe (ARRA) and more generally and assessment practices of ECRs more specifically, we might replicate our analyses by using data from the Fourth Science Survey 2022/23 in Germany and comparable data in Norway, looking at topics like research funding and gender differences for ECRs.

Further, one could focus on specific groups of ECRs in each country, for example those allocating a large share of time on R&D, in contrast to those spending less time on R&D.

Given a positive association between time allocation on research and research productivity and impact, further studies might shift the perspective on R&D output indicators such as number of publications (Aksnes et al., 2016) and sub-groups of ECRs in both countries. Here, we might also consider alternative metrics of research productivity and impact, and a broader range of publication types than scientific articles, in line with current developments in research assessment.

6. Bibliographic references

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Aksnes, D. W., Sivertsen, G., van Leeuwen, T. N., & Wendt, K. K. (2017). Measuring the productivity of national R&D systems: Challenges in cross-national comparisons of R&D input and publication output indicators. Science and Public Policy, 44(2), 246-258. https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scw058

Ambrasat, J., Heger, C., Fabian, G. & Rucker, A. (2022). DZHW Scientists Survey 2019. Data Collection: 2019/2020. Version: 2.0.0. Data Package Access Way: SUF: Remote-Desktop. Hanover: FDZ-DZHW. Data Curation: Weber, A., Daniel, A. & Schmidtchen, H. https://doi.org/10.21249/DZHW:scs2019:2.0.0

Ambrasat, J., & Tesch, J. (2017). Structured diversity–The changing landscape of doctoral training in Germany after the introduction of structured doctoral programs. Research Evaluation, 26(4), 292-301. https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvx024

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Open science practices

Data used in the paper are partly openly available. The Science Survey 2019 is freely accessible for the academic community via a Scientific Use File (SUF), after request at the Research Data Centre (fdz.dzhw.eu/en/data-usage).

Further, we plan to publish our article in an open access journal (gold open access or hybrid open access.).

Author contributions

All the three authors have developed the proposal for the article and contributed to writing of the manuscript. SW has outlined a draft, with contributions by KW and RK. For analyses KW has conducted the analyses based on Norwegian data, while SW has conducted the analyses based on the German Researcher Survey with comments by RK.

Competing interests

Authors declare of having no competing interests.

Funding information

This work is funded by Nifu (internal funds).

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1. https://khrono.no/knusende-rapport-om-midlertidighet-ved-universiteter-og-hogskoler/766252↩︎

2. DZHW Scientists Survey | About the survey↩︎

3. Time-use survey conducted to calculate R&D coefficients for Norwegian R&D statistics conducted every 5 years (Wendt et al. 2021).↩︎