International Survey of Research University Faculty: Prospects for Tenure

Primary Research Group has published the International Survey of Research University Faculty: Prospects for Tenure, ISBN 978-157440-451-7 The study looks at the tenure process at major research universities in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland. More than 500 faculty at 50+ research universities give their opinion on the ease or difficulty of attaining tenure at their institution, whether it has become easier or harder to attain it, how long it takes to attain it, and what factors are decisive in tenure decision-making. Just a few of this 64-page report’s main findings are that: 5.71% of participants aged 30 or younger compared with 73.03% of participants aged 60 or older had tenure. 53.57% of deans/department chairs/distinguished/endowed chair professors said that the ease or difficulty of obtaining tenure at their institutions had not really changed over the past three years. Women more than men felt that publications mattered most as a criteria in the tenure decision process; women felt that a median of 60% of the decision was determined by publications; for men, it was 50%. Faculty from institutions in the UK/Ireland and Australia/New Zealand consider a tenure decision faster than their peers in North America; after full time employment lasting 4.26 years (UK Ireland) and 3.78 years (Australian/New Zealand), respectively. Scholars from the following institutions were surveyed for the report: Australian National University, Baylor College of Medicine, Brown University, Carleton University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Curtin University, Drexel University, Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Griffith University, Imperial College London, James Cook University, Massey University, McGill University, Monash University, Penn State University, Queen Mary University of London, Reading University Rice University, Rockefeller University, Rutgers University, Saint Louis University, Swinburne University of Technology, Trinity College Dublin, UConn Health Center, University of California, Davis, University College Dublin, University of Alberta, University of Birmingham, University of California Santa Barbara, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Riverside, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Idaho, University of Leeds, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Nottingham, University of Reading, University of Tasmania, University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center, University of Toronto, University of Utah, University of Western Australia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Washington State University and Yale University.