University of Brighton’s Sabbatical Awards for 17/18

Sabbatical leave has been around for over a century and, if you look into its history, you may be surprised to find it originated in Australia in the 1860s when the University of Sydney granted leave of absence to its Professors on the grounds that it “would be highly conducive to the interests of the University”. It was not until the 1920’s that Oxford and Cambridge where the early adopters in the UK.

Although it started to become standard practice, not everyone was in favour of it and, in 1931, Arthur Currie, the principal of McGill University, dismissed sabbatical leave as unnecessary and extravagant.

“Seeing that our summer vacations are so long,” he wrote. “The need of a sabbatical year does not arise to the same extent as in those institutions where the terms are spread more generally over the whole year. With us … a professor is given a four months’ vacation. I notice that many of them spend it teaching in summer schools – or fishing, or enjoying themselves in some other way.”

This view, quite frankly, annoys me and, over half a century later, I hope it is not held by many. Research is not a leisure activity and sabbatical leave should not be the exclusive privilege of professors. We want to encourage researchers to develop achievable and sensible plans for their sabbatical leave, and to be accountable for delivering against these plans. Such a planning/application process can be useful in setting sensible and achievable goals, and I think there needs to be some measure of accountability for how that time is used. Ultimately, there is a cost associated with running a sabbatical scheme and it is only fair for universities that run this scheme (and let me assure you that not all universities do) to make sure the sabbatical is designed to benefit both the individual and the institution. This is why I believe a sabbatical should not be a right…. but should be a ‘right to apply’…

Two of the universities I used to work at gave sabbaticals which required others in the department to cover the duties of the individual on sabbatical. This is, by and large, the model in research-intensive institutions, where the proportion of staff involved in research is high and almost every academic staff member involved in research which will draw on a sabbatical at some point.

I am pleased that we have been operating a sabbatical scheme for many years and my records show that, since 2012/2013 alone, the institution has committed almost £1M to cover the costs associated with sabbaticals. This year’s round was the first that I was involved in. When I joined the University, I asked the Research Office to provide me with a report on the success of the scheme and whether the pledged milestones had been met by staff who had secured a sabbatical. Sadly, the emerging picture was not as positive as I had hoped. Nevertheless, I feel this is a scheme we must continue with but, perhaps, with a clearer articulation of expectations.

So, we have simplified the process with a one-step application and introduced a cap of £10k so we can support more staff. There was a good evidence from previous rounds that many applications fell below £10K (in 2016/17 for example the average level of support requested was £9,012) and, although I have picked up concerns that introducing this cap could lead to fewer applications, I am pleased to report that we received the highest number of applications since the scheme began.

This year, only three applications came from Professors, so the sabbatical scheme is being used to support rising stars, ECRs and middle-career staff wanting to increase the intensity of their research activity, which is really pleasing to note. In total, we received 46 applications (26 in 2016/2017) and awarded 11 sabbaticals. Colleagues in the College of Arts and Humanities were the main beneficiaries, with 6 awards being granted to staff there.

When the panel met, each application was read and independently rated by two reviewers: applications were then discussed by the whole panel. There was a good consensus between the reviewers and we had many high quality applications. Going forward, with the permission of the applicants, we will be making some of these high quality applications available on sharepoint so future candidates can learn from them.

All successful candidates have now been notified and I wish them all the best in achieving their goals.

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