Medical academics fight threat to jobs linked to success in obtaining funding

Abstract

Medical academics have called for help to fight the “growing threat” of redundancies at universities that is ostensibly linked to performance reviews and success in obtaining research funding. Joannis Vamvakopoulos, a clinical lecturer at the University of Birmingham, said it was an “injustice” that academics were being laid off because they were allegedly “not hitting targets in terms of attracting funding.” He said, “Academic redundancies are not a new thing . . . but they’ve gathered pace in recent years due partly to funding cuts.” Vamvakopoulos, a member of the BMA’s medical academic staff committee (MASC), spoke at the conference …