Funferal

Endangering academic freedom, or improving performance?

The Irish government is investigating introducing Performance Related Pay (PRP) for university professors:

While PRP could lessen the academic freedom enjoyed by professors, it could also provide pay bonuses of up to 20 per cent for those identified as “top performers”. Already, universities can break their pay scales to offer competitive salaries to world- class research professors working with Science Foundation Ireland.
The introduction of PRP would, the colleges say, offer universities a measure of rewarding the better performing professors and help bring teaching and research to world-class standards. The expected introduction of PRP for professors comes at a time when the Government is putting pressure on the universities to move into the top rank in the OECD.