What exactly do researchers do?

Chris Wilson said:
University researchers are a huge earner for such establishments, which is one reason academia are so anti Brexit, they receive massive funding and I suspect a lot of it gets diverted to high living, expensive pseudo holidays and first class travel for the Deans and suchlike.

The UK is one of the largest recipients of research funding in the EU. Over the period 2007 – 2013 the UK received €8.8 billion out of a total of €107 billion expenditure on research, development and innovation in EU Member States, associated and third countries. This represents the fourth largest share in the EU.
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And werent we fortunate to get all of that which then supports loads of jobs and billions in out GDP?

EU research funding generates more than 19,000 jobs across the UK, £1.86 billion for the UK economy and contributes more than £1 billion to GDP, according to this report produced for Universities UK by Viewforth Consulting.
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The analysis also shows that:

  • Inside the university sector, EU funding supported 8,864 direct jobs, £836m in economic output and a contribution of nearly £577m to GDP.
  • In industries outside the university sector, EU research funding to UK universities generated more than 10,190 full-time-equivalent jobs, £1.02bn of output and a contribution of nearly £503m to GDP.
  • The three UK industries that benefited most from this knock-on impact were: business activities (more than 2,604 full-time-equivalent jobs); wholesale and retail trade (more than 2,048 full-time-equivalent jobs); and manufacturing (over 1,259 full-time-equivalent jobs).[/quote]
https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/po...f-eu-research-funding-to-uk-universities.aspx

You must be gutted to hear then that post Brexit the UK govt has massively increased the funding for these "Deans" and plan to increase it even furtheR?
 
adolf hamster said:
of course it is, phd researchers never have to leverage personal assets in their projects, everything is provided for them and they get paid a lot of money by the government....

except the ones on industrially funded contracts, or charity funded projects, or via eu funding.
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Not sure how accurate this site is but according to it a junior research fellow gets paid around £26000 a year at Oxford and about £10k a year more at most other universities, any idea why this is?

https://www.indeed.co.uk/salaries/junior-research-fellow-Salaries,-Oxford-ENG
 
jsmoke said:
Not sure how accurate this site is but according to it a junior research fellow gets paid around £26000 a year at Oxford and about £10k a year more at most other universities, any idea why this is?

https://www.indeed.co.uk/salaries/junior-research-fellow-Salaries,-Oxford-ENG
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because oxford is trying to maintain its academic reputation and wants to hire the best people it can get its hands on.

you aint gonna be getting nobel laureate quality if you're offering minimum wage and all the questionable sandwiches you can pilfer from conferences.
 
I count Medieval sheep. Well, that's all people hear as they glaze over listening to what my research is about.

I don't drink much tea or coffee because it's not allowed anywhere near 700 year old documents. At the moment I'm rather hamstrung and not doing as much as I should, since the archives and libraries have been closed for so many months. Normally I spend all day reading and taking notes and loudly pretend to type.

Usually work from home, not much need to go in. No-one else in my department is doing anything similar, so can only really discuss with my supervisor. History (Arts), so there is no research group like in science, it's all down to me (not that science groups are all working on the same thing). I plan, project manage, do the research without much input, except for my supervisor and the occasional conference/talk.

It probably sounds easy, but realistically we've been told we're expected to work 40 to 70 hours a week at PhD level, so it can be quite tough and relentless at times, especially when you're stuck and there's no-one to ask!
 
adolf hamster said:
of course it is, phd researchers never have to leverage personal assets in their projects, everything is provided for them and they get paid a lot of money by the government....

except the ones on industrially funded contracts, or charity funded projects, or via eu funding.
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I don't know many research students who are fully funded in my department and even then it's paid fees and about £13k grant per year last time I looked. More are partially funded, but still need to pay living / accommodation costs. Most fully pay themselves. More common to be funded in science of course, more money there as scientific research (medicine etc) tends to have a larger impact on the quality of people's lives.
 
Heinz57 said:
I don't know many research students who are fully funded in my department and even then it's paid fees and about £13k grant per year last time I looked. More are partially funded, but still need to pay living / accommodation costs. Most fully pay themselves. More common to be funded in science of course, more money there as scientific research (medicine etc) tends to have a larger impact on the quality of people's lives.
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PhD students were getting £15k a year in 1998 if I remember correctly. Just thought I'd add that
 
Chris Wilson said:
University researchers are a huge earner for such establishments, which is one reason academia are so anti Brexit, they receive massive funding and I suspect a lot of it gets diverted to high living, expensive pseudo holidays and first class travel for the Deans and suchlike.

The UK is one of the largest recipients of research funding in the EU. Over the period 2007 – 2013 the UK received €8.8 billion out of a total of €107 billion expenditure on research, development and innovation in EU Member States, associated and third countries. This represents the fourth largest share in the EU.
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Nothing to do with researchers trained to look at things scientifically and to evaluate sources of information possibly applying what they've been trained to do to other aspects of their life.

For your information, research grants from the likes of the EU tend to be quite carefully audited and certainly not first class travel for the deans.
I've got some friends who do R&D at universities and they are responsible for pitching research to get grants, and accounting for where the money goes that they receive.
 
jsmoke said:
PhD students were getting £15k a year in 1998 if I remember correctly. Just thought I'd add that
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Fully funded? You have to be careful. My fiance has just been offered a PHD where it was only partially funded at £12k per annum where she lost out on a fully funded one of £22k per annum which she really wanted to do.
 
Chris Wilson said:
University researchers are a huge earner for such establishments, which is one reason academia are so anti Brexit, they receive massive funding and I suspect a lot of it gets diverted to high living, expensive pseudo holidays and first class travel for the Deans and suchlike.

The UK is one of the largest recipients of research funding in the EU. Over the period 2007 – 2013 the UK received €8.8 billion out of a total of €107 billion expenditure on research, development and innovation in EU Member States, associated and third countries. This represents the fourth largest share in the EU.
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Can kiss that goodbye now !
 
In what I do, there are a number of people who've given bits that are similar a go, or they have proved that their concept itself works. However, nobody has taken it from concept to something that is useable at scale, or looked at specific effects of changing certain aspects. This is where we come in. :)

Dire Straits' Money for Nothing is a good summary of our over-arching aim. Plus, cuts down on the waste in the oil and gas industry.
 
jsmoke said:
But in science, what's left to research, are the majority of papers released token gestures or are they all furthering science in some way.
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Yes they're absolutely furthering science. The Universe isnt a game, there isn't a maximum limit that you can hit where you've done everything. There's always something new to study from why do frogs look like that to why is maths the way it is. If theres a question, theres an answer that needs to be found. We're slowly building a map of understanding. Without which there'd be no medicine, no lights or electricity, no cars, no burgers and certainly no computers.
I applaud you for asking but you seem to be rejecting everyone's answers due to your inherent bias. If you don't want to understand how the world actually is why ask in the first place?
 
Sharkhouse said:
Yes they're absolutely furthering science. The Universe isnt a game, there isn't a maximum limit that you can hit where you've done everything. There's always something new to study from why do frogs look like that to why is maths the way it is. If theres a question, theres an answer that needs to be found. We're slowly building a map of understanding. Without which there'd be no medicine, no lights or electricity, no cars, no burgers and certainly no computers.
I applaud you for asking but you seem to be rejecting everyone's answers due to your inherent bias. If you don't want to understand how the world actually is why ask in the first place?
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It wasn't the brightest way I worded things. I was meaning more the big discoveries like mavity or relativity.
 
I dated a girl recently, her job was researching how to help parents deal with grief better when the loss of a child happens. So yeah, there's a lot of niche researching going on.
 
I bet the day before Newton got hit on the head, there were people saying "What's with all these scientists sitting around under trees thinking about things? Surely we've already discovered everything? What a waste of time!"

How do you know that we've already discovered all the 'big discoveries'? By the nature of us hypothetically not having yet discovered one or more - we don't know they exist yet.
 
They study whatever offers the most funding and base their conclusions around whatever offers the most funding. Rinse, repeat.

Lets see, you can get a constant stream of funding if you join the unscientific "consensus" that man made climate change catastrophe is real or you can lose all funding, have your reputation smeared and probably be sacked for coming to the conclusion that nearly all of the prior computer models and predictions have been wrong. You choose which is best for you and your family.
 
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