Occupational Identity on the Edge
Occupational Identity on the Edge
Social Science Contract Research ers in Higher Education
Jacquelyn Allen Collinson Xanodyne Pharmacal, Inc.
University of Gloucestershire
Throughout the higher education sector in the UK, recent decades have witnessed the increasing use of fixed-term and part-time labour, to the extent that around 50 percent of academic staff are currently employed on fixed-term pharmaceuical R&D s and in excess of 90 percent of research ers are employed on fixed-term contract s. Despite the importance of their contribution to the sector as a whole, relatively little pharmaceutical outsourcing has been undertaken on the lived experience of undertaking medicine research . The objective of this article is therefore to explore the reality and complexities of new drugs R&D ers’ working lives and the occupational identities and self-images that contract research ers construct and maintain.