I think Europe and the European Union have some problems, especially related in policies regarding hiring in academia.
What I would love is that European academia starts boosting people from a more diverse socioeconomic background, especially pooling from people coming from lower classes (e.g. working class or below that).
Unfortunately, many of the people that are hired as researcher/professor positions in Europe have something in common: they come from good environments, mainly from middle or upper-middle (if they are non-US foreigners it skews to upper-middle). This is regardless of gender, ethnicity, etc....
But I think this gap might grow. Here is how.
I think a sad state of European academia is the growing number of departments or agencies trying to do a 50-50 percent gender based split for hiring/funding. I even heard some departments explicitly open professor positions just for women (for a limited initial time window).
While I think this does not happen for the truly top new hires (the Marie Curie or the Enrico Fermi), I guess it happens if there is a choice between say a 90% candidate and a 95% candidate.
Now. Assume this happened and the hiring ended. If I had to probe the socioeconomic background of the new hires, I bet it is very similar to the one of 10 years ago. Mainly you would see people from the upper-middle class (e.g. higher probability of going to vacations when young, went to a special school, etc...).
But what about the 80-90% folks that started behind in life due to socioeconomic reasons? What are European departments doing about this? Nothing.
While I understand that academia is a fast paced world—and so you need to race, and fast—we need to look at the big picture here: the one started behind just needs more time to catch up.
I guess this current hiring decisions have been taken from the top, from the very people coming from the good economic background that do not have any idea about the true problems in society. Like it happens with economists.
Now. What I would do if I was the boss?
If I was in power, I would focus on the basics.
While I do not have a theory for this, as a first step I would focus on the extreme ends of basic education.
On one end, the 3-6 years old stage. On the other end, high school. Just pump money in and lure in more teachers, repairs schools, and so on.
I would then increase the amount of grades-free scholarships given to university students or kids that want to pursue alternative careers.
I would take the money from the wasted political money Europe uses to restructure home-owners houses, or other political initiatives, and feed into the educational system.
I think Europe and the European Union have some problems, especially related in policies regarding hiring in academia.
What I would love is that European academia starts boosting people from a more diverse socioeconomic background, especially pooling from people coming from lower classes (e.g. working class or below that).
Unfortunately, many of the people that are hired as researcher/professor positions in Europe have something in common: they come from good environments, mainly from middle or upper-middle (if they are non-US foreigners it skews to upper-middle). This is regardless of gender, ethnicity, etc....
But I think this gap might grow. Here is how.
I think a sad state of European academia is the growing number of departments or agencies trying to do a 50-50 percent gender based split for hiring/funding. I even heard some departments explicitly open professor positions just for women (for a limited initial time window).
While I think this does not happen for the truly top new hires (the Marie Curie or the Enrico Fermi), I guess it happens if there is a choice between say a 90% candidate and a 95% candidate.
Now. Assume this happened and the hiring ended. If I had to probe the socioeconomic background of the new hires, I bet it is very similar to the one of 10 years ago. Mainly you would see people from the upper-middle class (e.g. higher probability of going to vacations when young, went to a special school, etc...).
But what about the 80-90% folks that started behind in life due to socioeconomic reasons? What are European departments doing about this? Nothing.
While I understand that academia is a fast paced world—and so you need to race, and fast—we need to look at the big picture here: the one started behind just needs more time to catch up.
I guess this current hiring decisions have been taken from the top, from the very people coming from the good economic background that do not have any idea about the true problems in society. Like it happens with economists.
Now. What I would do if I was the boss?
If I was in power, I would focus on the basics.
While I do not have a theory for this, as a first step I would focus on the extreme ends of basic education.
On one end, the 3-6 years old stage. On the other end, high school. Just pump money in and lure in more teachers, repairs schools, and so on.
I would then increase the amount of grades-free scholarships given to university students or kids that want to pursue alternative careers.
I would take the money from the wasted political money Europe uses to restructure home-owners houses, or other political initiatives, and feed into the educational system.
Education freed me. And I hope it frees others.