It's bonkers, really, to play against yourself that way.
By default, all jobs are supposed to be open-ended. Fixed-term contracts are only allowed for legitimate reasons. Hiring someone for the expected duration of a PhD is a legitimate reason. The availability of funding is not. And even if the reason would be legitimate in isolation, multiple consecutive fixed-term contracts would be evidence that the employer has a permanent need for the employee, turning the contract automatically permanent.
When I was still in Finland, people were speculating that all postdoc positions were technically illegal, as were tenure-track positions. But it was also understood that if someone actually insisted on enforcing the law, the government would have to change it. Because rewriting the laws is much easier than making universities change their ways.
I think that the solution is that university leadership should come from academic staff (e.g., a democratically elected faculty senate plus a rektor team as leader) and they decide layoffs so that administration can be laid off as well as academic teams. Second I think that there should be a reorganization of the university academic staff with responsibilities redistributed. Older professors should teach more and assume advisory positions instead of leadership ones in research projects, younger professors should not teach much at all and focus on driving research forward as research leaders, and there should be more focus on recruiting permanent technical staff to build larger teams at the expense of fewer PhD positions. And funding should change to have fewer grant funds and more long term funds that go towards institutions to build national lab like organizations across europe like there is in the USA, Germany with Helmholtz, etc. Of course this will all cost a lot of money and no one will do this. but i think without a reorg there will simply be more of the same and european innovation will continue to stagnate.
https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/10/08/why-openais-voice-m...
The EU despises technical advancement and will kill it at any cost.
While the US and China battle fiercely, the EU is still on their 3 hour lunch break.
This'll end up being the case here as well. While the US and China battle fiercely, the EU will be the only safe haven for both of their investments and we'll grow even richer while enjoying our three hour lunch break.
To battle fiercely is to become weaker and more dependent on others who are not battling.
"Where two fight, victory goes to third."
People spent a lot of the cold war guessing "is this person a defector or a double agent?", and I guess we're going back there. Similar things happen in the US, of course, both for Russians and Chinese people. And let's not forget the Russian tourists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_...
The EU council can publish whatever press release they want - that's not gonna make a slightest dent in the business-hostile environment. Maybe it's perfectly clear for von der Leyen why the EU needs engineers and scientists but these sweet old ladies in the local job center will make sure your application shall never pass. And between those two entities (EU council and your local city council) guess who has the real power over your success?
A successful environment for business forms only when the most local government gives it a go. For example, Poland is quite welcoming and it shows[1].
I would absolutely love for the EU to wake up but in order for that to happen, something needs to change deeply in the governing structure.
[1] https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/08/14/polands-records-eus-f...
The ambitious people have left for the US.
They still prefer committees and meetings over actual shell production.
Why would we buy F-35's when we have Gripen, Rafale and Eurofighter?
Re: general culture: there are much more social protections in the EU (paid vacations, maternity leave, etc) which are truly good and nice but no tech startup is actually practically possible while conforming to these laws.
I always thought the biggest hurdle to overcome here in the EU is despite advancements with the schengen zone is branching out to other countries for business and talent is still much more difficult than a Bay Area company wanting to expand to Texas for example.
No.
> biggest hurdle to overcome here in the EU is despite advancements with the schengen zone is branching out to other countries for business
For business you'll need to address differences in language and culture that are much, much deeper than the ones between the Bay Area and Itasca, TX (which claims to be the most conservative city of the state). Local legislation tends to be less of a problem here than the US though. YMMV.
> and talent
This one is less challenging. The company I work for has a 50/50 balance between "born Irish" and "new Irish" (such as me). Being remote-first is a huge helper.
Almost none of these rules by itself is insurmountable[1]. But it all adds up friction in the workforce dynamic which might end up halting the company. And afterwards you will be unable to bankrupt the dead company specifically because of the social protections.
Or the sheer inability to fire a developer in Germany because laws here assume that the only work that exists is at a factory producing physical things. So hiring an intellectual worker becomes a huge commitment not to dissimilar to marriage and all of that doesn't help growing.
[1] A notorious exception perhaps would be the paid maternity leave, as fraud with this one is something that happens in real life and can be deadly to a micro startup at the earliest stage.
Correct, because of the same bureaucracy.
Press releases mean little. Results are what count.
I did a post-doc in France after my PhD in the UK. It was possibly worthwhile just for the experience, but the actual funding and research environment is not one I would recommend to my colleagues.
rbanffy•9mo ago
I second Ursula’s invitation. There’s much wonder to discover this side of the Atlantic.
CoastalCoder•9mo ago
rbanffy•9mo ago
The continent is a short flight away. Being in an island, I haven't used the excellent train network of the continent as much as my friends in the continent.
One selling point of this society is the low inequality. I get my hair and beard done in the same place my barista goes - this would be almost unthinkable in Brazil, which is where I come from. Low inequality creates a more cohesive society where class divisions are less relevant. It also reduces crime, because the financial gain is not favorable compared to the risks. Because of that, my police doesn't need firearms and, if someone discharges a gun somewhere, it ends up on the newspapers. Irish politics are remarkably sane (if boring). I assume it's because of list-based voting, that punishes rejection very severely. We wouldn't have a Trump here in Ireland.
Other aspects are free high quality schooling, almost free university education, and an almost free healthcare system. This last is the low point - when you have a two-tier system, you have resources diverted from who needs care to who can pay for it, increasing wait times for those who can't pay for health insurance or private care.
Most of these points stand for the rest of the European Union as well. There are some variations, but not that much.
Final selling point of Ireland is that English is an official language. AFAIK, it's the only country in the EU with English as an official language, at least until the UK decides to rejoin.