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This is an absolutely pitiful and infuriating non-response. It has been 7 months, with ZERO meaningful consultation with PGRs in this time, only to say "here is a rehash of everything you've already heard from us, we won't be doing anything further to help you, bye" https://twitter.com/UKRI_News/status/1326549651676229635
The review highlights the need to communicate clearly with students. We @PandemicPGRs were lied to by the UKRI when they promised to listen to, and consult with, PGRs openly on these issues. Particularly offensive is the consultation of just TWO PGRs with chronic illnesses.
Point 3 refers to the @PandemicPGRs meeting with UKRI in August, for which I was present, and I personally strongly object to a meeting in which I recounted the trauma I've experienced during lockdown and the covid-19 pandemic being referred to as "stakeholder engagement".
The UKRI seem to forget that counting this meeting as "engagement" totally negates the pain, rage and suffering that the PGR community have experienced. Additionally, they clearly totally ignored everything we said in this meeting & instead used it as a PR stunt for this review.
We were not consulted further after this meeting in August, despite promises made in good faith in the meeting that we would be consulted on further policy. The meeting, & the trauma I suffered from recounting the details of my suffering to UKRI staff, was basically meaningless.
It is shameful that only TWO chronically ill PGRs were consulted for this review. It's MORE shameful that this is because chronically ill PGRs refused to be consulted because they knew their words would be twisted, ignored & their participation reduced to "stakeholder engagement"
The UKRI claim that they will award £19million across 100 unis, but we are postgraduates and we did the maths. That's 25 PGRs per uni each given 6 month extensions. There are around 100,000 PGRs in the UK, of which UKRI funds 20% (source: HESA).
So 20,000 PGRs are in need of extra time and funding. The UKRI is giving it to 2500. I am one of those 2500, purely because I was lucky enough for my initial end date to be 27th March 2021, but I am still absolutely furious that this same basic help is being denied to others.
Note that anyone who has had to take time off for ill health or other reasons, and hence has a later finishing date than the rest of their cohort, does not fit into the window for funded extensions. These PGRs are being penalised for being sick, an act of discrimination.
The UKRI's own research on needs for extensions finds equal or greater needs for extensions from both final and non-final year PGRs, yet no extensions, or information about such, have been given to non-final year students. This is shockingly bad.
This letter and the attached review are nothing but spin, empty words and a continued demonstration by UKRI of their ignorance of the lived experiences of PGRs; even though we have been telling them, through many channels, for months, about our suffering & what our needs are.
I am halfway through reading the review and will continue to tweet responses to sections of it. This response by UKRI is so bad that it is frankly offensive. We gave them SEVEN MONTHS. @UKRI_News This is a spineless dereliction of responsibility. Do better.
The suggestion by UKRI to redesign a PhD at any stage, but especially in the final or penultimate year, shows that everyone at UKRI involved in this review is totally out of touch with the nature of research, & therefore they are unfit for the professional positions they occupy.
Marginalised PhD students - working class, first gen, disabled, BAME, LGBTQ+, parents and international - will all be disproportionately affected in a research environment already rife with institutional inequalities. The UK is about to lose a whole generation of researchers.
SIX MONTHS. I WAITED SIX MONTHS FOR A DSA RE-ASSESSMENT. During this time I was expected to... Keep working on my PhD with no adjustments suited to wfh or MH issues related to the pandemic. Recently my DSA-provided laptop broke. The UKRI is utterly incompetent. https://twitter.com/elmunro/status/1326610296031637505
This is the ONLY thing that the review has to say about disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent PGRs. After the false sympathy shown by UKRI in our meeting in August I am disgusted by their woefully inadequate, ableist response.
Those present in the meeting on 18th August between UKRI and representatives from @PandemicPGRs who said they were "very moved" by my statement reliving the trauma & distress I experienced as a result of institutional ableism and neglect: you should be ashamed of yourselves.
