This is really sad news. I hope everyone working there has alternative employment opportunities (far from a given in academia!).
I was shocked to hear that the philosophy department imposed a freeze on fundraising in 2020. That sounds extremely unusual, and I hope we eventually learn more about the reasons behind this extraordinary institutional hostility. (Did the university shoot itself in the financial foot for reasons of “academic politics”?)
A minor note on the forward-looking advice: “short-term renewable contracts” can have their place, especially for trying out untested junior researchers. But you should be aware that it also filters out mid-career academics (especially those with family obligations) who could potentially bring a lot to a research institution, but would never leave a tenured position for short-term one. Not everyone who is unwilling to gamble away their academic career is thereby a “careerist” in the derogatory sense.
On your second point, FHI had at least ~£10m sitting in the bank in 2020 (see below, from the report). So the fundraising freeze, while unusual, wasn’t terminal. A rephrasing of your question is “What adminstrative and organisational problems at FHI could possibly have prompted the Faculty to take the unusual step of a hiring and fundraising freeze in 2020, and why could it not be resolved over the next two to three years?”
“Open Philanthropy became FHI’s most important funder, making two major grants: £1.6m in 2017, and £13.3m in 2018. Indeed, the donation behind this second grant was at the time the largest in the Faculty of Philosophy’s history (although, owing to limited faculty administrative capacity for hiring and the subsequent hiring freezes it imposed, a large part of this grant would remain unspent)”
This is really sad news. I hope everyone working there has alternative employment opportunities (far from a given in academia!).
I was shocked to hear that the philosophy department imposed a freeze on fundraising in 2020. That sounds extremely unusual, and I hope we eventually learn more about the reasons behind this extraordinary institutional hostility. (Did the university shoot itself in the financial foot for reasons of “academic politics”?)
A minor note on the forward-looking advice: “short-term renewable contracts” can have their place, especially for trying out untested junior researchers. But you should be aware that it also filters out mid-career academics (especially those with family obligations) who could potentially bring a lot to a research institution, but would never leave a tenured position for short-term one. Not everyone who is unwilling to gamble away their academic career is thereby a “careerist” in the derogatory sense.
On your second point, FHI had at least ~£10m sitting in the bank in 2020 (see below, from the report). So the fundraising freeze, while unusual, wasn’t terminal. A rephrasing of your question is “What adminstrative and organisational problems at FHI could possibly have prompted the Faculty to take the unusual step of a hiring and fundraising freeze in 2020, and why could it not be resolved over the next two to three years?”