• Question: Does politics effect your work?

    Asked by anon-223296 to Valerio, Sreejita, Sam, Kate, Anastasia, Adam on 20 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Kate Winfield

      Kate Winfield answered on 20 Nov 2019:

      Yes there is internal and external politics

    • Photo: Adam Wootton

      Adam Wootton answered on 20 Nov 2019:

      Unfortunately, it affects everything! A lot of our research relies on funding from the government, and if politicians decide to stop giving us that money, we won’t be able to carry out that research. Lots of scientists work with colleagues throughout Europe on projects, but Brexit may make it more difficult to do that. The cost of attending university is directly affected by politics, since politicians choose what the annual student fees should be as well as which maintenance grants and loans are available. This means that politicians affect how much money a university can generate, which then affects which subjects they might offer. If the budget is very tight, sciences are very expensive to run and tend to have fewer students than subjects such as business, and so universities could choose to close down some of their science departments!

    • Photo: Anastasia Aliferi

      Anastasia Aliferi answered on 20 Nov 2019:

      Politics definitely affect research mainly because they affect our funding! This could be new funding coming from a different country for example, or funding inside the university that is distributed differently to the different departments based on internal university politics.

    • Photo: Sreejita Ghosh

      Sreejita Ghosh answered on 20 Nov 2019:

      I agree with Kate, Adam, and Anastasia. External politics influence our funding, job eligibilities, travel freedom and hindrances to travelling for work. Internal politics influence things such as which person’s travel budget was approved by the university or which person’s research is more highlighted by the group to the university and the scientific world outside, which person gets to go to meetings with certain collaborators, etc. In short, sadly politics exist in all sphere of life. We have to understand it, be observant, and be cautious that we don’t end up victim due to politics. Wrt internal politics it is somewhat easier to control than with the external politics, which is by ministers, people running for elections to run a country, or a city.

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