When Inigo read Jacob’s victory over the head of the dissertation in this newspaper, he felt so identified that it became necessary to tell his story. Like Jacobo, this pre-doctoral researcher – his name was changed to protect his anonymity – signed a contract with a research center in Donostia through the University of the Basque Country. But the assignments he was given exceeded his contract: unpaid overtime work, including weekends, humiliation of the dissertation supervisor, and high pressure. He did not accept this and filed a complaint in the social court.
Inigo’s problems are not limited to the fact that he worked for free. His condition led to a diagnosis of depression, which led him to low levels. The psychiatric service diagnosed him with “mixed anxiety-depressive disorder” and explained in a medical report that “lack of motivation to engage in activities is related to work status.”
Inigo may not have known this, but his condition is a strange normality for Spanish doctoral students: those who start writing a thesis in this country have six times more mental health problems than the general population. Getting a doctor is detrimental to mental health.
In a research career, dissertation directors or project managers accumulate great power. They get funding and full control over the decisions of their work team, and there are many doctoral students who condemn that this practice has been going on for years and years, but that “this is a world where no one wants to be condemned with fear. Repressions. ” Prosperity in a closed academic environment sometimes depends on having a sponsor, and doctoral students tend to take on a workload that does not suit them. Following the publication of Jacobo’s case a few weeks ago, several of them contacted elDiario.es to share their stories.
The case of Inigo gradually illustrates this situation well. After joining the holiday, “the directors asked for assignments he did not know about,” said his lawyer, Irati Izpurua Alkazar, and “expelled him from the working groups even without any legitimacy.”
In December 2020, his directors prevented him from continuing his work and gave him a deadline of February to look for a new director. Inigo also decided to file a complaint with Aldezle, an institution responsible for protecting the rights of the university community. He was told his condition was serious, “because of the allegations made by those involved in the conflict,” he said. His lawyer notes that he had previously requested the opening of a workplace harassment protocol, but it did not exist in terms of occupational health and safety. He also wrote to the UPV doctoral school and the state research agency, asking for “help in case of harassment in the workplace.” He did not receive an answer from the first body, while the second “did not intervene”.
Finally, the research center decided to terminate the contract in August 2021, with a negative evaluation in the evaluation of his paper. Inigo has filed a lawsuit with the agency, but it is still in the decision process.
Sandra – a pseudonym – started her doctoral dissertation three years ago. Received funding after working for free for a year and a half. This was a FPI contract (training of research staff, from the Ministry of Science) at Huelva University for the R + D + i project, in which it is still ongoing. But the normalcy of the work did not last long: “My director asked me to revise the TFM projects of private universities (master’s theses performed by university graduates) for which he pays 350 euros.” “If I did not do that, he threatened to take my salary away from the contract,” he said.
The situation reached its limit for Sandra when she contracted COVID: “I was very ill and had to work on the weekends.” The researcher claims that the harassment in the workplace went so far that the director insisted on WhatsApp if he did not respond to the emails hours later. This ultimately affected his mental health: “I have had tremendous anxiety and stress for weeks. They make me feel unworthy.” He tells elDiario.es that he is in the process of condemning his condition with the university. However, he says he suffers from “institutional violence”. You need to sign your current guardian to start from scratch. He is now considering going to the labor inspectorate, “although it is not so easy.”
This type of situation is not limited to Spain or pre-doctoral students without a contract or lower category grants. Neuroscientist Celia Arroyo-Lopez knows this. In 2008, she taught at the University and had the opportunity to receive a grant from Marie Curie, one of the most distinguished international programs for innovation researchers at the National Veterinary School of Toulouse, France. Within a few months, he began to insult the workplace by his dissertation supervisor.
“They valued my work, physically harassed me, abused me and pressured me. I went to work in a panic,” he said. “He created us Bullying The whole team and even the birth of children were forbidden for us not to go on vacation. “We came to cover for a colleague not to be kicked out,” he laments. -Lopez.
this time Lane, Another possibility arose, which he would later understand would lead to more problems. It was at the University of California, Davis, in the United States. “They brought me $ 2,000 a month (1,846 euros) and told me they would increase my salary when I had my dissertation,” he said. The problem is that when wages arrived they were in smaller quantities; “About $ 1,200, depending on the month.” While reviewing his contract, the investigator realized that he was receiving 65% of his salary because, according to his director, his “investigator’s ability was not valid”.
In 2015, his former dissertation director finally agreed to sign him. This way he could sign a postdoctoral contract, with a higher salary. The director of the United States offered him a six-month contract. Signed. His surprise came when he had to renew his visa in the US. The postdoctoral contracts were for at least one year at the time, and half of them, as the newspaper confirmed. “There was a one-year contract on the site without my signature. It was a scam,” he says.
In anticipation of the complaint falling to him, his principal notified Arroyo-Lopez University of poor performance. Celia’s belongings were collected at night and sent to another building: “They were isolated. I could not even contact my colleagues.” His director ordered him to write two articles. “I finished them out of pride,” he said. However, his boss did not publish them and even used the data without acknowledging its authorship. The researcher sued the journal, which contacted the university, but “he did not take appropriate action,” he condemns.
Aroio-Lopez returned to Spain. Because I had not published any articles It was “impossible” to return to work as a teacher at that time. He was unemployed for several years. Finally, he says, at the 2019 Marie Curie Scholarship Congress, “I came out of the closet.” He was not going to keep quiet. He has since submitted three petitions to the European Parliament to set up a European body to prevent harassment in academia. The first two were rejected. The latter was introduced and adopted in the European Parliament in December 2020 through the Izquierda Unida, but in this case it was the European Commission that rejected it and made it “open to attachment”.
The fraud situation was also experienced by David (name changed) at the Supreme Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) from his university’s Teacher Training Agreement (FPU) Ministry of Education. He had not yet completed his dissertation, but after funding from the FPU was completed, the director told him that if he wanted to continue working, he would have to do so in order to accumulate unemployment and “wait for funding to arrive.” “It was such that I could not condemn them for concluding temporary contracts,” David said. Mireia Bazaga, a labor lawyer, claims that this is a “violation of workers’ regulations”.
Maria has her own story. Studying for a Master’s degree and being a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), he was offered a doctorate. It started without pay. Three years later, the teacher offered him a “more serious” doctorate: he paid 500 euros a month as a fake self-employed person. “Paying the self-employment fee was a little over 100 euros and transporting me to Barcelona cost me 70,” he said. “I have never had a dissertation training. I was arranging his lessons, working on his projects or even responding to his letters … I was working for him,” he criticizes. In 2016, his principal told Maria that he could not pay more for the project, and with the dismissal of a colleague who “taught him lessons,” he abandoned his doctorate.
Like Maria, there are many who quit their research careers after crossing the road. Isabel – a pseudonym – started working for free in 2009 and in 2010 under an FPU contract at the University of Granada. It had two directors. “As soon as I read the dissertation, I did not want to hear anything more about them or research.” “I was insulted in public and in private,” he said. “I did not have a vacation because my director was in a hurry to publish his dissertation,” he says.
Laura – the name has changed – says that at Loyola University, a private project of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ”we were acting as assistant principals”. “It was a very sectarian group. My director also had a lot of pressure from above,” he explains, “and he passed that pressure on to his investigative team.” “It was difficult to condemn the ethics committee because it was one of its members,” he said.
While many dissertation directors repeat this practice, not all of them adhere to it. For Fernando Maestro, an honored researcher at the University of Alicante, the problem arises because “there is a possibility of doing a dissertation at zero cost.” “Free work should not be allowed,” – emphasizes up to 12 doctoral dissertations. “If we can not pay someone in my department, we will not hire them,” he said of the Arid Zone Ecology and Global Change Laboratory he heads.
For Ermengol Gassiot, director of the UAB dissertation, the situation is caused by “a lack of funding in the Spanish scientific system.” “Lack of resources means that doctoral students will be able to reproduce this treatment if they become dissertation directors,” he explains. “There is so little chance that these situations will eventually happen,” the maestro confirms.
For both dissertation directors and surveyed doctoral students, the state bodies responsible for bad practices are the ones that allow them to do so. From the Ministry of Universities, which will be consulted by elDiario.es, they delegate responsibility to each university, but researchers who have experienced violence at work do not have clear road maps. “Universities should punish those who commit these acts. Exploiting people does not harm them,” Maestre criticized. “Doctoral students are not protected from labor violence,” Bazaga laments.
Source: El Diario
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
