Recruitment Freeze – and its effects on fixed-term contracts

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lancaster University has implemented a recruitment freeze due to the “significantly altered financial and operating position” of the University.

The University says that “as a key principle, we need to ensure we are, where possible, providing job security to our existing staff and mitigating the cessation of fixed term contracts. This will require us to think differently and creatively as we redeploy staff and share our resources.”

The main items of concern for researchers are:

Fixed Term Contracts (extensions)

“There are no automatic Fixed Term Contract extensions. Any business-critical roles will need to be approved by the Vacancy Control Panel and we will be expecting Departments and Divisions to be proactive in trying to redeploy staff/extend into approved research projects. We will automatically place all fixed term contracts due to come to a natural end on the redeployment register.”

Fixed Term Contracts Policy

“We are mindful that work is due to start in respect of the new Fixed Term Contracts Policy and this work will continue as best it can do in light of Covid-19 context. However, managers should still keep fixed term contracts under review as normal.”

Employment of researchers on new grants?

As it stands all new appointments are “on hold” (except for business critical roles). This suggests that even externally funded vacancies, e.g. most researcher positions, will not be filled. It is unclear how the University can justify this and if they will have to return money back to funding agencies (unless extensions to hiring deadlines are provided). We have asked for clarification and will update if we hear back.

Edit: the hiring freeze does not apply to externally funded posts – but those vacancies will still go through the Vancany Control Panel to ensure redeployment has been thought of as an option of filling the vancancy.