It has come to my attention that certain universities are not allowing staff to bid for research grants as a Principal Investigator (PI) if the period of the grant would cross over their default retirement age (DRA). This must surely be discriminatory. It is bad enough staff being forced to retire against their will; it is quite outrageous to prevent them from applying as PI while they are in still in full time employment. It seems to me that this is different from the issue of applying to continue in work. Section 3 of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (2006) relates to straight age discrimination and says, for example in 3 (b) (i), that discrimination exists where action
“puts or would put persons of the same age group …. at a particular disadvantage when compared with other persons”
Taking action which assumes that someone may be forced to retire is not only discriminatory at the time it applies, because the person is still in a full time post, but prejudices the case to continue itself: “we are forcing you to retire because you don’t have any research grants” is perfectly mirrored by “we won’t let you apply for grants because you are going the retire”. This will surely not stand up in court, or rather an employment tribunal (note you do not have to resign to go to a tribunal but it is wise to go to formal grievance procedures first).
Vice-chancellors who introduce such draconian rules are damaging UK research, introducing a kind of ageist blight to the research life of productive academics.
Ed
