Three years ago I wrote briefly about high-flying academics working in Ireland who were being given extemely generous salaries in order to prevent them from emigrating from badly depressed, going-nowhere Ireland (funny no one thought of doing that in the 80s for ordinary workers). Today those bonuses are being savagely cut back, at least in University College Dublin, where the vice-president for research will now have to scrape by on just €320,000 a year. Bad news too for usual suspect Brigid Laffan, who will have to forgo €25,000 a year (all according to today’s Irish Times).
Poland is no stranger to calls for higher pay for profs. Indeed, scarcely a day goes by without genuine, heart felt, grass roots demands for US salaries for Polish lecturers.