Time Management in Portuguese Academia - An Increasingly Fragmented Profession?

In the last four decades, deep transformations in the organisation of the state, in its relation with Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and also in the organisation of society, with the emergence of the so-called knowledge society/economy had a profound impact in academia. The emphasis on research within the academic profession increased within the context of the knowledge society, establishing new or at least different academic temporalities and in academics’ organisation of work. Changes in the funding of institutions and in the legitimation of their social capital, pressured academics to find their own sources for supporting research activities, to publish their results in recognised international journals and to produce knowledge with social and economic impact. Nevertheless, teaching activities are still recognised as academics’ main activities. These pressures over academic activities challenge the way professors use their working time, creating the strong impression that there is not enough time to perform everything that one believes to be expectable as an academic. This, consequently, has a profound effect of what it means to be an academic and how academic subjectivities have changed in relation to time organization. Time in and of academic profession is used in unexpected ways, and deepens stratification in academia by expanding the gap between research and teaching. This paper provides insights on the way academic roles’ and academics’ use of time is changing in order to answer to an increasing orientation of HEI to produce relevant knowledge to society and to economic utility, with academic performance being defined by quantitative metrics. There is a trend in Portugal, as in other European countries, for shifting the average number of hours spent per week on academic activities. While the number of hours dedicated to teaching has decreased, the hours for research, administration and services has increased, combined with a degradation of working conditions, with significant differences emerging based on gender, age and academic group. The authors conclude that changes in the use of time induced an increasing division of labour in academia, which are leading to a greater complexification of the academic profession with some sub-groups more dedicated to research, others more in teaching, and others devoted to administrative or managerial duties. The authors discuss if this growing diversity and fragmentation of the academic profession can lead to the emergence of new professional groups in academia.. Curiously, the authors of this chapter are a decade old apart; a fact that, in academic terms, represent two different timescapes, hierarchical, social and working realities. Nevertheless, both of them coexist in a constant increasing acceleration and time pressure, which seems to be a doomed feature of academic life today, shaping professionalisation processes and professionalism.