'Research' Allocations

Just in case you're sitting there reading some of these posts, and you're also an academic, you might be saying to yourself 'I don't know what these people are complaining about; research is difficult, time-consuming, and will often require work in one's free time.'  We hear you!  We completely agree with you in fact.  But we're also guessing that a good part of your week at work is spent doing said research; maybe 8 hours a week at worst and 24-36 at best.  A WEEK.  And it was even better when you first graduated with your PhD.  So lest you think that we're just whiny ingrates that didn't know what we were getting into when we entered this field, allow us to explain both what we were promised in our interviews and what we actually get.  In our interviews, we were promised a 60/40 teaching/research allocation. which was completely acceptable to us.  But not only was that promise not realized, we had no idea of all of different things that "research" means to the degree farm (more on that in a minute).  So what *is* our allocation, you ask?  Well...the basic research tariff is 50 hours a year.  A YEAR.  And we're on 12 month contracts, not 9, so many of us are teaching 3 semesters a year for the same pay as those who teach just 2.  To be clear, 50 hours a year is about 1 hour a week allocated for research.  Anyone who has published a 3 or 4* paper knows how easy THAT is to do on an hour a week (though our Deanery could put out a 4* every week if they wanted...they just don't seem to want to).  So that's the tariff is you haven't published.  You're already coming from behind because how are you to publish ANYTHING on an hour a week?  If the powers that be deem that you have the possibility of publishing, the next tariff up is 100 hours a year, or roughly 2 hours a week.  If you HAVE published, then you'd likely be given 150 hours, or 3 hours a week.  For those who are REF-able (4 papers at an average 3.5* ranking in 6 years), you get a whopping 200 HOURS A YEAR!  Yup...that's 4 hours a week.  To be a world-class researcher.  But it gets worse.  Remember above where I mentioned that no 'research' is created equally?  Well, the Degree Farm has decided that we should spend our oh-so-precious research hours doing things that make the Degree Farm money, such as moderating exams and dissertations for foreign universities, or whatever other tasks they deem as 'research'.  But we're publishing, surely we shouldn't have to do those things?  Can't other people who don't have any desire to publish can do them?  No.  Again, everything is fair at the Degree Farm, some things are just more fair than others.