Dr Cécile Ménard
Co-Investigator
Dr Cécile Ménard is a Research Fellow in the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh. Her research investigates how social, political, and institutional systems shape both academic working conditions and the production of knowledge. Originally trained as a snow physics modeller, Cécile now brings a social science perspective to two interrelated areas. First, her work on precarity and hidden labour in academia exposes the systemic structures through which higher education entrenches inequalities. Second, by examining the epistemological choices and employment conditions of scientists working on Earth system models, she reveals the hidden assumptions and values embedded in scientific research. Across both strands of work, she advocates for greater transparency in how knowledge is produced. Cécile has been precariously employed in the research and higher education sectors since obtaining her PhD 15 years ago.
Dr Lena Wånggren
Co-Investigator
Dr Lena Wånggren works as Teaching Fellow (Centre for Open Learning) and Tutor (English and Scottish Literature) at the University of Edinburgh, teaching courses on English and Scottish literature, gender studies, and feminist writing. She is also a Research Fellow in the School of GeoSciences, continuing her work on equalities and workplace justice. Lena’s work is interdisciplinary, concerning gender, intersectionality and social justice in both nineteenth-century literature and the contemporary workplace, with specific expertise in feminist, decolonial and antiracist pedagogies, and literature and science/technology/medicine. She has worked in UK universities for 15 years, including at Edinburgh Napier University, Heriot-Watt University, and the University of Glasgow. She is Director of EDI at the Centre for Open Learning.
Maria Stoian
Illustrator
Maria is an award-winning graphic novelist and illustrator. She creates non-fiction comics, comics journalism and is one half of the collective Onion Press. She co-created The Illustrated Freelancer’s Guide with writer Heather Parry. Alongside her freelance work, she is a Tutor in Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art, on a casualised contract.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the UKRI and the British Academy Funding through the Equality Diversity and Inclusion Caucus (ES/X008444/1). We thank our funders, who saw the value and potential in a project on invisibilised labour and inequalities in research funding, a project run by three long-term casualised academic workers. Please work with your colleagues to create a more equal and inclusive research and innovation sector.
Thanks to the University and College Union branch at the University of Edinburgh, and the UCU UK Anti-Casualisation Committee, with whom we have collaborated on the project.
Thanks to Stewart and Jacqueline for their fantastic work on the website.
Most of all we warmly – and in solidarity – thank our fantastic participants who shared their time, anger, sadness, hope, laughter, struggle, frustration, thoughts, writing, bus rides, walks, work, family life, experiences, and own time. We hope we have done your experiences justice.