College promoted staff to stop ‘poaching’

FOUR academics at University College Cork have been promoted in the past year under a controversial scheme to retain staff who have been offered jobs by other colleges.

The retention promotion process was set up late last year in the wake of tensions between universities over alleged poaching of top academics, particularly those with strong research programmes that could bring increased funding.

The heads of the seven universities signed an agreement in September last year, setting out that they would recruit staff openly and transparently and respect each other’s research and teaching strengths when developing themselves.