Cambridge considers giving 50% pay rise to professors

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY is considering pay rises of up to pounds 22,000 a year for its professors because it says their salaries are no longer competitive.

At present, professors earn a basic salary of pounds 42,000 and the university has the discretion to offer them up to an extra pounds 11,000 a year. Sir Alec Broers, the university's vice-chancellor, has said that the university is not paying enough to attract researchers from industry or abroad. "Americans just laugh at us," he commented recently. And Sir Keith Peters, head of the university's medical school, told the House of Commons select committee on science and technology last week that, ideally, professors' salaries needed to double to about pounds 80,000.

The university is proposing to change the system of discretionary payments. At present professors are awarded additional payments of pounds 5,500 or pounds 11,000 after three years' service. The new scheme would bring in two more payments of pounds 16,500 and pounds 22,000. There are 280 professors. The Regent House, the university's governing body of academic and senior administrative staff, will vote next week on a scheme to change the way discretionary payments to professors are made. They will consider a motion proposing that a committee rather than the vice-chancellor should decide on extra payments which would be payable on appointment and not just after several years' service.

A spokeswoman for the university said that a doubling of the present professorial salaries would be in line with what a professor might receive in the United States. "But it is not on the cards here at the moment. This is not only a problem for professors, it is also a problem for lecturers."

The university is looking at its entire pay structure and not just professors' salaries.