Competition drives researchers to counselling – and exit door

I guess it's just too easy to have a pot of research money to go with each research post, then monitor that the money is being used productively. Much simpler to have everyone competing for grants with insanely low success rates, 5% or lower, so more time is spent chasing the grant monies than actually doing any research.

Even when you win money, the uni then calculates how much of that grant is actually going to cover your salary. You then realise you have worked for months on end with no breaks to cover a ridiculously low % of your salary, so the pressure never stops. You won the grant. You can relax for a short time, then off you go chasing yet another grant (while, obviously, delivering the project you won the grant for earlier). And this just the "grants bit". Then there's also teaching, supervision, admin and whatever else you're expected to do. Fabulous indeed...