This way, Dr Who, join the dole queue...

I was down to the University of Surrey today, for a presentation to the new Department of Political, International and Policy Studies.

At the lunch break there was time to comment (among other things) on the large supply but relatively scarce demand for political science / studies PhD graduates, recently. The large supply, I would have thought, depends on the capacity of the British PhD machine to train increasing numbers of national and interntional students(who are fleeing crumbling, underfunded or clientelar academic machines elsewhere). And this I see as a big plus. And from the increasing prevalence of English as a second language in many European and non European countries (as Chris Flood noted). A plus of sorts, as foreign language teachers are not too happy. The scarce demand is more tricky to explain: too many 'Associate Lecturers' and TAs? Too long a time between one's PhD and the first lecturing post (Post-docs, and post-post-docs) Low demand from students for Politics degree (not, it seems)? Open to debate.

The truly unexpected event of the day was my use of the word 'synergy' which until today was in my index verborum proibitorum. It just came out. I should have swallowed my tougue instead. But alas, there's worse words. Uhm, such as?