New paper on procurement corruption and AI

I have just uploaded a new paper on SSRN: ‘Procurement corruption and artificial intelligence: between the potential of enabling data architectures and the constraints of due process requirements’, to be published in S. Williams-Elegbe & J. Tillipman (eds), Routledge Handbook of Public Procurement Corruption (forthcoming). In this paper, I reflect on the potential improvements that using AI for anti-corruption purposes can practically have in the current (and foreseeable) context of AI development, (lack of) procurement and other data, and existing due process constraints on the automation or AI-support of corruption-related procurement decision-making (such as eg debarment/exclusion or the imposition of fines). The abstract is as follows:

This contribution argues that the expectations around the deployment of AI as an anti-corruption tool in procurement need to be tamed. It explores how the potential applications of AI replicate anti-corruption interventions by human officials and, as such, can only provide incremental improvements but not a significant transformation of anti-corruption oversight and enforcement architectures. It also stresses the constraints resulting from existing procurement data and the difficulties in creating better, unbiased datasets and algorithms in the future, which would also generate their own corruption risks. The contribution complements this technology-centred analysis with a critical assessment of the legal constraints based on due process rights applicable even when AI supports continued human intervention. This in turn requires a close consideration of the AI-human interaction, as well as a continuation of the controls applicable to human decision-making in corruption-prone activities. The contribution concludes, first, that prioritising improvements in procurement data capture, curation and interconnection is a necessary but insufficient step; and second, that investments in AI-based anti-corruption tools cannot substitute, but only complement, current anti-corruption approaches to procurement.

As always, feedback more than welcome. Not least, because I somehow managed to write this ahead of the submission deadline, so I would have time to adjust things ahead of publication. Thanks in advance: a.sanchez-graells@bristol.ac.uk.

Commentary on Directive 2014/24/EU now published

I am thrilled to announce the official publication yesterday of R Caranta and A Sanchez-Graells (eds), European Public Procurement. Commentary on Directive 2014/24/EU (Edward Elgar, 2021) 1040 pp.

This major piece of work has been over three years in the making, since Roberto and I started convincing colleagues to join us in the project in the summer of 2018. Leading a group of almost 40 procurement specialists from jurisdictions across Europe, especially during the pandemic, has been both a privilege and a major challenge. The book is really a labour of love and both the editors and the contributors have done our best to push our collective understanding and critical assessment of the existing rules and case law.

We sincerely feel proud of the achievement and have been touched to see that reputed colleagues are already considering it a major achievement (see a couple of ringing endorsements below). You will, of course, also be the judge of that. We very much look forward to any feedback from academics, practitioners and policy-makers using the book. After all the effort, we would like to keep the Commentary alive through successive future editions, and it will be good to know which areas for improvement to focus on when the time to review it comes.

Below is some more detailed information on the book, its contents, approach and how to get a copy if you are interested. We are also thinking about organising an online book launch, so please stay tuned for more details on that soon.

European Public Procurement

This detailed article by article Commentary provides an authoritative interpretation of each provision in the main EU Directive on public procurement – Directive 2014/24/EU, and is rich in its critical analysis of the provisions of the 2014 Directive and the case-law. The Commentary also highlights the application problems and interpretative issues being raised in EU Member States, which in due time will make their way up to the CJEU or even require further legislative interventions.

Key features include:

• Updated to include the most significant CJEU case law as of end-2020

• Analysis that is informed by the practical issues arising across the EU Member States, as well as in the UK

• Written by a diverse pool of specialists in each of the aspects of the Directive upon which they comment, with the Commentary underpinned by their collective knowledge of public procurement law in the old 28 EU Member States.

Providing a practice-oriented analysis that allows for a problem solving approach, European Public Procurement will be particularly relevant to practicing lawyers including within the civil services in all EU jurisdictions and the UK. The depth of analysis offered in the Commentary will also be of great benefit to academics and postgraduate students with an interest in public procurement and, more generally, public law, administrative law and public administration.

More details in the publisher’s website: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/european-public-procurement-9781789900675.html.

Endorsements so far

‘The editors are leaders in the field of public procurement law and have assembled an unrivalled set of authors from across Europe to provide an authoritative commentary of the crucial mother of all procurement regulation – Public Sector Procurement Directive 2014/24/EU. Here you will quickly find all there is to know about the Directive’s Articles 1 to 94. There are hardly any alternatives to this useful work and this commentary might well achieve the same importance for Directive 2014/24/EU as the Palandt has for German civil law. Procurement lawyers might come to say: quod non est in Caranta/Sanchez-Graells., non est in mundo.’ – Prof Martin Trybus, University of Birmingham, UK and Member of the Procurement Review Board of the European Space Agency, France

‘This Commentary is one of the most valuable additions to the public procurement literature for years. It combines the advantages of a legal commentary of the continental European tradition (comprehensiveness, structure, depth, etc.) with comparative perspectives, cutting-edge research, and the necessary contextualization, to understand the interactions between the Directive and the complex national systems of administrative and public law. The outstanding editors as well as the 36 contributors from 18 European countries deserve much praise for this important book!’ – Prof Martin Burgi, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany

Is the ESPD the enemy of procurement automation in the EU (quick thoughts)

Source: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_856663.

I have started to watch the three-session series on Intelligent Automation in US Federal Procurement hosted by the GW Law Government Procurement Law Program over the last few weeks (worth watching!), as part of my research for a paper on AI and corruption in procurement. The first session in the series focuses in large part on the intelligent automation of information gathering for the purposes of what in the EU context are the processes of exclusion and qualitative selection of economic providers. And this got me thinking about how it would (or not) be possible to replicate some of the projects in an EU jurisdiction (or even at EU-wide level).

And, once again, the issue of the lack of data on which to train algorithms, as well as the lack of representative/comprehensive databases from which to automatically extract information came up. But somehow it seems like the ESPD and the underlying regulatory approach may be making things more difficult.

In the EU, automating mandatory exclusion (not necessarily to have AI adopt decisions, but to have it prepare reports capable of supporting independent decision-making by contracting authorities) would primarily be a matter of checking against databases of prior criminal convictions, which is not only difficult to do due to the absence of structured databases themselves, but also due to the diversity of legal regimes and the languages involved, as well as the pervasive problem of beneficial ownership and (dis)continuity in corporate personality.

Similarly, for discretionary exclusion, automation would primarily be based on retrieving information concerning grounds not easily or routinely captured in existing databases (eg conflicts of interest), as well as limited by increasingly constraining CJEU case law demanding case-by-case assessments by the contracting authority in ways that diminish the advantages of automating eg red flags based on decisions taken by a different contracting authority (or centralised authority).

Finally, automating qualitative selection would be almost impossible, as it is currently mostly based on the self-certification implicit in the ESPD. Here, the 2014 Public Procurement Directives tried to achieve administrative simplification not through the once only principle (which would be useful in creating databases supporting automatisation of some parts of the project, but on which a 2017 project does not seem to have provided many advances), but rather through the ‘tell us only if successful’ (or suspected) principle. This naturally diminishes the amount of information the public buyer (and the broader public sector) holds, with repeat tenderers being completely invisible for the purposes of automation so long as they are not awarded contracts.

All of this leads me to think that there is a big blind spot in the current EU approach to open procurement data as the solution/enabler of automatisation in the context of EU public procurement practice. In fact, most of the crucial (back office) functions — and especially those relating to probity and quality screenings relating to tenderers — will not be susceptible of automation until (or rather unless) different databases are created and advanced mechanisms of interconnection of national databases are created at EU level. And creating those databases will be difficult (or simply not happen in practice) for as long as the ESPD is in place, unless a parallel system of registration (based on the once only principle) is developed for the purposes of registering onto and using eProcurement platforms (which seems to also raise some issues).

So, all in all, it would seem that more than ever we need to concentrate on the baby step of creating a suitable data architecture if we want to reap the benefits of AI (and robotic process automation in particular) any time soon. As other jurisdictions are starting to move (or crawl, to keep with the metaphor), we should not be wasting our time.

Where does the proposed EU AI Act place procurement?

Thinking about some of the issues raised in the earlier post ‘Can the robot procure for you?,’ I have now taken a close look at the European Commission’s Proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) to see how it approaches the use of AI in procurement procedures. It may (not) come as a surprise that the AI Act takes an extremely light-touch approach to the regulation of AI uses in procurement and simply subjects them to (yet to be developed) voluntary codes of conduct. I will detail my analysis of why this is the case in this post, as well as some reasons why I do not find it satisfactory.

Before getting to the details, it is worth stressing that this is reflective of a broader feature of the AIA: its heavy private sector orientation. When it comes to AI uses by the public sector, other than prohibiting some massive surveillance by the State (both for law enforcement and to generate a system of social scoring) and classifying as high-risk the most obvious AI uses by the law enforcement and judicial authorities (all of which are important, of course), the AIA remains silent on the use of AI in most administrative procedures, with the only exception of those concerning social benefits.

This approach could be generally justified by the limits to EU competence and, in particular, those derived from the principle of administrative self-organisation of the Member States. However, given the very broad approach taken by the Commission on the interpretation and use of Article 114 TFEU (which is the legal basis for the AIA, more below), this is not entirely consistent. It could rather be that the specific uses of AI by the public sector covered in the proposal reflect the increasingly well-known problematic uses of (biased) AI solutions in narrow aspects of public sector activity, rather than a broader reflection on the (still unknown, or still unimplemented) uses that could be problematic.

While the AIA is ‘future-proofed’ by including criteria for the inclusion of further use cases in its ‘high-risk’ category (which determines the bulk of compliance obligations), it is difficult to see how those criteria are suited to a significant expansion of the regulatory constraints to AI uses by the public sector, including in procurement. Therefore, as a broader point, I submit that the proposed AIA needs some revision to make it more suited to the potential deployment of AI by the public sector. To reflect on that, I am co-organising a webinar on ’Digitalization and AI decision-making in administrative law proceedings’, which will take place on 15 Nov 2021, 1pm UK (save the date, registration and more details here). All welcome.

Background on the AIA

Summarising the AIA is both difficult and has already been done (see eg this quick explainer of the Centre for Data Innovation, and for an accessible overview of the rationale and regulatory architecture of the AIA, this master class by Prof Christiane Wendehorst). So, I will just highlight here a few issues linked to the analysis of procurement’s position within its regulatory framework.

The AIA seeks to establish a proportionate approach to the regulation of AI deployment and use. While its primary concern is with the consolidation of the EU Single Digital Market and the avoidance of regulatory barriers to the circulation of AI solutions, its preamble also points to the need to ensure the effectiveness of EU values and, crucially, the fundamental rights in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

Importantly for the purposes of our discussion, recital (28) AIA stresses that ‘The extent of the adverse impact caused by the AI system on the fundamental rights protected by the Charter is of particular relevance when classifying an AI system as high-risk. Those rights include ... right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial [Art 47 Charter] … [and] right to good administration {Art 41 Charter]’.

The AIA seeks to create such a proportionate approach to the regulation of AI by establishing four categories of AI uses: prohibited, high-risk, limited risk requiring transparency measures, and minimal risk. The two categories that carry regulatory constraints or compliance obligations are those concerning high-risk (Arts 8-15 AIA), and limited risk requiring transparency measures (Art 52 AIA, which also applies to some high-risk AI). Minimal risk AI uses are left unregulated, although the AIA (Art 69) seeks to promote the development of codes of conduct intended to foster voluntary compliance with the requirements applicable to high-risk AI systems.

Procurement within the AIA

Procurement AI practices could not be classified as prohibited uses (Art 5 AIA), except in the difficult to imagine circumstances in which they deployed subliminal techniques. It is also difficult to see how they could fall under the regime applicable to uses requiring special transparency (Art 52) because it only applies to AI systems intended to interact with natural persons, which must be ‘designed and developed in such a way that natural persons are informed that they are interacting with an AI system, unless this is obvious from the circumstances and the context of use.’ It would not be difficult for public buyers using external-facing AI solutions (eg chatbots seeking to guide tenderers through their e-submissions) to make it clear that the tenderers are interacting with an AI solution. And, even if not, the transparency obligations are rather minimal.

So, the crux of the issue rests on whether procurement-related AI uses could be classified as high-risk. This is regulated in Art 6 AIA, which cross-refers to Annex III AIA. The Annex contains a numerus clausus of high-risk AI uses, which is however susceptible of amendment under the conditions specified in Art 7 AIA. Art 6/Annex III do not contain any procurement-related AI uses. The only type of AI use linked to administrative procedures concerns ‘AI systems intended to be used by public authorities or on behalf of public authorities to evaluate the eligibility of natural persons for public assistance benefits and services, as well as to grant, reduce, revoke, or reclaim such benefits and services’ (Annex III(5)(a) AIA).

Clearly, then, procurement-related AI uses are currently left to the default category of those with minimal risk and, thus, subjected only to voluntary self-regulation via codes of conduct.

Could this change in the future?

Art 7 AIA establishes the following two cumulative criteria: (a) the AI systems are intended to be used in any of the areas listed in points 1 to 8 of Annex III; and (b) the AI systems pose a risk of harm to the health and safety, or a risk of adverse impact on fundamental rights, that is, in respect of its severity and probability of occurrence, equivalent to or greater than the risk of harm or of adverse impact posed by the high-risk AI systems already referred to in Annex III.

The first hurdle in getting procurement-related AI uses included in Annex III in the future is formal and concerns the interpretation of the categories listed therein. There are only two potential options: nesting them under uses related to ‘Access to and enjoyment of essential private services and public services and benefits’, or uses related to ‘Administration of justice and democratic processes’. It could (theoretically) be possible to squeeze them in one of them (perhaps the latter easier than the former), but this is by no means straightforward and, given the existing AI uses in each of the two categories, I would personally be disinclined to engage in such broad interpretation.

Even if that hurdle was cleared, the second hurdle is also challenging. Art 7(2) AIA establishes the criteria to assess that an AI use poses a sufficient ‘risk of adverse impact on fundamental rights’. Of those criteria, there are three that in my view would make it very difficult to classify procurement-related AI uses as high-risk. Those criteria require the European Commission to consider:

(c) the extent to which the use of an AI system has already caused … adverse impact on the fundamental rights or has given rise to significant concerns in relation to the materialisation of such … adverse impact, as demonstrated by reports or documented allegations submitted to national competent authorities;

(d) the potential extent of such harm or such adverse impact, in particular in terms of its intensity and its ability to affect a plurality of persons;

(e) the extent to which potentially harmed or adversely impacted persons are dependent on the outcome produced with an AI system, in particular because for practical or legal reasons it is not reasonably possible to opt-out from that outcome;

(g) the extent to which the outcome produced with an AI system is easily reversible …;

Meeting these criteria would require for the relevant AI systems to basically be making independent or fully automated decisions (eg on award of contract, or exclusion of tenderers), so that their decisions would be seen to affect the effectiveness of Art 41 and 47 Charter rights; as well as a (practical) understanding that those decisions cannot be easily reversed. Otherwise, the regulatory threshold is so high that most likely procurement-related AI uses (screening, recommender systems, support to human decision-making (eg automated evaluation of tenders), etc) are unlikely to be considered to pose a sufficient ‘risk of adverse impact on fundamental rights’.

Could Member States go further?

As mentioned above, one of the potential explanations for the almost absolute silence on the use of AI in administrative procedures in the AIA could be that the Commission considers that this aspect of AI regulation belongs to each of the Member States. If that was true, then Member States could further than the code of conduct self-regulatory approach resulting from the AIA regulatory architecture. An easy approach would be to eg legally mandate compliance with the AIA obligations for high-risk AI systems.

However, given the internal market justification of the AIA, to be honest, I have my doubts that such a regulatory intervention would withstand challenges on the basis of general EU internal market law.

The thrust of the AIA competential justification (under Art 114 TFEU, see point 2.1 of the Explanatory memorandum) is that

The primary objective of this proposal is to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market by setting harmonised rules in particular on the development, placing on the Union market and the use of products and services making use of AI technologies or provided as stand-alone AI systems. Some Member States are already considering national rules to ensure that AI is safe and is developed and used in compliance with fundamental rights obligations. This will likely lead to two main problems: i) a fragmentation of the internal market on essential elements regarding in particular the requirements for the AI products and services, their marketing, their use, the liability and the supervision by public authorities, and ii) the substantial diminishment of legal certainty for both providers and users of AI systems on how existing and new rules will apply to those systems in the Union.

All of those issues would arise if each Member State adopted its own rules constraining the use of AI for administrative procedures not covered by the AIA (either related to procurement or not), so the challenge to that decentralised approach on grounds of internal market law by eg providers of procurement-related AI solutions capable of deployment in all Member States but burdened with uneven regulatory requirements seems quite straightforward (if controversial), especially given the high level of homogeneity in public procurement regulation resulting from the 2014 Public Procurement Package. Not to mention the possibility of challenging those domestic obligation on grounds that they go further than the AIA in breach of Art 16 Charter (freedom to conduct a business), even if this could face some issues resulting from the interpretation of Art 51 thereof.

Repositioning procurement (and other aspects of administrative law) in the AIA

In my view, there is a case to be made for the repositioning of procurement-related AI uses within the AIA, and its logic can apply to other areas of administrative law/activity with similar market effects.

The key issue is that the development of AI solutions to support decision-making in the public sector not only concerns the rights of those directly involved or affected by those decisions, but also society at large. In the case of procurement, eg the development of biased procurement evaluation or procurement recommender systems can have negative social effects via its effects on the market (eg on value for money, to mention the most obvious) that are difficult to identify in single tender procurement decisions.

Moreover, it seems that the public administration is well-placed to comply with the requirements of the AIA for high-risk AI systems as a matter of routine procedure, and the arguments on the need to take a proportionate approach to the regulation of AI so as not to stifle innovation lose steam and barely have any punch when it comes to imposing them on the public sector user. Further, to a large extent, the AIA requirements seem to me mostly aligned with the requirements for running a proper (and challenge proof) eProcurement system, and they would also facilitate compliance with duties of good administration when specific decisions are challenged.

Therefore, on balance, I see no good reason not to expand the list in Annex III AIA to include the use of AI systems in all administrative procedures, and in particular in public procurement and in other regulatory sectors where ex post interventions to correct market distortions resulting from biased AI implementations can simply be practically impossible. I submit that this should be done before its adoption.

Useful new briefing paper: Building a Vocabulary for Sustainable Procurement (Schooner and Matsuda, 2021)

(c) Michelle Ress (2007).

Steve Schooner and Evan Matsuda have published the useful briefing paper ‘Sustainable Procurement: Building Vocabulary To Accelerate The Federal Procurement Conversation’ (2021). This comes fast on the heel’s of Schooner and Markus Speidel’s earlier ‘‘Warming Up’ to Sustainable Procurement’ (2020), and represents a forceful and useful push to get the discussions on the urgency of a quick transition to (net-zero) sustainable procurement started (in the US), or intensified (elsewhere, perhaps especially in the EU, where the SAPIENS network is also starting to catalyse important aspects of the debate).

Their briefing paper is useful in setting out accessible definitions, and a general overview, of key aspects of an emerging body of knowledge on sustainable procurement (and climate change more generally) and, from that perspective, it can also serve the purpose of offering a blueprint for similar or twin mapping exercises in contexts other than the US. Having a common vocabulary and understanding of key concepts can certainly allow practitioners (and academics) to skip discussions on labelling (or conceptual issues, if this jargon is more palatable to an academic audience) and cut to the chase of exchanging knowledge on practical implementations that are comparable and readily understandable.

The briefing paper also contains a useful rich section on existing resources and, as such, it is a good one stop shop for anyone interested in (US-based) sustainable procurement regulation. And it is intensely referenced, which will also help researchers find a broad number of leads to more specific literature on each of the topics it covers. Lat but not least, the paper formulates punchy and actionable guidelines (or principles) on how to engage with its recommendations.

The briefing paper is perhaps even more useful in sketching how (in the US context) sustainable procurement is a long standing (neglected) aspiration which implementation does not require reinventing the wheel, but rather operating a few levers that have been available to public buyers for a long time. And the paper is also remarkable in politely but clearly putting out the statement that failing to use those levers is no longer acceptable.

I hope the paper will be widely read (even outside the US context) and that the procurement community will get (even more) alive to the urgency of the transition (or transformation) to sustainable procurement.

Perhaps Steve Schooner and co-author/s (or others) could be tempted into bring their guidelines down to a more specific level of practicality, eg writing another paper along the lines of ‘Nobody ever got fired for …’ in relation to sustainable procurement (not a branded ICT supplier) as, in my view, one of the major roadblocks to the adoption of widespread sustainable procurement practices are misunderstandings and myths on the constraints that the legal system imposes (of which there are a fair few, but not as many or as insurmountable as the urban myth would have it), which can have chilling effects on practitioners.

Having a clear boundary drawn on what is legally permissible (and should thus be carried out as a matter of policy, and urgency) and what is not (so pitfalls are avoided and the bad reputation of the legal rules as hindrances on sustainable procurement is not fuelled by the emergence of more bad cases) would be another major contribution. And one that could be replicated in other jurisdictions to establish a benchmark of ‘legal’ sustainable procurement practices, hopefully launching a ‘race to the top’ in years (not many) to come.

Doing your best, and yet feeling like failing -- let's talk more about challenges for academics be(com)ing parents

(c) Evangeline Gallagher/Guardian.

I have recently had a few exchanges with younger academic colleagues that have become parents. Given my own experience during the just over three years since I became a dad, I was not surprised (but still deeply saddened) to hear them express frustration at the lack of time to engage with research and intellectual stimulation in the way they wanted, and a consequent certain loss of their identity and sometimes sense of self-worth, and fears and worries about the impact that juggling new childcare responsibilities (which everyone found to be extremely fulfilling and rewarding, though) will have on careers and reputations, or even job stability.

What did surprise me, however, is that most colleagues felt that the situation was made worse because nobody talks about it, which fuels feelings of isolation and imposter syndrome (which I very much experience myself too), or can even push some to try to hide or certainly not volunteer the fact of their imminent or recent parenthood. So this post just tries to start a conversation and to say to each and every one of my academic colleagues facing a similar struggle, that I see you and I am always happy to talk about it. Please do reach out if you feel like it.

I am, of course, consciously aware of my privileged position as a middle-class, white, male professor, but I am also acutely aware of the fact that I got to this stage in my career before becoming a parent and I am also entirely convinced that I would not have progressed so quickly in academia if I had been a parent at a younger age. As a result of this, in my mind, I hold very complicated and contradictory thoughts and feelings: I have no reason to complain or to expect things to be any better, but I also do not deserve my position because it is one reflective of the merits and contribution of an Albert that no longer exists (the one always available, willing to overwork, to travel, the one that ‘was everywhere’ and was the first one to react to developments in my field). I feel bad that I cannot make the same sort of contribution I used to. And that is because I left it (and the reputation, prestige, or simply ego resulting from it) define me. I am no longer that person, so who am I and how can I still occupy the same space or have the same aspirations as the Albert that no longer is?

I am very happy that I took extended periods of shared parental leave to bond with and take care of my kids when they were babies, but I also struggled a fair bit during those periods of absence from academia. Especially during my second shared parental leave because I took it 'solo' (my partner went back to work) and I found myself craving some 'adult' / 'intellectual' conversation regularly. This led me to accept invitations to participate in training programmes and webinars during my period of leave, as I thought that would make the feeling subside. But, to the contrary, after each event I was left exhausted and feeling that I had both failed as an academic (my performances were well below what I would have liked due to sleep deprivation, mental rustiness and the unavoidable distractions of ‘zooming with a baby on your arms’) and, worse, that I had neglected my child and robbed her of some precious quality time.

And this has not stopped. To be 100% honest, I keep struggling with my new identity of parent academic (and increased imposter syndrome that comes with the need to say no even more than before, with the prioritisation of parent over academic) after having returned from the second leave a few months ago. I still have serious difficulty facing (and are yet to accept) the prospects of a more constrained academic life that really needs to be balanced with (a lovely) family. And this is not helped by the fact that I had set the bar so high for myself (both in my head and regarding institutional expectations), that I cannot but keep failing in my futile attempts at trying to clear it. I am honestly doing my best, and yet, every day, I feel I am failing.

When I can take a step back from those feelings (and it is hard not to swim, or even indulge in them), I can see that most of these feelings are probably in common with everyone else that becomes a parent and therefore sees their lives decentered (or recentered), but I think that perhaps this is particularly challenging for academics given ‘the way the system now works’ and the underappreciated role of self-confidence and self-believe in enabling us to perform our jobs at the level of ‘continuous and ever-increasing excellence’ expected from us.

I also think that the challenges are particularly acute for academics becoming parents because it is a major shock that probably puts a mirror in front of (most of) us that reflects how unsustainable and unbalanced our work/research/life was, although of course the challenges remain for academics being parents (at least for a good few years, I hear from most colleagues further advanced in their parenthoods).

And I also think this is probably only getting worse given the perverse dynamics of permanent assessment and benchmarking of our performance, as well as a de facto ‘up or out’ system where you are seen to fail unless you go from promotion to promotion in short periods of time — because, in the end, the social status of the profession has been degraded so significantly that there is a worrying perception that *just* having a permanent entry-level academic job (Assistant Professor or Lecturer, depending on the system) does not really recognise you as a weighty expert in your field (which it does, in my opinion).

So, here it is. At least I have emptied my brain. And I hope someone, somewhere will find some value in the reflection. And perhaps a conversation will start. I am here, and I am listening.