The number of UK postgraduate accounting students is dropping compared to other countries according to research from ICAS, which warns that the UK accounting academic community could die out within the next generation.
The ICAS report, Today's PhD students - Is there a future generation of accounting academics or are they a dying breed?, says British students are discouraged from undertaking a PhD by the higher financial rewards associated with working in the profession or industry.
ICAS research shows that a third of current PhD accounting students in the UK come from Asia. The report says the proportion of PhD students of British nationality (20%) is much lower than the comparable proportion of US nationals in the US (50%).
Overall, fewer than one in four accounting PhDs are members of professional accounting bodies, compared with approximately 57% of existing academic staff. ICAS says its research also shows that despite the majority of current PhD students having the intention of pursuing an academic career (64%), only approximately 30% had their sights set on the UK.
The report's authors, Vivien Beattie, professor of accounting at the Business School, University of Glasgow, and Sarah Jane Smith, senior lecturer in accounting at the University of Stirling, say that sustaining a related academic discipline is vital to any profession.
Recommendations include urging the professional bodies and large accounting firms to offer PhD scholarships and top-up funding. This, they say, would make it more financially attractive for UK undergraduate accounting students to continue on to PhD study and encourage professionally-qualified accountants to make a career change into academia. More funding would also allow existing faculty to remain in academia and support university teachers to study part-time for a PhD.
Higher education institutions should seek to address the pay differential between academia and the profession, the report recommends.
The research, which was funded by the Scottish Accountancy Trust for Education and Research, included 500 questionnaire responses and 100 interviews from current PhD students, recently graduated PhD students and academic staff.
