I almost did not write this book. A mixture of ill health, a global pandemic, and the postdoctoral job market made it impossible to focus on writing a monograph. I received the book contract in April 2020 just after the first COVID-19 lockdown began in the UK. I’d been applying for lots of academic jobs and fellowships and was still hopeful that I would get a book-writing fellowship or a research job with personal research time to allow me time to write this book. This did not happen, and so instead I tried to squeeze in writing alongside my paid academic work and kept delaying the manuscript submission deadline. My job was initially 4 days a week on a 1-year contract, and so I continued applying for jobs and fellowships, feeling disheartened and exhausted by repeated rejection. While my tiredness was in part due to the imminent end of my employment contract and the global pandemic, increasingly it became apparent that I was also ill. Near the end of 2020, I was hospitalised due to undiagnosed ulcerative colitis and had emergency surgery which saved my life. Thankfully, I had some sick pay, a supportive line manager, and free access to the NHS. But it was notable that while I lay in my hospital bed, I worried about my job. I worried that time off work and my new chronic illness and disability would stop me from surviving the academic rat race.

Why is this relevant to a book about UK university audit cultures? Academic working conditions in the UK are awful. They make us sick and exclude those of us who are already sick, and rely on ableist and classist assumptions about what is possible.