Questions related to this in a not specifically academic setting have been asked elsewhere, notably [Should developers have administrator permissions on their PC?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/701214/should-developers-have-administrator-permissions-on-their-pc) and [Should dev be admin on their computer?](https://serverfault.com/questions/232416/should-dev-be-admin-on-their-computer) My question relates to my job as an academic at a (UK) university. 

I moved to using Linux at work so that I did not have to have my computer managed by my university's IT service. This is purely because they are poorly resourced/managed and so addressing small problems takes a very long time. I might, for example, have to wait several weeks for a piece of (free) software to be installed. This imposes unacceptable (to me) delays on my research. They are now changing University policy such that all PCs connected to the network are managed by IT (reasonable), backed-up (reasonable) and local admin privileges are restricted to those who can demonstrate a genuine need for them (reasonable, but I am unwilling to go back to not being able to make progress because of them).

I am confident that one way and another in the end I can persuade them of my need -- but I would like to avoid the delays, meetings, and aggravation this will involve.

What are good, unarguable reasons, that I might need local admin rights. I'm currently thinking 'compiling code written by my co-author' but I might need something more concrete. They will not know enough about my research to know what I might actually need or not.