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Spending my Friday night analysing Cardiff University’s EDI data in relation to which categories of staff have been placed “at risk of redundancy”, because the HR department seems to have forgotten to do so. #LivingTheDream #BasicDueDilligence #RStats #11pm #UnpaidOvertime

submitted 6 days ago • 4 comments

We’ve just added a further tranche of @ucu.org.uk branches to our UCU branches and regions starter pack - see here 👇

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

300 jobs at risk at Newcastle University 🚨 Our members should not pay the price for vice-chancellors' inability to manage finances. @newcastleucu.bsky.social say enough is enough.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

The redundancies that aren't as visible in the numbers but that sure as hell are visible in classrooms & careers of colleagues we've lost this way. These letters @theguardian.com are what they've been trying to publish since Chakrabortty's piece on QMUL in 2023 www.theguardian.com/education/20...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

International students make vital social & economic contributions to the UK. The govt has created a hostile environment for international staff and students and are now seeing the results. If this continues, the negative impact will be devastating.

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Kemi Badenoch speech to the culture warriors convention today in London is extraordinary. She warns of “the poisoning of minds through higher education.” What next? Struggle sessions and degree holders being sent down to the countryside? Hardly know where to start.

submitted 10 days ago • 34 comments

Chilling that 'cull' has become accepted as a normative term, in the foot-and-mouth era of UK higher education. 'A source said of the university’s plans: “Academic job cuts are likely to be more than 4% with whole subjects being culled.”' 1/2

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

We wrote a leaflet! Redundancies are not inevitable, they are a choice! We do not need to pretend no other option exists! Professional Services staff are not some optional extra we can basically do without!

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Students whose universities demand quicker feedback-turnaround by staff are barely (if any) more satisfied with their feedback. Who would guess it? My new paper 🙃 doi.org/10.1080/0260...

submitted 22 days ago • 3 comments

Together with the 300 roles at risk at Newcastle, that’s more than 1,000 redundancies announced in less than a week. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

submitted 29 days ago • 1 comment

'Across 103 universities to have posted financial accounts so far this year with relevant figures, £210 million was spent on compensation for loss of office last year. This was a 67 per cent increase on...2022-23. The severance payments...affected about 10,300 employees'. 1/4

submitted 27 days ago • 4 comments

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the universities of the nations and regions mostly have to die while core cities get choked and inefficient. What a great plan.

submitted 28 days ago • 3 comments

This is huge: a Russell Group uni making such severe cuts shows the extent of the crisis in HE funding. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 30 days ago • 2 comments

Academic Skyers: I am compiling a list of policies and statements from various universities about how they are handling the "pause" in terms of stopping expenditures (or not). Please respond to this post with your institution and materials. THANK YOU!

submitted 30 days ago • 148 comments

UKHE humanities colleagues facing cuts: as someone who spent c.15 years freelancing, running small businesses and with a ‘portfolio career’ before academia, I’m happy to chat to anyone who wants to think through possibilities. I have no magic bullets but might have useful things to say about ways…

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

Jacqui Smith rules out ‘injection of public money’ into universities. Long-term review of HE funding in England, due this summer, will not move away from system reliant on tuition fees, says minister. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

UK universities might misattribute changes in their rankings to their institutional strategies when random fluctuations in the ranking system are a more likely explanation. Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps... BSky author: @tvpollet.bsky.social #UKHE #AcademicSky

submitted 41 days ago • 5 comments

Glad the issue of private schools gaming the system to get extra exam time for their pupils has been picked up because I heard this a couple of weeks ago and felt it completely outrageous. Quite possible that state school pupils have received lower grades as a result.

submitted 39 days ago • 132 comments

Its a day ending in y so there's news about the UK university sector collapsing in on itself. This here is a Russell Group story, but if the excellent education beat at the FT had the full sector data... I think I know what they would see. The great letting go (of staff).

submitted 39 days ago • 8 comments

Disappointing new study showing - once again - that women are leaving research careers at far higher levels than men If you're interested to read about strategies to reverse these types of curves, check out our recent #Cell perspective- link below ⤵️ #WomeninSTEM 👩‍🔬👩🏾‍🔬🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

submitted 48 days ago • 12 comments

HNY all! Committee met on Tuesday to discuss our priorities for 2025. These include workloading, branch engagement, and defending our pensions. Look out for much more on-campus activity this year! Hopefully see you soon…

submitted 49 days ago • 0 comments

Sobering, and important. Hannah Yelin (Ox Brookes): 'Her latest paper, published in the journal New Formations, found that 74 per cent of academics had experienced online harms as a result of sharing research publicly – affecting their careers and causing significant physical and mental harms.' 1/3

submitted 55 days ago • 15 comments

This is what will happen in the university sector: Shared services Mergers Widespread redundancies Big cuts to STEM and R&D Big unis get even bigger Squeezed cities, angry voters *Huge geographical cold spots www.politicshome.com/news/article...

submitted 59 days ago • 3 comments

We’d like to wish all members and friends a warm and restful winter break, however you celebrate or not. A joint all-union meeting will be held in January.

submitted 70 days ago • 1 comment

My former employer has officially announced fire-and-rehire of a substantial chunk of its workforce: tinyurl.com/bdd7r4uv This is the management taking advantage of the current state of HE to push through something they've been doing to professional services for years (started pre-2020).

submitted 71 days ago • 2 comments

'Change is not inherently bad, but equally no organisation or sector can be expected to endlessly adapt in opposing directions without consequences. HE has tried – been forced – to do this and the result is the partial collapse we’re experiencing'.

submitted 70 days ago • 0 comments

Universities can't afford: research, manageable classes sizes, conference funding, mental health support Universities can afford: expensive VCs/deputy VCs, change managers, external consultants, shiny new buildings, Research Excellence Framework, clunky virtual learning environments, annual fun run

submitted 78 days ago • 1 comment

But sure, let’s destroy the humanities at this exact point in time. We don’t need experts in searching, contextualising, tracing, and ascertaining facts.

submitted 79 days ago • 1 comment

"Women full professors are 19% more likely than men at the same career stage to leave academia, as compared with 6% for women assistant professors and 10% for associates."

submitted 80 days ago • 16 comments

Welcome to BlueSky @ucuaberdeen.bsky.social and @ucu-ulster.bsky.social ! We’ve added you to the #UCU branches + committees starter pack! 🦋🦋 go.bsky.app/H8xiSXj

submitted 80 days ago • 0 comments

This needs less focus on the students and more on the dodgy deals between VCs and recruiters like The Student Group, Vivienne Stern's denial of something that is apparent to even the most casual observer is cynicism of the finest order. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 86 days ago • 1 comment

With Leeds Trinity and Loughborough we're now actually at 83, or exactly half of the 166 universities @timeshighered.bsky.social counts. HALF OF OUR UNIVERSITIES ARE SHEDDING STAFF. In a normal timeline, politicians would care about this and try to do something, anything, right?

submitted 93 days ago • 3 comments

As in many countries seemingly obsessed with blowing up their credibility in the future, they want research to be subsidised only if it has immediate applications, meaning that it doesn't need to be subsidised.

submitted 85 days ago • 0 comments

This is what it looks like when universities have a backbone. À propos à nothing, as they would say.

submitted 86 days ago • 0 comments

seeing the leaders of French unis actually resisting cuts rather than treating staff and students like their enemy made me remember these interviews from the times higher last week (Shitij Kapur, Julie Sanders)

submitted 85 days ago • 1 comment

It’s a dark day for research in Aotearoa New Zealand and the ramifications for the country are huge. Minister Judith Collins has just announced our blue-skies funder will no longer fund humanities & social science research and that 50% of what is funded must have economic benefit.

submitted 86 days ago • 54 comments

Staffs UCU has not met with Executive for some weeks, but our next meeting will be later in November. Members should contact the branch by email with issues they think we should raise with management. Look forward to hearing from you!

submitted 86 days ago • 0 comments