Relieved to see more coverage of the grip Nous is getting on #UKHE. Thanks @privateeyenews.bsky.social! A million pound @cardiffucu.bsky.social alone. That’s a lot of money for the very same PowerPoint…

Good HE is really simple: quality time spent with subject experts who know and care about their students. My university and many others are deliberately abandoning this truth in favour of financial and organisational efficiency.

On Friday afternoon before the Bank Holiday, colleagues in the Humanities department were called to a meeting on Tuesday. They were informed that the University Portfolio Review had decided that English Language, English Literature, Philosophy, History & Creative Writing UG degrees would close

2014 REF: 2026: closing UG History

The financial crisis facing Higher Education in Wales has struck another blow, with the University of Wales Trinity St David launching a voluntary severance scheme ✍️Martin Shipton

In the UK (and not just the UK) university sector, we're living, working, thinking and being made redundant (sic) with and by emergencies. Join Wendy Brown, Margot Finn, Eva von Redecker and Sasha Roseneil, convened by Paul Gilroy and John Sabapathy, for 'Learning in Emergency States'. 5 June. 1/2

Solidarity with our colleagues at Nottingham ✊

Every step of the way, for years at this point, the administration at @uniofnottingham.bsky.social (and the administration before, and...) has singularly focused on one goal: gut the institution for short term profits.

Can we have one of these inquiries here, please? #UKHE is also leading a stupid amount of money from the public institutions to these leechy private businesses. And yes, the lack of accountability is a key part of the issue about that.

Management paid nearly a quarter million to the external consultancy NOUS, whose generic 'framework' is now used to turn QMUL into a Cookie Cutter University. These modules make QMUL. They bring students in contact with the cutting-edge research & widen the scope of academia. #UKHE

the departure of over 200 staff who took voluntary severance and redundancy has resulted in more work falling on fewer shoulders...there appears to be little understanding of the implications of these sweeping restructures for staff workloads, research time and quality of teaching

The Vice Chancellor of Cardiff University has been criticised for attending a property conference in Cannes while staff at the university are facing job cuts ✍️Martin Shipton

What better way to end your weekend than by co-signing this petition in support of @ucuessex.bsky.social calling out the devastating cuts which their management is making. Let their governing body know managers may not care about the wider public, but the wider public sure does care. #SaveHE

Attended a Cardiff Uni “wellbeing” event for @cardiffucu.bsky.social today. Argued that the best way to improve staff wellbeing is to save jobs, improve pay & conditions, join a union, and become an active member. Recruited well, had lots of great conversations, & actually listened to colleagues. 🩷✊

Also, maybe don't use this as an excuse to cut courses and programs that are currently profitable? And make faculty who bring in research funds redundant? Seems, I don't know, obvious? #stopthecuts #savehe #UCU #UoNUCU #UON #UniversityOfNottingham

Feel somewhat heartbroken tbh www.theguardian.com/education/20...

🔊 Cardiff UCU members: remember to post your ballot today! You're voting to demand: 1. Removal of all staff from scope 2. No compulsory redundancies 3. To stop the dangerous workloads 4. To commit to staff H&S

Cambridge apparently scrapping veterinary education is a very normal thing to happen to one of the best universities in a very normal higher education system in a very normal island #UKHE

🔊 Calling all Cardiff UCU members: get your vote in by next Monday! ⏰ The countdown is on: www.cardiffucu.org.uk

In yet more devastating news, the VC has confirmed her plans to cut 80% of academic staff from Essex Pathways, our foundation year department. This would effectively close down all our existing foundation year programmes through the back door. But it's not a done deal yet. Please share urgently.

🔊 Calling all Cardiff UCU members: get your vote in by next Monday! ⏰ The countdown is on: www.cardiffucu.org.uk

Swansea University staff have voted no confidence in Vice Chancellor after announcement of £30m in cuts, £25m from staffing 400 staff have already left through voluntary severance & 200 vacancies frozen The destruction of Welsh universities accelerates www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Cardiff University Kazakhstan featuring on BBC Wales Today, with contribution from Cardiff UCU's @llantwit.bsky.social

Your Sunday read on #UKHE:

‘Prof Larner said establishing the campus was "low risk", while acknowledging that the former Soviet republic was "in an interesting part of the world" at a "volatile time geopolitically".'

This is a very necessary but depressing list. More jobs being cut. Worse for staff and worse for students. Our working conditions are student learning conditions.

Modern Languages; Music; and History, Archaeology & Religion remain in scope. Compulsory redundancy is a red line. It is time to vote in the consultative ballot on industrial action NOW - the deadline is tomorrow.

More 'disruptive innovation'...

'Huddled under blankets in my freezing office, because the anti-suicide lock on the window has seized slightly ajar, I am – like everyone –frantically trying to make it work for the students, [since] any hit in our student satisfaction scores will be an excuse for management to cut more jobs.'

Members! September is flying away, so that means it is time to check your emails to vote in the indicative ballot. Deadline Oct 3rd.

A reminder to members to vote in the indicative ballot by October 3rd

A state of emergency in Welsh and UK higher education

Such deeply sad news for @hefindavid.bsky.social 's loved ones & community. Such a loss. Hefin was a great friend of our branch & a committed @ucu.org.uk member - we will always be grateful for his solidarity.

“measures like firing people and closing programmes always seem tough yet rejuvenating, yet always block recovery and hasten decline.“ Neat-yet-painful summary of Where We’re At with #UKHE. The fatalism is understandable but disastrous. None of this is inevitable. isrf.org/blog/a-new-r...

8 members of Cardiff Uni Senate resign. “The relationship between the university’s executive board, including the vice-chancellor and the university’s staff and students is now described as toxic and devoid of even a minimum level of trust”

'One staff member from the School of Arts, Culture, and Language said: “This consultation has been a shambles. All four Business Cases were riddled with inaccuracies, missing data, and were completely inaccessible."' #UKHE #HigherEd

Welsh Universities are ignored by Welsh Gov't & left to burn Wales is behind England, Scotland & N Ireland in both teaching & research funding. Wales has lowest rates of 18yr olds applying to uni Wales is becoming a country that can't afford its future www.walesonline.co.uk/news/educati...

A distinguished archaeologist and academic who publicly opposed Cardiff University’s cuts programme has been ‘spitefully’ denied a status often given to retired professors ✍️ Martin Shipton

QMUL has removed 200 roles in just the last two years. Staggered reorganisations and stealth exits mean the number doesn’t hit the headlines in one moment, but the impact is no less for it in our university. #SaveHE #UKHE qmucu.org/2025/06/26/s...

We have serious concerns about this 👇

Just one example of 'the really sad loss of incredibly important specialist research groups doing important work that impacts lives and economies in all sorts of different ways.'

NEW: Confront investigation into the ongoing repercussions of the asbestos industry in UK universities. Decades after asbestos was banned we reveal the remaining asbestos still present on campuses, related illnesses, and enormous costs universities are left with. confrontpower.org/the-enduring...

That makes this infographic particularly galling. 'This stuff is all great and essential, but we're gonna... let it all fall apart'. Suuuure Jan, right you are. 🤷‍♂️ (3/3)

Vice Chancellor Larner wants Cardiff University to be a ‘living experiment’, as a ‘part social innovation lab, part corporate partnership innovation centre, part civic system transition space’ with constant ‘creative destruction and continual regeneration’

A brilliant take down of the reckless tech-bro optimism of Cardiff University management plans. 'A flagship national university cannot be run like a tech startup.' Indeed, *no* university should be run like that!

Now 99 universities officially making redundancies, and I've heard of a few more to take us over the 100 mark. If I were a student, I'd be 'shocked and offended' by that more than anything else. Still nothing is done. qmucu.org/qmul-transfo...

We will continue to fight on behalf of our members’ jobs, conditions, and the academic disciplines being decimated with every tool at our disposal including consulting our members about future industrial action.

More disastrous news from the joke governance of our university system. Research cash per staff member will only be withheld if you make staff compulsorily redundant - thus hugely increasing the incentive to force them out via the constructive dismissal practices that we know are all too common.