'While stating that a crackdown on the higher education sector could have a negative impact for the country at large, Centre for Cities said the impact would be more heavily felt in cities including Leicester, Plymouth, Hull and Stoke-on-Trent.' 1/2

Once again, the prestigious universities have pillaged the market, to their own destruction as a brand and the detriment to the students they are recruiting but can't teach properly. All the while laying financial waste to the post-1992s that can. When is government going to step in and fix this?

Not tue students and not the universities that have spent decades building a particular brand. Meanwhile, the post-1992s *specialise* in taking often disadvantaged students and coverting them into high class graduates. That is the model. The funding regime has destroyed this to the detriment of all

To be fair, UKHEIs have made some truly terrible decisions, but ultimately the fault lies with the last government and this one for not fixing a broken funding model. The result will be more job losses at post-1992s, destroyed working conditions elsewhere and poor student outcomes.

Hello UK friends - please, please could you sign this petition against the job cuts at my place of work - 1 in 4 us will be out of a job by August next year if we don't stop the cuts. And once you've signed it, please share. We need your help! www.change.org/p/stop-mass-...

Great support from @staffsucu.bsky.social Aidan at our @ucu.org.uk lobby of the @mybcu.bsky.social governors today. Thank you Staffs for your ongoing support including your donation to our fighting fund! #SaveBCU

Inaccuracies ✅ Missing data ✅ This sounds so very, very familiar…

If you're as concerned as me about the pace and scale of proposed staff cuts and department closures at UK universities, this piece arguing for a new regulatory framework is worth a read 👇 isrf.org/blog/a-new-r...

Oh, here's a shock: Higher Education has a management problem because its culture is saturated with bullying and bad practice. Dundee's Gillespie is just the particular person acting as a lightning rod here.

The report on failures at Dundee University is devastating. All sorts of financial, leadership and governance failures. And this ol’ indicator: ‘Female members of staff in particular, reported being spoken over, side-lined or discussed in public as being obstructive’ www.sfc.ac.uk?news=dundee-...

'The university has informed staff of plans to cut 400 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions by July 2026, with academics the first to go.' Professor Andy Schofield, VC at Lancaster University since 2020, will take up position of Principal & VC at Glasgow University on 1 October 2025.

Our sector is being failed by poor leaders who make us, the university workers, pay for their failings. Their answer is to cut our services to the bone and impose insulting pay offers that fall far below inflation. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I was Chair of my union branch when my university made 10% cuts in staffing and it was extremely tough. I don't have any special insight into how the sector is faring, but what I keep thinking is: in c. 10 years the press/business/civil service are going to ask for an expert in x or y... 1/2

...and universities will say: we don't have an expert in x or y because the postdoc who was going to be that expert was let go 10 years ago. Other countries don't have the structures to foster hugely diverse homegrown academic expertise. We are squandering our inheritance. 2/2

*not all other countries. Plenty do.

Prey do tell, how is all that slashing of Professional Service colleagues going, @durham-university.bsky.social? This is why 'efficiency' never is effective in the real world. If you cut your staffing to well below the bone, there's no flex to catch mistakes on time. #SaveHE

'“Serious investment” is needed in UK universities to help them adapt for lifelong learning, as new research shows half of employers plan to increase training budgets in the coming years – but universities are “not the first choice” for provision.' 1/2

With respect, some of us (the great majority of academics I work with and all the learned societies I've every worked with) never gave up on collegiality as a core value and practice. Link to UUK report: www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/c...

30% living at home, more than 50% of the most disadvantaged. When 'regional universities' start to shutter, or now, when they reduce the range of courses, it will exclude those students from higher education. The government knows this, and still they do nothing

The United Kingdom simply does not possess the governance capacity to allow universities to fail - it is unimaginable. Yet here we are.

Now emancipated from its paywall. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

Here's the headline university job losses this year so far - they add up to 3,111 jobs. In reality there have been far more, because a lot of posts are closed with no fanfare at all. they are just the jobs that are being most brutally culled. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-univ...

This is what the redundancy wave in British Higher Education currently looks like on the map: ‘British University Redundancy Map’ maps.app.goo.gl/yUteDm2MCXUi...

Very true. And it's a sector with high economic benefits. Universities UK report an economic impact of £158bn, or £265bn including the impact of international students. Every £1 of public money invested into UK universities generates £14 of economic benefit. www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/news/...

The UK government is proposing to finally finish off its universities by further tightening the terms of the graduate visa route. The stupid fools. Playing with dangers they don't even understand. www.ft.com/content/f441...

Three entirely cost-free interventions that would save time and resources that HEIs currently can't afford: 1. Reinstate number controls 2. Cancel REF 3. Loosen visa restrictions Can't see the RG supporting 1 and 2 as core sources of their current dominance. And yes, we need a major rethink.

The government acts like universities are a financial burden on taxpayers, when the reality is that they are a massive boost to the economy (every £1 spent generates £5). That’s quite aside from the huge benefit to the nation‘s cultural and civic life & of scientific research.

If you're being approached by SOAS to do marking, be aware that the SOAS tutors are on a marking boycott & you're being asked to scab mark (managers don't feel they should be transparent about it) hardship fund: gofund.me/71598ef7&sa=... template motion: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Just signed this and would encourage everyone to do so, whether staff, students, alumni, or just concerned citizens H/t Bristol UCU, tho I think they aren’t here yet. docs.google.com/document/d/e...

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

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

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

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...

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...

'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

'THE’s analysis found that the average compensation awarded to employees let go from Russell Group institutions was much lower than that in the rest of the sector.' 3/4

'“What this says to me is that, with the exception of Nottingham, the Russell Group have been shedding lower-paid facilities and support staff whereas the others have been cutting from much higher pay grades,” said Garland.' 4/4

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.

Universities are critical to opportunity and growth. Governments around the UK need to look again at how they support our universities. It is politically unpalatable to raise fees, but the sector is not sustainable. What's to be done?

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...

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!

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…

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...

I love that universities have dozens of departments with experts on every field imaginable, but don't consult any of them on huge, long-term, costly decisions. This is so obviously the case! I'm glad it's been written down now. Maybe in 8 years something will be done about it.

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