This phase of the British Academy's SHAPE Observatory project focuses on academic staff, analysing trends since 2012/13 to explore how staffing levels vary by subject, region and employment characteristics. The data lag: the 2025-26 redundancies you've been reading about are not yet captured. 1/3

‘We should be collectively concerned about a reduction in the pipeline of humanities graduates and the cold spots in knowledge it creates. In an age of AI, we’ll value the understanding of how humans think and act more, not less’ @viviennestern.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/education/20...

🙏. @julietterowsell.bsky.social for reporting on this hugely important issue. @ucu.org.uk ‘Cold spot’ fears over Nottingham language cuts www.timeshighereducation.com/news/cold-sp...

'Politicians from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages have told the university’s executive “in the strongest possible terms to reconsider” the plans, in a letter seen by Times Higher Education.' 1/3

A country and a governing class letting **individual institutions** decide on language provision - contracting out one of the key sinews of any state. A country that is burning itself down from the inside. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

🚨 PLEASE SHARE WIDELY 🚨 If you are an Exeter alumnus, and wish to express your horror at the proposed cuts to the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, please sign the Google Doc petition below. Not an alumnus? You can still help by signing the Exeter UCU petition at c.org/msXfsb2g5b 🗃️

“uncoordinated decision-taking across a fragmented sector” means some disciplines are “disappearing” altogether

Cutting language courses puts social mobility at risk, say UK experts www.theguardian.com/education/20...

TFW your MP gets it and your management does not. Thank you for your support, @nadiawhittomemp.bsky.social! Solidarity!

Coverage for a new report from @hepi-news.bsky.social looking at languages provision in schools www.hepi.ac.uk/2026/07/01/n...

While it may look like the only thing our branch is doing is striking or boycotting, we are also tirelessly working behind the scenes to address the financial problems our university faces.

More clear evidence that the community has our back: city council and members of parliament have joined our president to craft this important joint appeal condemning the horrific financial strategy that our administration continues force on the university.

Colleagues at the University of Exeter need your support! ✍️ Sign the petition: c.org/yKcx6Zr29H The University of Exeter is to cut about 150 staff. The proposed reduction is almost exclusively focused on roles in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, among them Modern Languages and English.

Colleagues at Exeter have asked me to circulate this petition as widely as possible: www.change.org/p/stop-redun...

Exeter, Hertfordshire, & Northumbria: all after marks in & before the end of the financial year. We NEED someone to give a shit about #UKHE, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social. All VCs care about are covenants; their shorttermist fragmented cuts accumulate to the UK losing a sector it can't afford losing.

With hardly any media coverage one of Britain’s few world-leading sectors is, right now, being decimated. The university funding model does not work and anti-immigrant hysteria has deprived the country of the means by which we met the shortfall: international students.

A grim day in a grim week in a grim month for UK higher education, with Dundee, Exeter and Hertfordshire all making major announcements of planned redundancies. Shrinkage of the research & teaching base by the invisible hand's visible fist is not an 'us' or 'them', SHAPE or STEM phenomenon. 1/2

A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.

What's it actually feel like to live through the decline and fall of mass Higher Education in Britain? Today I've written about this from the inside here... Hope you like it, and hope you find it useful. isrf.org/blog/what-do...

‘Decisions to close or to gut particular departments have little to do with intellectual quality: they are invariably managerial choices about the quickest way to reduce an actual or predicted budget deficit.’ Stefan Collini on UK higher education, in the next issue. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

"The future of modern languages will not be secured simply by attempting to reverse falling demand. It will depend on expanding access to the point where demand can genuinely be expressed" by @anademedeiros.bsky.social and @marcecazzoli.bsky.social

East Asian Studies is being gutted at Sheffield - all staff at risk with 8.6 FTE proposed to go (a third of us). Biggest cuts in Chinese and Japanese Studies. We’ll be taking a few days to process. Solidarity to Materials and Chemistry colleagues who are also dealing with similarly bad news.

Thrilled I've got 150 responses to my survey on personal tutoring! I'm aiming for 200 responses, so if you're an academic in UK HE who's had pastoral responsibility for students in the last five years, whatever that's called, with ten minutes spare, I'd love to hear from you. Do share if you can.

Today at 7 pm in the Trent LG Corridor, there will be a student-led exhibition responding to the closure of courses at the University of Nottingham, particularly Modern Languages and Music.

“We are concerned about the growing risk of geographic and subjectbased “cold-spots”, affecting areas and disciplines such as music and modern languages.” #Nottingham is a regional behemoth for the study of #languages - this is so stupid and short sighted publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cm...

Russian authorities have declared the NGO Memorial an “extremist organisation.” It now joins others already on the list, including “international LGBT+ movement” and Navalny’s ACF. Now, even reposting their materials or displaying their logo can result in a conviction. 1/4

At QMUL: - 99 language modules cut - 50 language modules marked as 'to be confirmed' - single honours language degrees in questions - 'possible futures' includes the closure of languages at QMUL altogether The harm done to language studies is immense, and ramifications are not going to be pretty.

'The University of Leicester is to close its film studies and modern languages degree courses to new students.' 'The university has confirmed the courses would cease, but declined to comment on the number of prospective students affected, saying the figure was "commercially sensitive".' 1/2

Have you had personal tutoring responsibilities in a UK HEI in the last five years? I'd love to hear from you! I'm running a short survey on interpersonal relationships & care within personal tutoring, which takes ~10 minutes to complete. Please do share: I'm keen to get a wide range of responses!

We are fast moving from cold spots to blackout. This is not trivial and the impact in terms of access to languages education will be inter generational. How do you “level up” or promote “growth” without a multilingual workforce and the know-how to deploy? www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Few lower tariff unis offer languages, excluding people from under-represented backgrounds who can't travel far to uni. The Uni of Essex is a shining star, offering French, German, Italian, Portuguese & Spanish. This is under threat! Read and sign 👇 docs.google.com/document/d/1...

The University of Essex has proposed to discontinue most of their undergraduate language provisions as well as the Languages for All programme as part of large-scale restructuring. Sign their petition to urge the Executive Committee to reconsider the proposal: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

biggest solidarity to the Department ot Languages and Intercultural Studies (LINCS) at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh): heriotwatt.web.ucu.org.uk/2026/02/04/d... please sign their petition and send them any support they need, this is part of a UK-wide attack on languages education!

I will never not share the excellent digital preservation sweaters. #DHmakes 🧶💾🦖

All members are invited to our General Meeting next Wednesday, followed by a protest outside Senate at 1pm; on Wednesday, Senior Management will ask Senate to recommend the closure of Modern Languages and Film Studies.

I urge you to fill in this consultation if you can - with this very helpful support from Amnesty International - although AND because ! it is heart-breaking that this country has sunk so low that Amnesty suggest in a number of cases to provide no answer as the terms of the question are so evil

YOU SIGNATURE MATTERS! Help us save Modern Languages at Leicester. Sign the petition: www.change.org/p/save-moder...

This is a permanent research snd teaching post. Please share widely and forward to suitable candidates.

This was wonderful www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

'In a House of Lords debate on 8 January, Smith said she recognised “concern…about the reduction in the number of students going into higher education to study modern foreign languages and the threats to some of those modern foreign language courses”.' 1/2

'The institution currently has between 15 and 16 students for every staff member but wants to increase this to between 18 and 22 students, according to a “case for change” document recently shared with employees.' 5 faculties mooted to become 3 colleges.' 1/3

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252: Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email. Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Embassy concerned by under-threat language courses www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

‘If things carry on as they are, there will be very few opportunities for young people to study Music at university, and therefore hardly anybody training as music teachers, and the whole system will then be stuck in a vicious cycle of decline.’ thecritic.co.uk/a-discipline...

I cringe at this kind of disingenuous justification from Nottingham U. "Students are telling us that the way they want to learn languages is changing... we currently have almost 2,000 students studying languages as part of their degree through our Language Centre" www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Suspending music courses will have a devastating impact on musical life at the University, as well as future courses, job, and career opportunities across Nottingham and the wider East Midlands 👇 Read our open letter to the University

⛔ Second statement in one week #saveleicesterml #saveleicesterlanguages Following last week’s formal letter to the University of Nottingham, AHGBI has now issued a second statement—this time to the University of Leicester—regarding the proposed closure of its Department of Modern Languages.