Great to see the Guardian champion the SHAPE (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) subjects, but this piece gives impression that they are expensive, whereas many are 'cheap to teach' subjects subsidising more expensive subjects, mainly in STEM and medicine. The crisis demands better understanding.

The Guardian view on humanities cuts in universities: academic departments are more than cost centres | Editorial

Editorial: Literature, the arts and social sciences must not be sacrificed as higher education funding is squeezed

theguardian.com

CDBU’s Chair has penned an open letter to the new Prime Minister, read now on our blog: cdbu.org.uk/open-letter-...

Open Letter to the Prime Minister - CDBU

20 July 2026 Dear Prime Minister On behalf of the Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU), I request a meeting with you to discuss Higher Education. The sector needs a review of managem...

cdbu.org.uk

It was great to get out amongst the many UCU members who were at the Durham Miners Gala last weekend. Stick together and keep fighting is the message. For our sector, our colleagues, our disciplines and departments, and our value as educators and workers. #ucu

University and College Union (UCU)@ucu.org.uk · 3w ago

Stick together. Keep fighting. UCU members at the Durham Miners’ Gala on what the day means to them and their message for everyone facing job cuts right now ✊

What can we learn from data about the current trends in university staffing in the humanities, social sciences and arts subjects? 🧵 Read on for key insights or see the full analysis: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r...

Hey #UCU, I just released v1 of another @ucucommons.org project: JNCHES vs Inflation. Site: jnchesvinflation.streamlit.app Blog post: ucucommons.org/project-jnches-vs-inflation/ It's depressing but may be helpful!

Project: JNCHES vs Inflation

We're happy to announce a new UCU Commons Project: JNCHES vs. Inflation. We've extracted pay spine point data going back to 2005 and plotted it in a number of ways against several inflation measures.

ucucommons.org

If I hear one more university leader say they're making "tough decisions" about redundancies or worsening our employment conditions, I will scream. They are not making tough choices, they're making the easiest decisions in the world. Tough decisions would be fighting the inevitability of job losses

Equality is not conditional. Dignity at work is not negotiable. The EHRC Code of Practice has been published. UCU is examining it urgently. This is a significant and unsettling moment and we will not leave branches to navigate it alone. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1451...

Everyone read the end of it: "Governments in Scotland and Wales have finally realised that a viable, meaningful higher education sector needs greater oversight and control, and cannot be left wholly to the market. Now Westminster needs to wake up to this need for joined-up thinking"

Royal Historical Society@royalhistsoc.org · 3mo ago

The Society's President and Council have released the following statement on the proposed closure of undergraduate degrees at the University of Hertfordshire, in #History and the wider humanities bit.ly/4dmV5oO This comes at a time of further bad news from Essex and Nottingham #Skystorians

The Society's President and Council have released the following statement on the proposed closure of undergraduate degrees at the University of Hertfordshire, in #History and the wider humanities bit.ly/4dmV5oO This comes at a time of further bad news from Essex and Nottingham #Skystorians

History and the humanities at the University of Hertfordshire – a statement from the Royal Historical Society - RHS

Even for those familiar with bleak times, this has been a particularly bad few weeks in UK higher education. Confirmed job losses at the University of Essex were followed by further bad news from Hert...

bit.ly

Solidarity with all trans + people today. And if you're cis like me and have any agency in shaping your institution's policies regarding toilets etc, please exercise it in defence against those who want to take away human rights.

Today @drjogrady.bsky.social wrote to the University of Reading. Trans staff and students are being forced into formal grievances just to find out why policies that affect their daily lives exist. That is not legal compliance. It is institutional opacity. We’re calling on Reading to act.

The UKHE sector needs ofc government intervention asap. But we also need to find a way to end the professionalisation of university upper management. We need to end the insulation of upper management from the rest of colleagues. We need to end revolving doors for VCs between institutions.

China Studies and Chemistry: don't be fooled into thinking their only connection is that they both start with 'Ch'. Our disciplines are connected organisationally, financially, and intellectually in more ways than you think in the university system. Stronger together, weaker without each other.

Actually, I shouldn’t write this in the passive tense. This is an active choice by these people: sheffield.ac.uk/ueb/team-pro... We should take steps to revoke the professional recognition of colleagues who are destroying our fields. They are not worthy of membership of our communities.

Mark Pendleton@markpendleton.bsky.social · 3mo ago

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.

My colleagues in East Asian Studies at Sheffield produce world class research and so many of the UK’s leading experts in Asian Studies have gotten MAs or PhDs there. This is an incredibly shortsighted choice that will diminish this country’s knowledge exchange with a vital region of the globe.

Mark Pendleton@markpendleton.bsky.social · 3mo ago

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.

I have a quick question: Koen Lamberts has been vice-chancellor of Sheffield since 2018. Has he taken any responsibility for gutting entire, internationally renowned departments? The fact that he is still in place tells you everything you need to know about the UKHE sector.

Mark Pendleton@markpendleton.bsky.social · 3mo ago

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.

This sort of absolute vandalism is why we have been on strike. In what world does dismantling chemistry , materials science, and East Asian Studies make sense?

Mark Pendleton@markpendleton.bsky.social · 3mo ago

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.

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.

Just bumping this, while the other FT piece about “Too many young people pushed towards university” is circulating. It isn’t the fault of universities.

David Henig@davidheniguk.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Spoiling a lot of takes but begging a large number of other questions... "Worsening graduate fortunes, it turns out, are a particularly British problem" www.ft.com/content/649d...

This is precisely why it is wrong to frame Higher Education funding as a “middle class kids” issue. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. With every course closure, it becomes more and more true as it rebuilds barriers to University that were only recently torn down.

Dr Jo Edge 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿@hagenilda.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Only vocational courses for the working class and disabled locals and those with caring responsibilities.

Good piece, brief and to the point from @drjogrady.bsky.social Gen Sec of UCU: “We are calling for direct government intervention before the crisis spirals further.” Intervention is cheaper than most think, and pound for pound excellent investment in our future economic prosperity.

The government must intervene before the universities crisis worsens

During moments of political crisis it’s often said there are weeks when decades happen. This has been one such week.

politicshome.com

Sheffield staff who took strike action are being locked out again next week for refusing to replace teaching lost to the strike. But in a strange twist, next week is still a teaching week for us. So management’s brilliant actions have knocked out another week of teaching for no reason.

Teruko Ugaya Craig died last week. She was “just a translator,” married to the late Albert Morton Craig, professor of Japanese history who taught at Harvard University for forty years. But I’d wager her scholarship has shaped this field far more than her husband’s. I know she has for me.

New blog post: The image is gone, only you and I, this means nothing to me: the fractures of #Eurovision 2026 bakercatherine.wordpress.com/2026/05/15/t... …apologies that was a title waiting to happen.

The image is gone, only you and I, this means nothing to me: the fractures of Eurovision 2026

Let’s get the inevitable earworm out of the way before we go on – though perhaps something about the unsettled atmosphere of a Eurovision where even more viewers, past participants and broadcasters…

bakercatherine.wordpress.com

Academic departments deserve to be saved, supported, resourced, allowed to grow even if they're not "best in the country," "first in the REF," "top-ranked," "at a Russell Group uni," or whatever other austerity-brained nonsense senior managers have been using to flimflam you out of solidarity

Please sign and share this petition to stop redundancies @ulsteruni.bsky.social c.org/6S6mQNJDqs

Sign the Petition

Stop redundancies at Ulster University

c.org

Great to be in Belfast briefly today to meet with members and branch reps at Queens and Ulster and stand in solidarity with the 450+ members whose jobs have been threatened by Ulster management. The whole union is behind you @ucu-ulster.bsky.social!

UCU @ QUB@ucuatqub.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Along with the General Secretary of @ucu.org.uk, we stood with colleagues of @ucu-ulster.bsky.social outside @ulsteruni.bsky.social this morning in protest at the shocking plans to make 450+ redundancies.

We 'are a long way from proactive system stewardship. Course closures continue, and the landscape keeps shifting – and contracting. With our interactive maps updated using new 2024-25 HESA data, we can now see, one year on from our first assessment, how closures are reshaping provision [cont.]' 1/4

Subject cold spots are growing. We need to address the root causes

New analysis from the British Academy shows us huge areas of the country where key areas of humanities, arts, and social sciences are not taught. Ruairi Cullen has the details

wonkhe.com

"Ultimately, the UK needs to review how higher education is funded and regulated. We cannot leave the future of essential teaching and research to a scramble for students and a race to recruit." #Skystorians

Royal Historical Society@royalhistsoc.org · 3mo ago

"As long as financial pressures and current student recruitment trends that vary sharply between different providers continue, course closures and cold spots will grow." @britishacademy.bsky.social updates its 'Cold Spots' mapping of SHAPE subjects with 2024-25 HESA data bit.ly/4uKAXCX #Skystorians

Yesterday Kier Starmer announced Labour will nationalise British Steel, and save 2700 jobs. Today, the Uni of Nottingham put 2700 staff at risk of redundancy. This is just one university. Across the UK 15,000 higher education jobs need saving. Where is the rescue package for our universities?