Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 22/07/2026Solidarity. If our experience at Exeter is anything to go by, your management will already have plans for compulsory redundancy in place (ours were about a year in the pipeline and dovetailed with the last VS round). 250
Reposted by Ben PhillipsGeorge Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 01/07/2026Something deeply troubling & shocking is happening at Exeter University*, where a mass cull of staff is planned, even though it's in surplus. No good justifications given. @jamesgdyke.info provides the details: www.technosphere.earth/the-bonfire-... *Disclosure: I have a Visiting Fellowship here. +🧵technosphere.earthThe bonfire of the humanities150 academic posts at the University of Exeter are to be cut, most in the humanities but also in social sciences, engineering and environmental sciences 381041507
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 24/06/2026Thanks Tom. It's not just Exeter itself: HASS Cornwall (the combined humanities department at Penryn) will be absolutely laid waste by these plans. 000
Reposted by Ben PhillipsDr Imogen Knox (she/her) @imogenknox.bsky.social · 24/06/2026Heartbreaking and infuriating to see this proposed at the institution which I attended as an UG a decade ago (and chose for its stellar research reputation) and recently returned to on a temporary contract. 271
Reposted by Ben PhillipsGlen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 24/06/2026Unis as critical parts of national infrastructure have been passed over to ill-equipped management teams with very narrow remits - to smash and ruin. Is that a good idea in the era of national competition, economic stagnation and Cold War 2.0? 🤔 www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...researchprofessionalnews.comUniversity of Exeter plans to cut 150 jobs - Research Professional NewsStaff consultation underway, with UCU claiming 14 per cent of academic workforce is at risk 1279
Reposted by Ben PhillipsTimes Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 23/06/2026The University of Exeter has become the latest Russell Group university to announce major job cuts, insisting it “must” take action to reduce financial pressures. Juliette Rowsell reports #highered #jobcuts ow.ly/K8bq50ZfYlY 1156
Reposted by Ben PhillipsMargot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 23/06/2026'The University of Exeter is proposing to cut about 150 staff roles. A spokesperson for the university said it was "consulting with colleagues over limited and specific potential changes across some areas of our academic faculties".' 1/4bbc.co.ukUniversity of Exeter in talks to cut about 150 members of staffThe university says it is consulting with colleagues over "limited and specific potential changes". 84141
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 23/06/2026Thanks, Michael. A truly crap day and surely worse to come. Hope things are better with you. 100
Reposted by Ben PhillipsUCU Commons @ucucommons.org · 23/06/2026Despicable: Uni of Exeter putting over 500 staff at risk of compulsory redundancy. Thoughts are with all Exeter branch comrades. #UCU #UKHE 33719
Reposted by Ben PhillipsDr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 23/06/2026Along with almost all of my colleagues in history, this afternoon I got an email telling me that I am at risk of redundancy. It looks like the University of Exeter sent this email to the vast majority of people in Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty. Bit hard to breath right now. 78264111
Reposted by Ben PhillipsMargot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 23/06/2026A 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 212357
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 23/06/2026These cuts are terrible for all impacted, but they will be an absolute death blow for humanities and social sciences teaching and research. (If anyone has kids planning to come to Exeter for one of these subjects next year, you might want to know about this.) 1137
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 23/06/2026A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide. 16231273
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 20/06/2026The question was about things Burnham could/should do, not what I actually expect him to do. 010
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 20/06/2026Same with universities, which is not a visible win in the sense meant here but still absolutely decisive for many regional economies and also really low hanging fruit in the short term 271
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 07/06/2026I think I have seen this photograph printed in another book (maybe Ermasheva/Zakharina, but can't swear to it) with a longer list of names. The tall guy at the back alongside Kravchinskii and Shishko is Chaikovskii, I think. Not sure on the others. 110
Reposted by Ben PhillipsGav Maclean @gavmaclean.bsky.social · 29/05/2026If 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 727676
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 14/05/2026Broadly speaking I share this pessimism, but it is also possible that Simons has been persuaded that going quietly now may be the best thing for all concerned. 000
Reposted by Ben PhillipsMollie Goodfellow @hansmollman.bsky.social · 14/05/2026Wes Streeting has resigned to take the job he was born to do…regional sales manager for Moss Bros 311175204
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 04/05/2026You're safe, and we will be Spurs this time next year. 110
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 26/04/2026Good to see Chelsea back to winning ways, no doubt re-energised from taking the last month off. 030
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 19/04/2026An ancient curse upon the inventor of the box hedge 030
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 20/03/2026Was it recorded? (The algorithm has only just seen fit to show me this post, two days after your talk.) 001
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 06/03/2026They should have stopped the Top Gun reboot with Maverick, this looks shit 020
Reposted by Ben PhillipsGregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 02/03/2026Who up hating the Great Satan and its wretched imperialist running dogs 211114
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 27/02/2026Even the Spoons coffee machine is happy the Greens won 040
Reposted by Ben PhillipsMarie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 27/02/2026MATTHEW BADLOSS IS IT 19985133
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 18/02/2026This does seem like the obvious conclusion with the UKHE Covid class action. If students didn't get the teaching they paid for, their degrees are academically invalid and that's what needs fixing. (You'd hope their current employers would agree.) 020
Reposted by Ben PhillipsLiesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 18/02/2026Yeah, quite key: it's not £21 million that is going directly to those 6500 students... The only ones winning anything (other than maybe £2000 per student) are the firm raking in the £7 million and the people keen to crash universities. Grim day for #UKHE. 12919
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 14/02/2026Oh I am very sorry to hear this, and thinking of all of you at SSEES. 030
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 11/02/2026I mean I'm not sure I actually knew what he looked like before this and from the looks of him being colonised by immigrants would do him the power of good 100
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 09/02/2026This is not true. The overwhelming mood in the Lab selectorate after 2019 was wanting to vote for a slicker, more managerialist Corbyn, and that is how Starmer presented himself. We would be in a much better position now had he followed through on this. 010
Reposted by Ben PhillipsPhil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 08/02/2026"If McSweeney has a genuine talent, it's as a con man."averypublicsociologist.blogspot.comA Farewell to Morgan McSweeneyWhat a fantastic week. Peter Mandelson toasted to charcoal, the government being forced to make public all communications about him, the pos... 46325
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 08/02/2026I see Starmer had a productive weekend grappling with his conscience then 040
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 07/02/2026...so you still *feel* precarious/ECR even if you no longer count as such; but also many ppl who got the permanent job while still ECR but now find there's no upward movement into the professoriate, partly because SL to AP movement within institutions involves stringent/unachievable grant targets 020
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 07/02/2026I think maybe two aspects to the problem - firstly as the OP says a growing cohort of academics who are already counted as mid career by the time they actually achieve permanency (often at unis where they had a long series of FTCs, so permanency comes through the HR/continuous service route...) 1/ 110
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 05/02/2026Good for them. Hope all well with you too. A bit snowed under with teaching but almost at reading week - hope to be in touch soon about journal stuff! 010
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 05/02/2026Three of those four things seem positive, am glad to hear of it. 110
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 27/01/2026Always enjoy when you follow the advice and put your local radio station on because there's an extreme weather event in progress and they're just playing eighties dance classics as if nothing's happened 030
Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 26/01/2026Hope you're planning to keep the intro/hype music from the last emergency pod. 010