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UCU QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Enormous solidarity with @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social today as they begin a huge strike period. Here's hoping it gets management back around the table to rethink their devastating job cuts and programme closures

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 07/08/2026

One table has moved on to how much extra work reorganisations have created, & how moving people into open plan spaces means they can no longer work on campus or meet students easily. Increasing workloads while also making familiar tasks more onerous & crushing morale is the theme. Familiar.

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 07/08/2026

Doing some work in one of our university cafes prior to a meeting. All I can hear is people around me talking about the shabby way they've been treated in the latest cost-cutting measures, misery about redundancies & departmental closures, & discussion of retirement. Things are grim.

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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 06/07/2026

It's really important to emphasize this: the reason that conservatives are arguing for increased teaching loads is that they want to END mainstream humanities research

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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 07/07/2026

That includes so-called “non-research” or “teaching-intensive“ institution. Time for research and knowledge creation is important for everyone.

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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 07/07/2026

On the teaching load thing: professors actually teach far too much; universities should be hiring more faculty so that nobody has to teach more than a 2/2.

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Jason Piper @jv8p.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Cutting courses is the easy choice. The difficult choice is saying “we don’t have the money right now, but the future is important. Somehow, we’ll find a way to prioritise a long term vision of governing a country (and its people) over the short term expediency of running an economy.”

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Natalia Cecire @ncecire.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

So many departments right now dealing with this exact thing: the massive extra push of work to launch a new curriculum, mandated from above, while under threat of redundancy

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UCU QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Our fantastic pickets this morning and afternoon 💗✊🏻💗 The number of students and parents thanking staff on the pickets for their dedicated hard work as lecturers and support staff AND for fighting against the cuts made us a bit teary. Thank you for all your support #StopTheCuts

A picket line outside Usher Hall with pink UCU flags and placards saying NO COMPULSORY REDUNDANCIES and STOP THE CUTS

A picket line outside Usher Hall with a pipe band behind us

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UCU QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

We're being treated to a pipe band on the picket line this morning! Out of sashes but plenty of stickers left. Loving the student solidarity: "What do you mean? That's wild - this is what QMU is all about - the support is better than anywhere else" #StopTheCuts

A picket line with union members holding pink flags and placards

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Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Academics fear they are being “set up to fail” after several institutions finished the academic year by announcing fresh job cuts, casting doubt over who will return after the summer break, and what courses they will be teaching #highered #jobcuts #edusky ow.ly/VJVG50ZkBOr

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William Carruthers @williamcarruthers.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

One thing that I suspect is now going to happen is that universities will realise how many academics have been self-funding research when less of it starts to appear.

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UCU QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Back on the picket line this morning to #StopTheCuts, 9-11 and 1-3 outside Usher Hall, see you there! Managed to reclaim most of the sashes from our amazing students and our armbands will be replenished! ✊🏻

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Ana Viñuela @anavinuela.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I can tell you already how universities are going to adjust: firing more people, increasing the student to teacher ratios, reducing degrees offer and increasing any other charges they can find. Why is the UK so determined to destroy Higher Education?

Screenshot of a text from the article linked: “These reductions in funding will be more sharply felt by some institutions than others,” he said. “All institutions will now need to plan for how best to adjust their budgets to ensure they continue to deliver high-quality courses and resources to students.”

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UCU Scotland @ucuscotland.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social on strike today & tomorrow to defend jobs, opposing possible compulsory redundancies and cuts to research & scholarship time. At graduations today and tomorrow at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh congratulating the students they've taught ✊️ #StopTheCuts #SaveHE

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UCU QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

We're celebrating students' success on the first day of graduation ceremonies and calling for QMU management to stop the cuts and changes to working conditions that will damage the student experience, staff wellbeing and quality of the university #StopTheCuts #UCU

A picket line outside the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, populated by absolute legends with sashes, placards and flags for the UCU strike against the cuts at QMU

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UCU QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Would be nice if our leaders would challenge this situation in any way, rather than enthusiastically line up to put us through an experimental mini-merger by sharing with ENU and SRUC as many professional services and academic programmes as they can manage 😶

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UCU QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Morning folks, it's our first strike day against compulsory redundancies and reduction in research and scholarship time. Members, check your email for picket details, see you there ✊🏻

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Dr Martin Roberts @robertsmartino.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

"[Universities]were here long before the locusts [(aka management consultants)] started eating the harvest: they will be with us long after the plague has passed." I sincerely hope so. The locusts are amongst us, and too few see their evil ways. www.ft.com/content/5032...

ft.com

Management consultants are ruining UK universities

Relentless off-the-peg commercial rewiring has undermined British higher education

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Martin Paul Eve @eve.gd · 28/06/2026

"Wildly optimistic management may dream that the remaining staff can be stretched further, but in the real world that will just lead to further staff losses as the burden and stress on remaining staff increases."

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Jenni Adams @jenniad.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

I like this idea: mandatory arts and humanities classes for university leaders. No cutting / devastating / de-staffing disciplines without at least a basic understanding of what they do & and how they can enrich our approach to questions like what education is for…

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UCU Scotland @ucuscotland.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Lobby of court by @ucuqmu.bsky.social defending jobs and opposing cuts. Calling for management to rule out compulsory redundancies & stop proposed reduction in research time #SaveHE #StopTheCuts

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Paolo Sandro @paolosandro.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

This. I don't see a long-term future for UK universities unless: a) we de-professionalise upper management; and b) we ban the use of external consultants

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David Storey @davidstoreygeog.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

"The neoliberalization and managerialization of UK universities, where we are expected to rubber stamp top-down initiatives, have led to our infantilisation...& the erosion of the universities’ academic community and intellectual life" @isrfoundation.bsky.social isrf.org/blog/dispatc...

isrf.org

Dispatch From a Middle Manager

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professor tools for commensality (red scare edition) @inquiline.myatproto.social · 16/05/2026

no point in playing an evidence-based game with people who expressly disavow it

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professor tools for commensality (red scare edition) @inquiline.myatproto.social · 16/05/2026

what i love ("love") about data like this is you could show it to decisionmakers all day long; they will then proceed to cancel humanities programs as they intended all along

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Natalia Cecire @ncecire.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Every university should have broad subject coverage; that's what a university is

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Natalia Cecire @ncecire.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

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

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Dan McQuillan @danmcquillan.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Two factors dominate UK higher education right now: 1) mass redundancies, especially in subjects that emphasise critical thinking. 2) the growing pervasiveness of AI. This is what we call 'technopolitics'.

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

This isn't what I argued, but also, can someone *please* write up some good stuff on the way universities/consulting firms change metrics over time to find the one that justifies closing departments?

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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 08/05/2026

Was in a meeting earlier today trying to explain to the provost the value of the humanities & history. Completely uninterested & dismissive. I guess this is to be expected but nevertheless it's depressing how impervious university administration can be to all of our evidence and arguments.

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Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

I like to tell the story of how, as my first postdoc ended, I asked a dean about an ongoing job. "We don't hire traditional scholars any more," he said, "we hire people who can bring in external grants around which we can build [cash-cow] master's programs." Proud, then, to be a traditional scholar.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Yes, you see, what he meant to say is that he is driven by curiosity about what it would be like to have more money.

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Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

I think I'd say ... Don't run universities like a business; run them like universities. Not everything is assimilable to some other market-based category. Universities have their origins, and in many ways find their deepest purposes, in a medieval world very different from our own.

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 07/05/2026

My university has just described the closure of a department & cutting of courses as 'an exciting opportunity', creating 'new possibilities for growth'. The only growth here is in senior management using marketing bullshit to describe the sector-wide destruction of the arts & humanities.

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Gav Maclean @gavmaclean.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Please everyone sign and support my east side comrades. Sociology in the post-1992 sector is being gutted and sociology itself is being made into a subject for elite universities.

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Karl Johnson @karlpjohnson.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

speakout.web.ucu.org.uk/protect-jobs... Last week the Sociology Team & other colleagues were told we're at risk of redundancy amid sweeping harmful changes at QMU. Please sign this @ucuqmu.bsky.social @ucuscotland.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk petition to support protecting our jobs, courses & students.

speakout.web.ucu.org.uk

Protect jobs and courses at Queen Margaret University

To Sir Paul Grice, Senior Leadership Team and members of the University Court at Queen Margaret University The Scottish higher education funding model is failing, destabilising staff and students. Th...

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

twenty years ago people attacked universities by deriding “Mickey Mouse degrees” like media studies in favour of “proper” subjects like history, and now universities are skipping that step and simply abolishing everything that isn’t economics

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

The problem with this assetization of academic content through platforms and AI repackaging is not just about IP rights, but erosions of academic freedom as our work in HE becomes governed for its value-generating potential more than its educational value. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

link.springer.com

Assetizing academic content and the emergence of the ‘assetizen’: education platforms, publisher databases, and AI model training - Higher Education

Higher Education - Academic content, such as teaching materials and academic publications, has become an economic resource. This has occurred through assetization as the key economic regime in...

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Once academics were told to upload teaching materials to digital learning platforms, universities and tech firms alike were always going to monetize it. Now AI is being used to amplify the assetization of those digital archives of academic content. codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2026/04/29/a...

codeactsineducation.wordpress.com

AI and the amplification of academic content assetization

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash A new AI-driven digital learning platform launched by Arizona State University has set off alarm bells among academics for its exploitation of scholarly work. AS…

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UCU QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

👀 It's what the Schools Sustainability Proposals are all about; 70% teaching time, increased use of grade 7 (assistant lecturer) posts - hollowing out the university

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QM_UCU @qmucu.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Right. Almost as if decades of declaring THE MARKET WILL RULE about universities makes universities behave like businesses and thus not, you know, collaboratively? Almost as if this entire model doesn't work for #UKHE?

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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Incidentally, the idea that a major shift to 'vocational learning' is a good thing when the whole nature of work is undergoing a seismic shift is, well, not exactly logical.

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