Redundancy 2025

[Cartwrightandson]

How is your institution doing? I recall last year there was a lot of redundancies and VS...

But isn't this a classic case of attribution bias?

I'm happy to clarify that my own experience wasn't down to lack of professionalism!

What I was trying to say is that when the landscape shifts dramatically, even smart, strategic decisions don’t always hold. Plenty of people commit to major projects or roles having done due diligence, to pay off at some point beyond their current hiring cycle.

Your response implies that people on permanent contracts should always stay externally competitive and ready to move. That’s a very different model from the one many of us entered under.

Fair enough @WroteOffSunkCosts but actually as an HoD, I always assume:

that people on permanent contracts should always stay externally competitive and ready to move.

Not that they will, but that moving - if one wants to and is offered - is part of an academic career. And in my experience, moving is very good for one's research & teaching.

Also in my experience of mentoring & managing other academics: staying in one place for most of one;'s career can be risky (whatever changes in institutional strategy). People lack experience of broader issues of the discipline, they lack knowledge of the many different ways of doing things, and they can get provincial & complacent.

I guess for me the question is whether striking will make any difference? Clearly your colleagues in UCU think it will. Striking at this time of year seems a bit pointless in terms of impact though as teaching and marking are done. Academics will lose salary but will anyone else be affected?

Totally agree about the timing being off. People lose a days pay, no impact on the students. Management probably delighted to save some money 🤷‍♀️

Why I left UCU, reason #453 ...

I dont think I have ever been a part of such a poor "consultation" as we are going though currently. It has been so poorly executed, and the consultation is a farce. When the failings in the plan are pointed out and how they will be resolved we get a response of "that will be ironed out in the implementation plan" that's it! They have put out new JDs but full admit that they may change under the implementation plan. How can you apply for a ringfenced role when you dont know what that ringfenced role may look like. Its bloody bizarre.

Its a very stressful place to work currently.

Are you at a North London university by any chance?

No south coast.

Hello. I am joining the thread as my DH is an academic at risk of redundancy. (I work outside academia, but did a PhD myself, so I am not completely clueless about the sector).
He's the main breadwinner, and just lost out on a ringfenced higher level admin role (multiple departments are being combined, so three of these roles will become one), and he now goes into a general Professor pool.
@VSShitShow your institution sounds like they are handling this process as incompetently as my DH's workplace, although his isn't in the South Coast.

Sending thoughts to @UpLateDoomScrolling

He sounds productive and pro-active. Fingers very much crossed.

Thanks @WroteOffSunkCosts , he actually recently won a research grant that buys out a third of his time for two years and starts in September. No idea what happens with that if he's made redundant.

It's important income for their REF return, as well as being money for the department! And it's unusual for people at that level to sell out more than half their time on a single project. It's a well timed grant and I'm very happy for him!

For others--the merging of departments will make it seem to university leaders as if there are too many at higher ranks for their leadership needs. And it won't be so easy now for junior lecturers to get the leadership experience they need to progress.

So--the restructuring logic will lead to a different balance of academics throughout the ranks. Even if a particular university is not under financial pressure (and most of them really are) they are not going to waste a useful crisis.

highly unlikely they'll make him redundant in that case. Could he parlay the grant to move to another university? I know when I landed a really large grant (about 3 times the average for my discipline) I had several gentle enquiries from other universities internationally./

All of this is profoundly depressing. FWIW, @UpLateDoomScrolling , the grant your DH has just won sounds to me also like decent protection for now, though nothing is ever guaranteed.

Tbf Doktormutter is a thing too

Yes, but much rarer!

@poetryandwine and @WroteOffSunkCosts, the issue is that there's still 2/3 of his time that needs to be funded by his current institution as the grant only covers 1/3. His institution is in real trouble, due to over expanding when they were getting a lot of overseas students from a particular country who no longer want to come due to problems with their home economy devaluing their currency, which making paying for fees in £ far more expensive for them than it was a few years ago.

@ParmaVioletTea, using the grant to pivot somewhere more stable is what he's currently looking into, by tapping into old networks etc. It's just so stressful to have this uncertainty at a point in our lives when our outgoings are at an all time high (with full time nursery fees for our DS plus mortgage).

Relying on my income wouldn't see us through for very long, as I make a little over half DH's salary.

I believe Liverpool are doing VS, people I know are leaving in July. It's 5 years since they did it university-wide (afaik).

I am sorry, @UpLateDoomScrolling , and I don’t mean to sound glib. But unless the entire unit is being axed, usually some academics at all levels will be retained. Right now your DH is roughly 30% better off than someone without a grant - actually more, because of the grant’s overheads, any junior academics he may be funding, equipment the grant funds, etc.

Of course with some SLT politics is a big factor in decisions about who should for VS. It can be hard to cope with that.

@poetryandwine he is the only subject expert in his area, it's currently a cross disciplinary department, with related disciplines, but his subject is the most distinct.
That department is about to be merged into a larger department combining a range of subjects that don't naturally sit together. It's actually highly likely that they could axe the specific degree programmes in his subject to cut costs to focus on the main ones offered by his current department.

At my uni grants protect noone because university is arguing that they are underfunded and they cost the university money. It is very confusing. Also we barely get any buy out from teaching.

This sucks and I am very sorry

Lancaster university has just completed a voluntary severance scheme and has announced a voluntary redundancy scheme, to be followed by compulsory. The aim is to save 35 million, with a target of 18.7 on the academic payroll (and 16.6 on professional services). We're yet to receive the actual figures, but it looks to be about 400 members of staff - professional and academic - to go.

Blimey. Thats big numbers

My goodness that is a complete blood bath, how awful for everyone involved.

My university has just started a consultation that looks to decimate PS staff in the faculty with departmental roles being centralised, and those that remain will be doing the work of three people from the way the JDs look. Just a few years ago I would have thought university PS roles were a safe bet for being stable and recession proof but I guess not.