Email sent to members on 13th April 2026.
As part of our campaign to defend jobs and working conditions at the University of Nottingham, we will be sending regular emails, authored by different UCU members, examining key elements of management’s restructuring plans. Today we look at the implications of what redundancy means for academic staff. Feel free to share this post with non-UCU members in your area.
The Academic Dream
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a footballer. Then, around age twelve, I realised I was crap at football. So instead, I decided I wanted to be an academic. Sad and nerdy, I know — but that was my dream.
It wasn’t easy. Academic jobs are bloody hard to come by. I had to finish top of my degree, survive a PhD that was one of the toughest things I ever did, then spend years bouncing around postdoc positions, moving countries every couple of years, unable to settle down. And my partner had to do the same. I was pushing thirty with no security, while my friends were buying houses and starting families.
All of it for the dream of one day getting a permanent academic post. When I finally did, my partner just cried.
Because she knew what it meant. We could finally settle down, just like everyone else.
I love my job. I love teaching, doing research, and being part of a community that creates knowledge. But if I lose this job — I’m screwed. Academic jobs are rare. You don’t just walk into another one. For most of us, redundancy means the end of the dream. The end of a career we’ve spent decades building.
A lucky few might find another post, but not in Nottingham. Probably not even in the UK. Those who do will see their families once a month, if that.
This is what redundancy means for academics. It’s not just losing a job — it’s losing your identity, your community, your way of life.
That’s why I’m asking everyone to fight for my job, my life — and I promise to fight for yours.
Why We Take Action
To strike or take part in a MAB is one of the most generous things you can do.
I love teaching my subject because it’s a brilliant subject. At least that’s how I see it. And I hate telling my students I won’t be in class or that I won’t be marking their exams. I don’t want to lose salary. But I’m putting that aside because I’m fighting for something bigger — for the soul of this university.
I’m striking so that no one’s academic dream is crushed by managerial ideology. I’m striking for our students — not just those here now, but those who’ll come here in five or ten years’ time. They deserve to be taught by staff who feel safe, secure, and valued — not by ghosts in shiny new buildings.
Because that’s the vision of our senior management: more buildings, fewer people.
“The University is Skint” — Really?
I’ve heard some colleagues say, “Why are you bothering? There’s a national funding crisis. The university’s skint. There’s nothing we can do.”
Bollocks.
Even though we threw tens of millions down the toilet with the failed castle meadow campus vanity project we remain one of the richest universities in the country. Yes, there are problems with how higher education is funded — of course there are — but make no mistake: redundancies are a choice.
The Vice-Chancellor admitted this. Our leaders are chasing after a crazy 9% surplus. The VC herself said that the sector operates between 3% and 6%.
So when UCU calls for reducing the surplus target to 3% or 4%, that’s not radical. That’s common sense. It’s about £16 million a year that could be used to keep staff in work and give students the support they need.
But she won’t do it.
Why? Because like so many Vice-Chancellors, she dreams of shiny new buildings — paid for with lost livelihoods. Buildings in which students will be taught by ghosts — ghosts of the staff whose passion and dedication were thrown away on a bonfire of redundancies.
And for what? For a neoliberal fantasy? For a gong and a place in the House of Lords?
People Before Buildings
At a number of town halls, the VC has spoken about “excellence.” Someone asked her how she defined it. Her answer, and I paraphrase: “I know it when I see it.”
I mean, wow.
Is this the kind of critical thinking steering our university into the abyss?
Shame.
I want an employer who puts people before buildings. An employer who will negotiate meaningfully with trade unions instead of just paying lip service. An employer who puts the education of students before managerial ideology. An employer who protects the livelihoods of the people who make this university what it is.
We need to stand together — for our colleagues, for our students, and for the future of the University of Nottingham.
Save our jobs. Save our university!
On behalf of the UCU Branch Committee