Tag: 2026 redundancy campaign blog

Email sent to members on Monday 3rd August 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 discuss UoN’s membership in the Defence Universities Alliance. Feel free to share this post with non-UCU members in your area.

Defence Research as a way out of crisis?

On Monday, 13 July Tom Rodden, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, proudly announced that UoN had become a founding member of the Defence Universities Alliance (DUA). ‘The alliance will strengthen collaboration between universities, government, the armed forces and industry in support of UK defence and national security objectives’ (UoN, 13 July 2026). A £182 million defence skills package is purported to generate high-quality defence research as well as graduates interested in pursuing a career in the arms manufacturing industry. Is this the most constructive way forward for a university which finds itself in its most severe, self-inflicted crisis around Future Nottingham restructuring?

Under Article 1 of the DUA charter, members “will commit to actively growing research and development activity and capacity in defence and national security relevant fields to support defence aims and objectives” (DUA Charter). Article 2 of the charter obliges members to promote defence industry-related careers within their institutions and to support “defence skills requirements” (DUA Charter). Article 3 commits members to supporting a host of collaborative undertakings with the “wider Defence community” and other DUA members (DUA Charter).

What could UoN’s contribution look like? We are told that ‘an example of the impact of dual-use technologies is a partnership with the Ministry of Defence, which is exploring how the world’s first mobile quantum brain scanner, developed at the University of Nottingham, can measure the effects of blast exposure on military personnel in real time at training sites’ (UoN, 13 July 2023). How wonderful! How about exploring ways of avoiding anyone being exposed to bomb blasts in the first place?

Military related research is highly problematic for a number of reasons. First, it produces no use value. The resulting commodities are for deterrence at best but – especially in the case of a country like the United Kingdom, which is almost constantly involved in military adventures abroad – are ultimately the means by which to kill people. Second, arms manufacturing and the military are some of the biggest global polluters. ‘It is estimated that the military sector (including industries that produce equipment and weapons) is one of the largest sources of emissions, producing 5.5.% of total global emissions’ (CEDARE 2025). Unsurprisingly the US military, with which the United Kingdom has a notoriously toxic romance, is especially problematic (Martin, Earth’s Greatest Enemy, 2025). Third, arms manufacturing draws on resources desperately needed to confront the real problems of our time including a crumbling National Health Service and an underfunded education system.

In their May 2026 official statement on the DUA, Demilitarise Education (dED) spells out four major ways the Alliance represents a threat to academic freedom. This is by:

• • Redirecting research priorities away from addressing pressing social, environmental, and humanitarian challenges toward military applications;
  • Compromising institutional independence by making universities dependent on arms/military funding and strategic alignment;
  • Military career pathways prioritised through UCAS-linked partnerships and £182 million for Defence Technical Excellence Colleges, creating institutional pressure to align with military priorities (Press release here);
  • Creating ethical conflicts for researchers and students whose values oppose war and militarisation.

In short, increased defence research money is not an opportunity for Higher Education. It comes on the heels of widespread financial difficulties across the sector (Universities UK, 25 February 2026) as well as cuts to research funding (BBC, 9 July 2026), re-directing efforts away from more productive areas.

It is often argued that the new security environment would leave us with no alternative but to strengthen our defences. In June 2026, then UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that Russia could attack us as soon as in four years’ time (Euronews, 5 June 2026). Considering that Russia has over the last four years unsuccessfully attempted to win a war against the comparatively small Ukraine, such assessments look rather far-fetched. Instead, a threat is being artificially manufactured in order to justify increased defence spending in the interest of arms manufacturers’ profits. Where is the critical research at UoN analysing this ‘manufacturing of insecurity’?

The announcement of the University of Nottingham’s participation in the DUA is combined with assurances that defence research is controlled by ‘rigorous ethical oversight’. ‘The University of Nottingham has robust governance and policies which ensure that defence and dual-use research at Nottingham is conducted in a way that aligns with university values and upholds the highest standards of integrity’ (UoN, 13 June 2026). When challenged by trade union representatives on what this would mean in practice, we were told that the university would of course not cooperate with actors like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. How reassuring! And this, when we know how deeply UoN is complicit in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people through its research contracts with arms manufacturers, its cooperation with Israeli universities and its investment in corporations, which deal with Israel (NCLP 2024). Support of, and collaboration in, genocide are apparently part of these oh so special values which this institution upholds.

In short, membership in the DUA is nothing to celebrate. It is an unethical, shameful, and desperate decision by a management that sends our university stumbling from one crisis into the next. As Demilitarise Education states, “at a time when devastating conflicts continue across Congo, Sudan, Ukraine, Palestine and beyond, universities should not deepen their entanglement with industries that profit from violence, displacement, occupation and human suffering. The DUA is being presented as a neutral partnership for innovation and skills development. We reject this framing.” (Demilitarise Education Official Statement on the DUA).

                  On behalf of the Branch Committee

Email sent to members on Tuesday 28th July 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 discuss in ‘Animal Farm’ style current graduation-celebrations. Feel free to share this post with non-UCU members in your area.

After the Graduation Celebration

The banners had been folded away. The speeches were over. The Farm had once again declared itself stronger than ever.

The animals returned to work.

The Boxers were thanked for their decades of loyal service. Each received a certificate praising their resilience, dedication and invaluable contribution. Shortly afterwards, they were informed that changing circumstances regrettably meant their experience was no longer required. They were wished every success elsewhere. The pigs assured everyone this was, of course, an investment in the Farm’s future.

The Snowballs fared differently.

There was no public punishment. That would have looked untidy. Instead, they simply ceased to appear where decisions were made. Their names slipped quietly from committees. Their suggestions became impractical. Their concerns became negativity. Their insistence that two and two still made four was judged insufficiently aligned with the Farm’s strategic direction.

When the younger animals asked who had first warned that the granaries were empty, they were told that nobody of consequence had done so.

When they asked who had questioned the figures, they were informed that malicious rumours had briefly circulated, but responsible leadership had prevented confusion.

When they asked why the old horses looked so tired, the pigs explained that change was always difficult for those who struggled to embrace opportunity.

The remaining animals learned quickly.

Working harder had not saved Boxer.

Being right had not saved Snowball.

The lesson was obvious.

Keep your head down.

Repeat the slogans.

And if anyone asks who predicted all this, look puzzled and say you cannot quite remember.

Email sent to members on Monday 20th July 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 discuss targeting Open Days as a potential form of action to put pressure on management. Feel free to share this post with non-UCU members in your area.

Targeting Open Days?

To date, we have excluded targeting Open Days as a potential form of action even though we know from the past that it is a potentially powerful tool to put pressure on management. As many colleagues have pointed out, by highlighting negative aspects about our university at Open Days, we are likely to scare off future students, who may decide to go elsewhere. The financial situation of Nottingham University would deteriorate further, putting pressure on the institution to make yet more redundancies.

Nevertheless, is it ethically correct to recruit students to our university, when we know how much damage Future Nottingham does to teaching here? Management intends to teach the same number of students if not more with seven hundred fewer staff. Seminar sizes will increase drastically, pastoral and academic support for students will deteriorate. The streamlining of programmes and courses implies less choice, the intended closure of Modern Languages and the Language Centre will prevent students from combining their degrees with the learning of a language. Do we not have a moral duty to point out to applicants that they will have better opportunities elsewhere than at our university?

We have always been clear that our industrial action is not only about defending our jobs and working conditions. We are also defending students’ learning conditions. If management continues to steamroller its destructive restructuring, do we not have to think again about targeting Open Days?

                On behalf of the Branch Committee

Email sent to members on Monday 13th July 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 discuss management’s mantra that ‘doing nothing is not an option’. Feel free to share this post with non-UCU members in your area.

Doing Nothing Is Not An Option

It’s remarkable how a power structure will remain wedded to its way of doing things even when all evidence points to it not working. At present the University Executive Board is – from an observer’s perspective at least – doing just that. They (or maybe their parasites consultants?) have invested so much psychic energy into the plans for Future Nottingham 2 that over time it has become increasingly difficult for them to admit that there are fundamental problems or listen to reasoned advice about its various flaws. UEB spent months and months pushing back the release of FN2 plans because they were not ready. The delay heightened the commitment to the plan, so when they did unveil it, including a new academic structure and swinging FTE reductions, they had already sunk costs into this specific pathway, the One and Only route to surplus (the end goal). The One Plan also has a specific timeline to give it (seemingly) exogenous pressure. Budging on any fundamentals is thus hard to do when one is emotionally invested in the correctness of one’s approach, and when there is a limited amount of time to execute it. The welter of negative media attention, the response from dumbfounded staff members – all of this just demonstrates the ultimate correctness of the One Plan and its Vision. Those who display such “resistance to change” (as staff have been repeatedly characterized) are simply unwilling to accept the “difficult decisions” and brute necessity of 1991-style shock therapy. Because of this commitment, alternatives cannot be evaluated on their own merits, but instead for compatibility against the One Plan. Requests for more data will be heard as retreading old ground or attempts to slow the process since the One Plan – by virtue of being the One Plan – is intrinsically well-evidenced and time-sensitive. And so on.

This is set against a backdrop of increasing authoritarianism in the university’s governance structure. It was always there, because it has been set up this way for a long time. Greenaway’s dictatorial format gave way to West, who seemingly attempted to respond to staff desires for greater democracy in governance, but turned out more a matter of change in style than actual substance. Norman and her team are simply using the tools that were already baked into the organisational structure, exploiting the withered mechanisms of oversight and scrutiny, and constructing circular self-dealing architectures of governance (aka ‘marking your own homework’). But the key legitimacy problem for this style of authoritarian and unaccountable university governance is the bare facts of the track record. And the track record is horrible. It gave us the Castle Meadow Campus debacle. It channeled surplus into top-down pet projects (“Beacons of Excellence”) rather than building up reserves. It gave us bad IT procurement processes like Unicore and Campus Solutions that never bothered starting with actual staff needs. It gave us the deleterious restructures of Project Transform. It gave us many millions of pounds in Estates backlogs and attendant failings for the Biomedical Services Unit, various roof collapses, emergency repairs to University Park’s Precambrian district heating system, etc. And it gave us interminable negotiations over the Malaysia Campus. The fruits of UoN’s existing governance structure are rotten.

UEB is a fan of the phrase “doing nothing is not an option”. Staff have now heard or read it countless times. What this device does is to position any criticisms of the One Plan as advocating “doing nothing” (e.g., “the data doesn’t justify this plan”, to which one responds “well, we can’t do nothing!”). But there isa matter at UoN for which “doing nothing is not an option”. And that is doing nothing to change the governance of the university. We’ve extensively stress-tested centralized and authoritarian style management structures, and they have led us to spiral out of control. Doing nothing really isn’t an option here. Instead, we need some radical shifts in governance principles: we need more decentralization and devolution of power, and we need more participatory democracy. This option has not been tried. And the risk assessment for such a change: things can hardly go much worse, now can they?

       On behalf of the Branch Committee

Email sent to members on Monday 6th July 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 elaborate on the tunnel vision driving current restructuring plans. Feel free to share this post with non-UCU members in your area.

Tunnel vision all the way!

Management had a golden opportunity to bring the current industrial dispute to a close providing space for completing all the necessary marking in time for graduation. Our financial counterproposal has demonstrated how the necessary savings can be obtained without redundancies. And even if management was not convinced by every detail of the proposal, the more than 300 applications for voluntary redundancy could, even should have given management the confidence to rule out compulsory redundancies and guarantee some degree level provision in those areas currently earmarked for full closure. And yet, management chose not to do this. Instead, they made two paltry offers, which were both soundly rejected by UCU members. And not only this, management even inflamed the situation further by deducting pay for weekends.

It is very clear that management is neither concerned about students’ interests nor is it worried about the impact on UoN’s reputation. It is driven by a tunnel vision, focusing on the implementation of its ill-conceived Future Nottingham plans. There is no support for management’s plans, not from staff, nor from students, nor from local councillors and MPs. Senate overwhelmingly voted twice against them, reports in the media are scathing. And yet, management proceeds regardless.

This is not the first time that such a tunnel vision has underpinned management decision-making. In Senate meeting after Senate meeting, elected members of Senate had pointed out the folly of acquiring Castle Meadow Campus (CMC). And again and again, management, of which many are still in key positions in UoN, brushed aside concerns arguing that CMC would be an investment into the future of the university. I still remember well the moment when David Park, the Dean of the Business School, boldly stepped to the microphone in Senate, declaring that the Business School was delighted about the opportunities CMC offered for its expansion. If the rooms were not suitable for teaching, then the Business School would simply need to adjust its way of teaching.

UCU too warned management against the acquisition and redevelopment of CMC. As late as the Autumn of 2024, we were still told that we would be given a special tour of the premisses so that we could understand its potential. Over the course of 2025, CMC was suddenly less and less mentioned, our guided tour never took place. Eventually, it became clear that CMC was being prepared for sale in parts or whole. Management’s tunnel vision had resulted in the loss of £65 million.

Future Nottingham, driven by the same tunnel vision, will also result in disaster. The damage this time, however, is likely to be much bigger, undermining the future of UoN as a whole. This is why our struggle against Future Nottingham is not only about defending jobs of our members or securing the interests of students. It is after all also about ensuring a future for our university. We must hold the line!

                                      On behalf of the Branch Committee