Compulsory Redundancies
In response to growing concerns about potential job losses at the University of Nottingham, our Branch President wrote to the Vice Chancellor, asking her to rule out compulsory redundancies. The Vice Chancellor responded quickly but refused to commit to excluding compulsory redundancies in 2025 or 2026. As a result, our branch initiated the process of entering a formal dispute with the University, which is ongoing and may lead to industrial action.
On April 8, the VC announced that 258 FTE would be cut from a total pool of 3,900 professional services staff as part of phase 1 of Future Nottingham. Given the prevalence of part-time contracts, this is likely to result in more than 258 job losses. If these cuts are not met with voluntary redundancies, then compulsory redundancies will be considered. Of course, this is just the first phase. Phase 2 of Future Nottingham is expected to deliver cost savings that also affect academic and technical staff.
We want to assure our members that we are fully committed to fighting these cuts. Protecting the livelihoods of our members is always our top priority.
What is happening – in American and Canadian Studies?
Many of us are starting to see worrying changes to courses and degree programmes in Schools and Departments right across the University. The implication is obvious: management are laying the ground work for phase 2 of Future Nottingham, with the stated aim of addressing “academic size and shape”. Colleagues in the Department of American and Canadian Studies (in the School of Cultures, Languages, and Area Studies, and Faculty of Arts) are unfortunate enough to have had an early glimpse of what this might look like, with the University already putting their roles and jobs at risk. This is their story.
In October 2024 all five UG programmes in American and Canadian Studies were suspended for one year by the Faculty PVC, citing declining recruitment rates, and meaning no UG students will be recruited for September 2025 entry. In March 2025 these suspensions were extended for an additional year. This looks like closure of the department in all but name, with 9 academic staff potentially at risk of redundancy. However, for the moment staff have been told they are not at risk of redundancy, and that the fate of the department will be decided by Future Nottingham. While other programmes may be being suspended or closed due to low recruitment, no other unit in the university is currently being targeted for the suspension of all programmes in this way.
ACS has queried why they are being singled out in this way, and what the specific UG recruitment thresholds are being used to determine the suspension (or closure) of degree programmes, with no direct response to these points. ACS staff have also made a proposal for rebranding selected degree programmes (which have not fallen below the stated thresholds for programme viability) for future recruitment, as well as for the deployment of valuable existing research and teaching elsewhere in the university, to be considered as part of Future Nottingham. However, there is a larger concern that wider management decisions taken under Future Nottingham will ignore the case for meaningful consultation with staff, and proposals to use existing resources in new ways to meet problems in recruitment and staffing, simply to make job cuts.
The specific loss of specialist teaching and research on The United States and Canada would itself undermine the University’s claims to offer cutting edge knowledge and expertise about urgent contemporary global issues. And the more general managerial approach should be more widely known across the university, so that we can identify where similar moves to cut programmes and units are being made, and develop informed collective responses.
Core unanswered questions:
- What criteria are being used to select degree programmes for suspension or closure?
- Are they being consistently applied across the university?
- Are these routes to staff contract changes, redeployment, and/or redundancies?
- What consultation will take place to involve staff if any of these are proposed?
The UCU Rep for ACS is Robin Vandome, who can be contacted for further information or queries.
Last Updated on May 7, 2026 by UCU Nottingham
