ANGER NOT SEEN BEFORE, THE

‘ANGER NOT SEEN BEFORE’

The UK’s embattled universities have embarked on yet another round of cost-cutting, Tom Williams reports, with departments and projects once assumed to be off limits now facing the chop. Sheffield, York, UEA and Hull are among the institutions to announce the need to make savings, as the sector reacts to a decline in international student numbers. Sheffield is “reviewing infrastructure projects and carefully managing staff vacancies”, a spokesperson says, after a 7 per cent decline in international intake contributed to a £50 million accounts shortfall. UEA similarly pinned the need to save £11 million on a drop in international postgraduates, just a year after cutting 100 jobs, while 127 positions are at risk at Hull, which has also shelved a flagship solar farm plan. At York, compulsory redundancies may result from efforts to save a further £2.4 million, with the institution’s University and College Union branch fearing some researchers “key to the university’s future” could be impacted. “The fear is that the university is downgrading itself and the workloads for those left will be immense,” says York UCU co-president Steven Spencer. “There is anger here that I haven’t seen before.”