The bonfire of the humanities
150 academic posts at the University of Exeter are to be cut, most in the humanities but also in social sciences, engineering and environmental sciences
While there is never a good time to announce redundancies, there are some moments best avoided. Having people fear for their livelihoods in the run up to Christmas seems particularly cruel. So perhaps the University of Exeter management thought 23rd June an opportune date to announce 150 academic job cuts. Teaching is over, students have gone home, and some staff were away for the start of conference season.
All academic staff were told that 500 had been put into various ‘consultation pools’ within which redundancy targets are set. These 500 would be offered voluntary redundancy. If take up is insufficient, then compulsory redundancies would begin. We were told that if we were put into a pool then we would receive an email between 3:30pm and 4:30pm advising us of that.
Cue frantic refreshing of the inbox while colleagues posted updates on WhatsApp groups. I got to 4:30pm without getting the email. So did several other colleagues, only to be contacted by management at 4:45pm saying that they had mistakenly not been sent an email, and that their job was actually at risk. Online meetings run by management have been conducted with cameras and microphones off. Very little information is being shared, with communications coming via a special purpose email address.
We do know that the vast majority of these cuts would be coming from the HASS faculty - Humanities and Social Sciences, but staff in engineering, maths, and environmental sciences are also targeted. The narrative is that HASS has too many staff with too many teaching modules offering too much choice to students, and so needs to be cut down to align with the leaner operations of the University.
There is also this underlying assumption that the humanities are not well trimmed to the current winds of funding. Earlier this year the incoming head of the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council – the organisation that is the main distributor of funding for the social sciences in the UK – said his organisation would only fund research that is aligned to the UK government’s priority of economic growth. So good luck post/degrowth scholars!
My first degree was in philosophy 1992-1995. This was long before the mutation of the UK’s higher education into its current market-based and transactional form – today’s student fees are supposedly justified given graduates earn more than they would if they did not study. But even then I was very used to being asked “What’s the point of that?” when I said I studied philosophy. Well what’s the point of anything? What they often really meant was: how is that going to help me get a job.
The thing is, graduate employers have long known the value of a humanities and social sciences education because it can equip you with that most desirable skill of critical thinking. How are we doing this? How can we do this better? Why are we doing this? What is motivating this? Should we do this? This of course has broader societal benefits. We need a populace that can think critically and hold their employers and politicians to account.
In that respect, Exeter’s announcement was spectacularly badly timed because it came in the middle of an extraordinary heatwave in the UK and much of Europe. I was in London for Climate Action Week. Stepping off the train from Devon felt like walking down the steps of a passenger jet that had touched down in the tropics. When I read the job cuts announcement email, I was still sweating profusely from having cycled across town and so reeling from this latest manifestation of global heating. I soon learned that 60-70% of the staff at the Environment and Sustainability Institute were are risk, along with the all staff in the Geography, Environmental Science and Marine Science group, Renewable Energy group, and Centre for Environmental Maths . These are recognised as internationally-leading, having conducted outstanding research and teaching for many years and are closely aligned with the UK’s industrial strategy on, for example Clean Energy. So they are exactly the sorts of people that you need to deliver the University of Exeter’s 2030 strategy:
We will use the power of our education and research to create a sustainable, healthy and socially just future. Our shared purpose and vision will continually move us forward to make a difference to our people, our communities, our partners, and to the world around us.
What’s worse, is that these are all based at the University of Exeter’s Cornwall campus in Penryn. We are at risk of turning Exeter’s real success story of regional development into a disaster. I understand that the BA and BSc Geography, and BA Environmental Humanities degree programmes run in Penryn will also be shut. These are truly transdisciplinary courses that regularly get fantastic student feedback. This makes no sense.
We have been told these cuts need to be made given the economic realities facing Exeter and many other universities. Tuition fees in the UK have not been rising with inflation and so the value of teaching income has been steadily eroding. The strategy of recruiting high fee paying international students hit the buffers with tightening of visa rules and other governmental efforts to reduce migration. So an ever larger hole has been appearing in universities finances. But the University of Exeter is in surplus.
Management argues that they need to cut 150 staff because their modelling shows that unless staff costs are reduced to below 55% of total University costs, then the University will soon be in economic trouble. That we have been making hay and storing it, means the University has been sensibly making the most of the sunlight. Winter is coming. Unfortunately I cannot scrutinise these models. I’m sure there are potentially sensitive data in them. But I and the rest of my Exeter colleagues have only been given the thinnest of justifications for this major reduction in staffing. We don’t know when, but probably since December 2025 University management, from Pro-VCs, Deans, down to heads of departments have known that these job cuts were coming. But they have been made to sign NDAs, so good luck asking for details.
Following the announcement, some staff cancelled leave to return to work to try fathom out what was going on. Some staff are considering whether they should continue with their planned summer holiday because their job is at risk and they may need to hold on to all the money they have. Some staff, having gotten through another hectic term and mountain of marking, spent most of this weekend anxiously refreshing social media to get information. Some are frightened, many are angry.
I often say that the greatest resource a university has is its people. It’s not a novel argument. But it must be repeated because the goodwill and enthusiasm of staff is the university. We are passionate and deeply committed to conducting research and education. We are immensely grateful for the opportunity to immerse ourselves in subjects that fascinate us and which we believe hold tremendous value to the rest of society. And we do this as a community.
What’s the point of a university education? What are our universities for? These questions need to be answered given the risks not just UK universities face but our entire society with the new turbulent and dangerous world we inhabit. It is a real disappointment that university managers behave as if the answers can only be found in a spreadsheet.
This article is published with a Creative Commons Licence (CC BY-ND). So you are free to republish anywhere for any purpose, but please do not alter the text, and acknowledge James Dyke as the author.
