Mark Pendleton

UCU’s elections concluded this week and I am honoured to have been elected as the next Vice-President for Higher Education, to become President in 2029-30. Thank you for all the support. A short statement about the election and what’s to come after I take up the role in May.

Huge. Huge testament to the power of organising. Huge relief for Exeter friends and colleagues. Huge waste of time and resources. Huge reputational damage done. Huge warning to universities who want to treat their staff like they don’t matter.

The University of Exeter has confirmed that it won’t proceed with compulsory redundancies “at this time”. This means colleagues do not need to complete the pro forma, and there will be no selection process.

A victory of sorts. We may have lost around 100 colleagues, who left ‘voluntarily’, but no one was sacked, our ballot closes on Wednesday and not all our conditions have been met (eg workloads), and we are in a very different place as staff and Union. Time to #ReclaimExeterUni @ucu.org.uk

Sheffield UCU members have had enough. Repeated restructures, job cuts and relentless change facing staff at the University of Sheffield. 84% of voting staff and PhD students recently said they have no confidence in university management. Please watch and share.

🎥 We are putting together a package to support and amplify every single dispute in the union. Today is our first ever local dispute video from the brilliant Glasgow Caledonian UCU Branch who are fighting to protect jobs. Please give it a watch and share.

Our second local dispute video comes from Nottingham UCU, where members are fighting to protect more than 700 jobs and defend vital courses. They’ve already taken action and are gearing up for more. Please give it a watch and share in solidarity with Nottingham UCU.

84% of staff and research students at Sheffield Uni vote no confidence in the current leadership. This is no surprise after years of upheaval, lack of direction and “change” for the sake of change. Nobody, least of all the VC, knows what he’s doing or why. @sheffielducu.bsky.social

The UK is in its fifth heatwave. Wildfires. Drought. Record-breaking heat. Exeter University’s response? Close Geography in Cornwall and put vital climate expertise at risk. We need this expertise more than ever. #DefendExeterUni

I've just heard that the BA/BSc Geography programme is to close at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Geography and Environmental Science (CGES) in Cornwall. This programme was made up of excellent modules with original and content, taught brilliantly—often with real innovation—by extremely 1/9

Great to see the Guardian champion the SHAPE (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) subjects, but this piece gives impression that they are expensive, whereas many are 'cheap to teach' subjects subsidising more expensive subjects, mainly in STEM and medicine. The crisis demands better understanding.

CDBU’s Chair has penned an open letter to the new Prime Minister, read now on our blog: cdbu.org.uk/open-letter-...

It was great to get out amongst the many UCU members who were at the Durham Miners Gala last weekend. Stick together and keep fighting is the message. For our sector, our colleagues, our disciplines and departments, and our value as educators and workers. #ucu

What can we learn from data about the current trends in university staffing in the humanities, social sciences and arts subjects? 🧵 Read on for key insights or see the full analysis: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r...

Hey #UCU, I just released v1 of another @ucucommons.org project: JNCHES vs Inflation. Site: jnchesvinflation.streamlit.app Blog post: ucucommons.org/project-jnches-vs-inflation/ It's depressing but may be helpful!

Equality is not conditional. Dignity at work is not negotiable. The EHRC Code of Practice has been published. UCU is examining it urgently. This is a significant and unsettling moment and we will not leave branches to navigate it alone. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1451...

Everyone read the end of it: "Governments in Scotland and Wales have finally realised that a viable, meaningful higher education sector needs greater oversight and control, and cannot be left wholly to the market. Now Westminster needs to wake up to this need for joined-up thinking"

The Society's President and Council have released the following statement on the proposed closure of undergraduate degrees at the University of Hertfordshire, in #History and the wider humanities bit.ly/4dmV5oO This comes at a time of further bad news from Essex and Nottingham #Skystorians

Solidarity with all trans + people today. And if you're cis like me and have any agency in shaping your institution's policies regarding toilets etc, please exercise it in defence against those who want to take away human rights.

Today @drjogrady.bsky.social wrote to the University of Reading. Trans staff and students are being forced into formal grievances just to find out why policies that affect their daily lives exist. That is not legal compliance. It is institutional opacity. We’re calling on Reading to act.

China Studies and Chemistry: don't be fooled into thinking their only connection is that they both start with 'Ch'. Our disciplines are connected organisationally, financially, and intellectually in more ways than you think in the university system. Stronger together, weaker without each other.

Actually, I shouldn’t write this in the passive tense. This is an active choice by these people: sheffield.ac.uk/ueb/team-pro... We should take steps to revoke the professional recognition of colleagues who are destroying our fields. They are not worthy of membership of our communities.

My colleagues in East Asian Studies at Sheffield produce world class research and so many of the UK’s leading experts in Asian Studies have gotten MAs or PhDs there. This is an incredibly shortsighted choice that will diminish this country’s knowledge exchange with a vital region of the globe.

East Asian Studies is being gutted at Sheffield - all staff at risk with 8.6 FTE proposed to go (a third of us). Biggest cuts in Chinese and Japanese Studies. We’ll be taking a few days to process. Solidarity to Materials and Chemistry colleagues who are also dealing with similarly bad news.

Just bumping this, while the other FT piece about “Too many young people pushed towards university” is circulating. It isn’t the fault of universities.

This is precisely why it is wrong to frame Higher Education funding as a “middle class kids” issue. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. With every course closure, it becomes more and more true as it rebuilds barriers to University that were only recently torn down.

Good piece, brief and to the point from @drjogrady.bsky.social Gen Sec of UCU: “We are calling for direct government intervention before the crisis spirals further.” Intervention is cheaper than most think, and pound for pound excellent investment in our future economic prosperity.

New blog post: The image is gone, only you and I, this means nothing to me: the fractures of #Eurovision 2026 bakercatherine.wordpress.com/2026/05/15/t... …apologies that was a title waiting to happen.

Please sign and share this petition to stop redundancies @ulsteruni.bsky.social c.org/6S6mQNJDqs

Great to be in Belfast briefly today to meet with members and branch reps at Queens and Ulster and stand in solidarity with the 450+ members whose jobs have been threatened by Ulster management. The whole union is behind you @ucu-ulster.bsky.social!

We 'are a long way from proactive system stewardship. Course closures continue, and the landscape keeps shifting – and contracting. With our interactive maps updated using new 2024-25 HESA data, we can now see, one year on from our first assessment, how closures are reshaping provision [cont.]' 1/4

"Ultimately, the UK needs to review how higher education is funded and regulated. We cannot leave the future of essential teaching and research to a scramble for students and a race to recruit." #Skystorians

Yesterday Kier Starmer announced Labour will nationalise British Steel, and save 2700 jobs. Today, the Uni of Nottingham put 2700 staff at risk of redundancy. This is just one university. Across the UK 15,000 higher education jobs need saving. Where is the rescue package for our universities?

Petition to save the Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire: c.org/9JLppW5tMS

Please share your pictures of today’s pickets with us and tag @sheffielducu.bsky.social 🚨Reminder the rally will take place 13:00 outside Firth Court 🚨

Back on strike with @sheffielducu.bsky.social. Why? Management is pushing ahead with restructures despite sitting on £200m+ in reserves. Along with colleagues in East Asian Studies, I also find out in 12 days how many of us they want to fire. No justification is deemed necessary by management.

And passed with overwhelming majority! Such a great set of results from today’s NEC #UCU