universities under attack
WORKERS, FEB 2005 ISSUE
The government's discredited Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) is leading to the threat of closures across departments in higher education. Research funding - based controversially on the number of times published research is cited by other researchers - depends on the ratings that university departments achieve in the RAE. But university workers are resisting, warning that the RAE distorts higher education and will lead to the destruction of research across the sector.
The Association of University Teachers has condemned plans by the employer at Brunel University to axe 60 academic jobs (one in eight of the academic staff). The proposed cuts would damage every school in the university, including its engineering school - and this in a university named after Britain's most famous engineer.
The employer at Exeter University plans to sack 130 staff and to close the chemistry, mining engineering, Italian and music departments. Local AUT members have condemned these plans.
The AUT has also been active on the pay front and has been able to lift its successful academic boycott of Nottingham University after a ballot of local members. The university council has agreed to negotiate constructively on job grading and pay progression.