UCU Commons newsletter #28, 7 October 2026

Dear subscriber

Welcome to the UCU Commons newsletter, a curated set of links and information about what's happening in UCU Commons, our union, and our sectors more generally. As always, we welcome any feedback you may have on this or any other matter.

In today's issue:

What UCU Commons has been doing

Nottingham UCU members were on strike on 30 September and 1 October to coincide with the Council meeting called to approve the case for further cuts to an already-gutted workforce. They will resume their strike on a continuous basis from 5 October–11 December. Our very own Lisa Rüll, the branch’s co-Equality Officer, MCed Thursday’s rally, which was featured on local news. Lisa says, “Local members have shown such strength already, but we understand the need to push back to save as many jobs as possible and the long-term future of the university. Our actions and efforts to demonstrate to senior leaders that there are alternatives have been extraordinary. Branch committee has consistently met with senior leaders in good faith to challenge the processes and decisions being put forward – we wanted meaningful consultation. Nottingham UCU counterproposals (and those by individual teams) showed detailed arguments and evidence for making the savings management demanded without having to resort to compulsory redundancies or course closures. The changes being pushed through to staff-student ratios will further erode the university experience. Senior management could have ruled out compulsory redundancies, but they haven't. Instead, we face an ideologically driven restructure underpinned by overpaid consultancy firms. We want to save jobs, and by engaging with our members and via member action, we seek to save as many roles as possible”.

Higher Education Committee (HEC) members Tilly Fitzmaurice (LGBTQ+ rep) and Bijan Parsia (Disabled rep) have submitted a briefing paper on the Sullivan Review to be discussed at the meeting of the HEC on 9 October 2026. Tilly says, “Announced in 2023 by the former Science and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan (remember her?), the Sullivan Review (SR) should be seen squarely in the context of the then-government’s self-described drive to safeguard scientific research from ‘wokeness’ and ‘the denial of biology.’ However, the Labour government has not repudiated the SR: indeed, the former health secretary Wes Streeting has claimed that it will make outcomes better, fairer and more inclusive for all, including the trans community. Drawing on the excellent critiques recently published on the SR and trans-exclusionary data practices more broadly, this briefing paper will highlight to the HEC the worrying implications of the SR not only for trans communities, but more broadly for equality, research ethics and integrity, and critical scholarship”.

News from UCU

UCU’s new campaign, Education: It’s Ours, based on a plan voted for by HEC before the summer, has launched its website and related podcast, No Shortcuts. The campaign calls for increased sustainable funding for higher education, protection of jobs and pay, a transformation of the funding model, a better deal for international students and firmer governance of the HE and FE sectors. A section of the website called UCU Briefs consists of short pieces by expert members on matters relevant to the campaign. The first of these, analysing the broken funding model that rewards debt, has just been released, and is really worth a read. Do contact the Policy team at the email address listed if you are able to contribute something. Rob Clarke says, “I highly recommend a browse of the Education: It’s Ours campaign materials – there’s loads of great resources, it looks nice and you can find stuff!”.

The Labour Party conference took place in Liverpool this year from 27–30 September, and marked Andy Burnham’s first conference as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. While unaffiliated to Labour, UCU, as it does every year, sent representatives to make the case for a fairly-funded post-16 education sector. UCU General Secretary Jo Grady responded to Burnham’s speech, expressing disappointment at the only mention of the Higher Education sector being an attack on the over-focus on the so-called ‘university route’. Jo Edge says, “Whilst I welcome the commitment to vocational and technical education from the government, which is provided expertly by UCU members working in our FE sector, given Burnham’s own background – a self-described working class lad awarded an English literature degree from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, graduating in 1991 before the introduction of tuition fees – we are once again hearing discourse firmly aimed at ‘other people’s children’. It’s high time the Labour Party stopped worrying about trying to appeal to mythical red wall voters and started taking the crisis in our sectors seriously”.

In our sectors

In a move that can only be described as trolling, Newcastle University have faced a backlash over the appointment of oil and gas heir and mega zoo owner Anant Ambani as Professor of Practice in Sustainability. Vivek Thuppil says, “This decision by Newcastle University, over the objections of its own staff, beggars belief. It devalues the title and the work of the university's dedicated researchers. As successive UK governments have stopped treating higher education as a public good and funding it properly, vice chancellors have become only too eager to lend their university's reputation, earned through the work of staff, to launder the image of industries like fossil fuels and arms. This is just another example”.

Reporters at Byline Times have uncovered disturbing links between Times Higher Education (THE) and Orbán’s Hungarian regime, which they claim led to a failure to report on allegations against right-wing Reform party member and Cambridge professor James Orr. Sophia Woodman says, “THE’s reliance on funding from authoritarian regimes such as Orbán’s Hungary calls into question the reliability of their reporting, and of the rankings on which so much of the company’s reputation relies. The Byline Times investigation shows how organisations such as THE contribute to helping unsavoury governments to game their rankings, and such links may even affect their editorial decisions”. 

After concerns were raised by the University of York’s student union, the BBC reported that plagiarism checking software TurnItIn is updating the terms of its licence and may be used to train generative AI in future. Matt Barnard says, “This is profoundly concerning. We use an off the shelf panopticon to surveil all of our students to make it easier for us to catch out the minority that plagiarise with one hand, and with the other we find ourselves at risk of serving up our student's original work to train LLMs, viewed by many as plagiarism machines. And, this is only possible because universities continue to yield digital sovereignty to, usually US-based, cloud providers. All institutions using TurnItIn need to reconsider, but I hope they also reconsider the deeper ethical, political and pedagogical issues that our dependence on such technologies creates”.

We hope you have enjoyed this round up. Want to get involved? Join UCU Commons and work with us towards a more effective union for post-16 education here. 

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