UCU Commons newsletter #3, 5 November 2025
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 have been doing
The first calendared meeting of HEC of the 2025–26 year UCU’s HEC took place on 10 October 2025. Read our report here. Key takeaways:
- Two excellent discussion papers addressing sectoral concerns presented rare opportunities for HEC to engage with what to do about the HE crisis beyond industrial action. These covered union victories in Australian higher education and joining up lobbying efforts in the UK.
- The committee voted to remit discussion of the proposal for an industrial dispute with the Secretary of State to the next HEC, so this avenue is still being explored.
Commons member Tilly Fitzmaurice (LGBTQ+ rep, HE) chaired the first meeting of this NEC’s Equality Committee on Friday 24 October. Also in attendance were UCU Commons members Jo Edge (Women’s rep, HE), Vivek Thuppil (Migrant rep, HE) and Bijan Parsia (Disabled rep, HE) in their capacity as equality reps. Tilly says: “As a union, UCU leads from the front on equality-related work and it was fantastic to hear updates from all five equalities standing committees. Despite attempted disruption, we got through all business and even finished early!”.
Dave Hitchcock has written an excoriating response to the HE section of the Government’s recent post-16 education and skills white paper.
News from UCU
The UK-wide HE ballot opened on 20 October 2025 and runs for about six weeks until 28 November. Members are being balloted on the following issues:
- a pay uplift that is at least RPI + 3.5% or £2,500, whichever is the higher, on all pay points.
- joint action to protect national agreements relating to terms and conditions of employment.
- a national agreement to avoid redundancies, course closures, and cuts to academic disciplines across the sector.
The replacement ballot request form is now open.
In our sectors
A new low point for De Montfort university, whose management threatened to report staff to the OfS under Prevent after arranging a meeting with the local MP and a Green councillor to discuss redundancies. How this could be interpreted as ‘radicalising students’ is quite not clear to us. A member of UCU Commons and former staff member at De Montfort says, “Sadly, it seems that management bullying persists at DMU. Staff were hopeful that this would change following the departure of Dominic Shellard some years ago, but this story exemplifies the heavy-handed management tactics still deployed by senior staff at the institution, which are clearly designed to rule staff through a culture of fear”.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology published this paper on the economic benefits of publicly-funded research and development (R&D). Its key finding: “Based on a comprehensive analysis of the evidence, DSIT’s assessment is that, on average, £1 of civil public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term”. Jo Edge, a currently unemployed member of UCU Commons and NEC rep for Women Members (HE) says, “Given this government’s obsession with short-term thinking and clear lack of interest in improving our sectors, it is no wonder this paper was published with very little fanfare. It is, however, grist to UCU’s mill for making the case for a properly funded academic sector”.
We hope you have enjoyed this round up. Want to get involved? You can join UCU Commons and work with us towards a more effective union for post-16 education here.
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