The Friday email: 25 July 2025

Higher education pay and conditions consultative ballot: vote now!

This week UCU launched a consultative ballot over the full and final offer from Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA). The elected representatives on UCU's higher education committee (HEC) is recommending that members vote to reject the offer, and vote yes to participating in industrial action.

Many UCU members from branches that are participating in the 2025/26 JNCHES negotiation round have already voted. Please look out for an email, sent out by yoursay@ucu.org.uk, with the subject 'IMPORTANT: UCU higher education pay and working conditions consultative ballot'. The ballot email was sent out on Monday 21 July 2025. We advise that you check your spam/junk folder in case the email has been directed there.

If you have not received your consultation email, you can use the replacement e-ballot request form. This form closes on Tuesday 12 August (12 noon). To use the replacement e-ballot request form, you will need to use your unique UCU membership number.

For the avoidance of doubt, this consultation is only for UCU members in university branches participating in the 2025/26 higher education negotiation round. UCU members in other sectors have separate campaigns, such as New Deal for FE and Save Adult Education.

Save Adult Education: watch the online launch, sign our petition, email your MP

Save Adult Education is a new campaign from UCU for members in adult and community education (ACE). Our aim is to reverse cuts to the Adult Skills Fund, promote social cohesion, defend members' jobs, and champion professional respect. You can:

• watch our campaign launch online meeting on YouTube, featuring the voices of UCU reps at City Lit, South and City College Birmingham, and Redbridge Institute of Adult Education
• sign and share the Save Adult Education petition calling on the Labour government to reverse its devastating decision to slash funding for adult and community education
• use UCU's Email your MP tool to demand the UK government reverse the cuts to adult education in England and properly invest in adult skills.

Victory for University of Surrey UCU: no outsourcing of professional services staff

UCU, sister unions and students have defeated University of Surrey management's plans to outsource, potentially, all professional services roles. The employer aimed to recruit all new professional services roles to a wholly owned subsidiary called 'Operate Surrey'. We have managed to to reverse this decision by launching a dispute and a well organised campaign.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: 'This is a huge victory for our members who have resolutely opposed Surrey's imposition of a two-tier workforce, as well as for current and future students who rely on the support professional services staff provide'.

Prison education: tell your MP to address the crisis

Prison education provision in England is also in a perilous state. We are asking all UCU members to email your MP and request that they sign EDM (early day motion) 1542 on prison education insourcing, which calls on the UK government to explore the options for insourcing all such provision under an effectively resourced, publicly owned national prison education system.

We have provided an Email your MP tool here. Please remember to include your full name and postal address at the end of the email as MPs may reject messages missing this information.

Stop the Cuts! Disputes at UK universities

University of Bradford UCU members have been striking this week over plans to slash hundreds of jobs and close multiple courses. You can click here for the full strike schedule. The dispute is over £16m of cuts that management wants to force through. The university has so far failed to set out precisely where all the cuts will fall, but 230 professional service staff and a further 230 or so academics are already at risk.

University of Nottingham staff are facing mass redundancies. During the first phase of restructuring, at least 258 professional services staff are under threat. The second phase from September onwards is likely to involve a similar number of academic staff. Nottingham UCU members were on strike on Thursday 24 July and also began action short of a strike (ASOS).

University of the West of Scotland UCU opened an industrial action ballot this week in a dispute over job cuts and university senior management's refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies. The ballot will run until 14 August; click here for the full story.

University of Leicester UCU is balloting in a dispute over job cuts and redundancies. More information will be available soon.

Please support many other branches, such as universities of Bournemouth, Bristol, Derby, Dundee, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Lincoln, and Plymouth where UCU members in higher education are also defending jobs and education.

Academic boycott of Brunel University over mass redundancies

UCU declared an academic boycott of Brunel University London in response to the institution's continued pursuit of mass redundancies. The boycott began on Tuesday 15 April; Brunel UCU demands that the university withdraws the threat of compulsory redundancies, provides transparent financial information, enters collective conciliation talks through Acas, and reinstates those already involuntarily dismissed.

UCU is asking members, supporters, and the international academic community to observe the boycott by:

• not applying for jobs at Brunel
• not attending or organising academic or other conferences at the university
• not giving talks or lectures at Brunel
• not accepting visiting appointments at Brunel
• not contributing to academic journals edited at or produced by the university
• not taking on roles as external examiners for Brunel's taught courses.

For the latest developments please see the Brunel University UCU branch website.

UCU webinar on HE governance, 17 September

UCU is holding a webinar on Zoom entitled 'HE governance in a time of crisis' on Wednesday 17 September (13:00-14:15). You can register here.

The current funding and jobs crisis in UK higher education is also a failure of HE governance. Come and hear from academic experts and union activists about the nature of the governance problems in higher education and discuss union responses, including internationally. Speakers include: Professor Steve Jones (University of Manchester); Dr Sophia Woodman (University of Edinburgh); Dr Sinéad Kennedy (Maynooth University).

International conference on academic freedom, 15 October

UCU, with the support of Education International (EI), is hosting an international conference on academic freedom on Wednesday 15 October. The conference will hear from international trade unions and experts about global and national challenges to academic freedom and will discuss how to build effective union responses, including in the UK. The confirmed keynote speaker is Robert Quinn, executive director of the Scholars at Risk Network.

The conference will be run as a hybrid event. UCU members can either attend online or in person at the Hamilton House Meeting Rooms, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD. We expect spaces for the in-person event to fill up quickly so register as soon as possible to secure your place; the conference is free to attend.

An open letter from the presidents of Gaza universities

The presidents of Gaza's three non-profit universities have released an open letter calling on international colleagues, institutions, and friends to demand an end to Israel's ongoing scholasticide. The letter also calls on the international academic community to support the efforts of Gaza's universities to continue teaching and conducting research, under siege and amidst loss.

USS pensions webinar: Conditional Indexation interim report, 4 August 

Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) has recently released its Conditional Indexation interim report. You can read UCU's update here.

To provide more information to USS scheme members, a webinar on Conditional Indexation will take place on Monday 4 August on Zoom. Click here to register. The webinar will discuss what Conditional Indexation is and why scheme members should be sceptical regarding its introduction. This webinar is open to all USS scheme members including UCU staff.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Caucus survey

The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Caucus (EDICa), a major research initiative funded by UKRI and the British Academy, is conducting a survey focusing on the lived experiences of bullying and sexual harassment. Specifically, they are seeking responses from anyone employed in UK's research and innovation sector, including PhD students, since 2023.

They are especially keen to hear from individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds (particularly Black respondents) and those working in non-STEM disciplines. Click here to fill out the survey.

Artificial Intelligence report

As part of UCU's Future of Work in Post-16 Education project, the working group undertook a survey of members over summer and autumn 2024 to understand members' experiences of AI systems and the impact on their working lives. Thanks to everyone who completed the survey. The survey report has been released and can be read here.

Green Gap report

This week UCU launched a report that must act as a wake up call if the UK is to deliver the workforce required for a successful transition to a net-zero economy by 2030.

The Green Gap report, commissioned by UCU and carried out by Students Organising for Sustainability UK (SOS-UK), identifies significant challenges across the skills system, particularly within the further education sector, and concludes that the UK is not currently on track to meet its green skills targets. The report is part of UCU's ongoing commitment to green skills and makes clear recommendations to address the current gaps in skills provision.