The Friday email: 5 September 2025

New academic year: please check your details

With the new academic year upon us, please take a moment of your time to check your details on MyUCU. If you have moved house or changed jobs over the summer, please update us via MyUCU so that we can continue to send you important and accurate information and provide support.

Save Adult Education: sign our petition, email your MP

Adult education plays an absolutely vital role in fostering community cohesion and pushing back against hatred and division. Read this article on how this is playing out at one provider. The critical importance of this work makes it all the more inexcusable that the UK government has pushed through cuts to the Adult Skills Fund, directly undermining the work educators are doing to combat the far-right in our communities.

In our campaign to Save Adult Education, we are calling for these cuts to be reversed and for proper investment in adult skills and education. We are also demanding that adult education plays a central role in a national skills strategy--ensuring staff in the sector are treated as professionals, with secure contracts and terms and conditions equal to other educators.

Last week we also heard reports that Derbyshire's Reform-run council has suddenly decided to close one-third of its adult education centres. To support the Save Adult Education campaign, you can sign our petition and write to your MP.

Stop the Cuts! Disputes at UK universities

University of Dundee: some eleven months after news of the financial and management crisis broke at Dundee, staff are still facing brutal cuts and the very real possibility of compulsory redundancies. After taking multiple days of strike action earlier in the year, Dundee UCU members are re-balloting to extend their mandate to fight cuts and save jobs. The re-ballot will run to 6 October. You can send messages of solidarity here.

University of Edinburgh: Edinburgh UCU branch will begin a week of strike action from Monday 8 September to coincide with welcome week. The strike is over senior management's plans to cut £140m annually and an unprecedented cut of 1,800 jobs. Pickets will be held every day from 09:00 with a rally at 12:00 on Monday 8 September at George Square in Edinburgh. You can send messages of solidarity here.

University of the Highlands and Islands: UHI plans to cut sixteen posts at the executive office in a bid to save £2m, despite workloads already being overwhelming after previous job losses. UCU is opening a ballot for industrial action on 10 September in response, as further cuts risk worsening conditions and threatening more jobs. You can send messages of solidarity to the branch here.

University of Leicester UCU members have voted strongly (80% in a 62% turn out) for strike action in the face of the university's refusal to withdraw its threat of large-scale compulsory redundancies. Staff in chemistry; history; geography, geology and the environment; film studies; and modern languages have been told they are at risk, along with hundreds of professional services colleagues. A redundancy programme has already begun in the division of biomedical services. UCU members are determined to stand in solidarity with their threatened colleagues, and are preparing for extensive strike action if necessary.

University of Sheffield: an industrial action ballot opened last week, in a dispute over management's plans to put staff in five academic areas at risk of redundancy, as well as continued risk of redundancy to professional services staff across the university. The university announced reviews of staffing in chemistry, civil engineering, management, materials science, and East Asian studies.

Industrial action ballots in disputes over job cuts and redundancies are also running at Sheffield Hallam University, University of the West of Scotland, Oxford Brookes University and Lancaster University.

UCU elections: casual vacancies on NEC

UCU is currently conducting a ballot for the election of two casual vacancies on the union's national executive committee (NEC): HE North East, and HE UK-elected.

Postal ballot materials have been dispatched by Civica Election Services on Monday 18 August. The ballot closes on Thursday 18 September. The union encourages all ballot eligible members to vote. If you cannot locate your postal ballot pack, you can request a replacement via this form; the replacement request form will close on Thursday 11 September.

Further information on this election, including rules and election addresses can be found on the casual vacancies election page of the UCU 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).

Visa holders and redundancies webinar, 2 October

UCU is holding a webinar on Zoom entitled 'Visa holders and redundancies' on Thursday 2 October (13:00-14:00). You can click here to register.

UCU's migrant members' standing committee (MMSC) has received many queries from migrant members who are facing redundancy and are understandably concerned about how this may impact their visa and visa fees that they have paid. Specialist immigration lawyers Bindmans LLP will be delivering a webinar on the implications of redundancy for those on a visa. If you have any specific questions that you would like addressed, please email these to UCU's equality inbox by 26 September.

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.

Updates on USS pensions

The Superannuation Working Group (SWG) recently organised a webinar to update UCU members on its work with USS pensions and Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) on conditional indexation. You can watch a recording of that webinar here.

Revaluation is the process by which USS increases a member's pension each year. USS have recently changed their Rules on Revaluation to bring them in line with their operational practice. This could have a significant impact on scheme members. Information is now available on UCU website to assist members understand this complex issue and encourage them to seek independent financial advice.

UCU equality group conferences 2025

This year each of UCU's equality groups will have a one-day hybrid conference. The venue will be UCU head office, and the online platform will be Zoom. Those joining remotely will be able to participate fully in the conference, including voting on motions and attending workshops. When registering for the event delegates must select if they wish to attend the conference/s in-person or remotely.

The days of the conferences are outlined below (all from 11:00-16:00):

• Friday 14 November: women members' annual conference
• Saturday 15 November: LGBT+ members' annual conference
• Thursday 20 November: disabled members' annual conference
• Friday 21 November: Black members' annual conference
• Friday 5 December: migrant members' conference

This year the equality groups conference will have a broad theme of 'Organising against division: building inclusive workplaces, resisting reactionary politics'. To register please use this link, which will take you to the main equality groups conference page.

Power Up! New Organising 4 Power course

The international organising programme, Organising 4 Power (O4P), has a new online course. It's called 'Power Up!' and is open to all regardless of previous organising experience. The course focuses on building capacity and developing winning campaigns. It will run over four sessions, two in November and two in December, coupled with support sessions from UCU facilitators. Click here for more details and to register.

Labour's attempt to outflank Reform on international students

UCU criticised Labour's attempt to outflank Reform on international students: the union was responding to a new Home Office campaign targeting foreign students and their families via text and email to warn them they must leave if they have 'no legal right to remain'. Click here for a statement from UCU general secretary Jo Grady. UCU president-elect Dyfrig Jones (Bangor University) told BBC News 24 and BBC Radio 5 Live that Labour was in danger of driving away its core voters and should instead be rolling out the red carpet for international students.