We, the Exeter University and College Union, condemn the announcement by the University of Exeter of a sweeping programme of job cuts that places well over 500 staff - 14% of all academic staff - at risk of compulsory redundancy in the run-up to Christmas. These proposals represent both a stunning failure of leadership on the part of the university’s senior management and governance, and a reckless attack on an institution that is critical to the Westcountry’s regional economy.

The university has failed to make a convincing case that this programme of cuts is necessary, based on a sound financial rationale, or that other options have been exhausted: indeed, EUCU has seen the uni's own modelling that shows the closing of the deficit by 2029, with £50m cash reserves, without compulsory redundancies (instead by way of voluntary redundancy and a vacancy freeze). Moreover, EUCU has repeatedly requested the financial data that we would need for meaningful collective bargaining. Such requests have been ignored to date, and are currently the subject of a referral by EUCU to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC).

Although staff across the academic body are impacted, today’s round of cuts are disproportionately concentrated in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS), where 85% of all staff placed at risk of redundancy (445 out of 523 FTE) are based. Under these proposals, multiple HASS disciplines, including History, English, Modern Languages and Politics, will be subject to an approximately 25% reduction in staffing. These cuts represent an existential threat to humanities and social science disciplines at Exeter: if they go ahead, student experience will suffer enormously, and both teaching programmes and research culture will be damaged beyond repair. The rationale for this disproportionate targeting of the very disciplines to which Exeter largely owes its membership of the Russell Group has not been clearly explained to us.

Exeter UCU branch will ballot for local industrial action, and pass votes of no confidence in the Vice Chancellor, University Executive Board and Council, at the earliest opportunity.

We call on current and former staff, students, members of the community and beyond to support us in this fight. Please sign your name to this petition and help us win this fight.