‘Adapt to survive’ plan at Cardiff axes 400 academic jobs

About 400 academics are set to lose their jobs at Cardiff University amid plans to cease teaching several subjects and increase staff-student ratios.

The Welsh institution has confirmed that it wants to reduce its workforce by 7 per cent as it seeks to “adapt to survive” after being hit hard by sector-wide financial challenges.

A total of 400 academic full-time equivalent roles are earmarked to go, with the institution saying that it will use compulsory redundancies “only if absolutely necessary”.

A 90-day consultation has been launched on the proposals, which will also see programmes in ancient history; modern languages and translation; music; nursing; and religion and theology scrapped.

Several schools at the university will be merged and remaining staff expected to teach more students. Cardiff said it was also “revising our approaches to learning, teaching and assessment, and simplifying bureaucratic processes”.

The university’s vice-chancellor Wendy Larner said: “The precarious financial position of many universities, particularly in the context of declining international student applications and increasing cost pressures, and the need to adapt to survive are well documented.

“We know here at Cardiff University that it is no longer an option for us to continue as we are. Our new strategy, co-created with our community, lays out an ambitious future for our university where it is collaborative, innovative, and delivering value for Cardiff, Wales and the wider world.”

Larner said the proposals will create “a slightly smaller university, refocused around our core and emerging strengths” and it was also working on a “new model for flexible lifelong learning, new opportunities in transnational education, and new approaches to learning and teaching”.

She also outlined plans to move the university – the only Welsh member of the research-intensive Russell Group – to what she called a “more focused, higher quality research environment for staff and students”.

Staff inside the institution have reacted with anger to the plans. A statement released by the University and College Union (UCU) branch called the cuts “unprecedented in UK higher education”, adding the “cruel and unnecessary” proposals will leave a “radically altered university”.

Joey Whitfield, president of the UCU branch, told Times Higher Education he felt “absolutely blindsided” by the scale of the cuts and described seeing colleagues in tears at hearing the news.

He said with some provision disappearing entirely and other schools set for cuts of 50 per cent, it was difficult to see how the university felt it could avoid compulsory redundancies. 

The union would be balloting members on strike action, said Whitfield, who, as a modern languages lecturer is one of those directly affected by the cuts, and “we will be doing everything we can to fight this as hard as we can”.

Larner said that she recognised the proposals “will cause a great deal of uncertainly and anxiety for those potentially impacted”.

“We have done everything that we can to avoid reaching this position, but ultimately we know that annual rounds of cuts demoralise our staff, affect our students, and limit our ability to retain and grow new partnerships with our community here in the UK and elsewhere. We need to act now to ensure that we are able to deliver on the aspirations of our new strategy and have a viable university for the future,” she said.

The university is yet to publish its latest accounts but has previously said that it faced a £30 million “black hole” in its budgets.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com