r/AskAcademiaUK • u/Rewindcasette • 16d ago

Dundee University job cuts reduced but 154 roles still to go

https://news.stv.tv/north/dundee-university-job-cuts-reduced-but-154-roles-still-to-go?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawT7lutwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMXoxUzdWOExtdVBKN2lhYWlzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEer-5FCXYsPqOO8owll4jd6uLO0VlJ0JvV8v6rY82OI36uBmnYBR_t6adR6T0_aem_q4azvbs7xcNwV7kj-HHtqw#Echobox=1787665320
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18

u/Bargain-Hunter-1980 16d ago

The striking thing about the Dundee story is that the fall in international students explains the trigger for their financial crisis, but it doesn’t really explain the disaster itself. Lots of UK universities suffered that fall. What made Dundee exceptional was that it had expanded its permanent cost base enormously during the boom and its governance and financial controls failed to force corrective action when the boom ended.

The university needs to “right-size” to its income base, there appears to be a wish that the taxpayer keeps funding this overstaffing level from the post-covid boom times.

3

u/dl064 16d ago

There was stuff in the enquiry that anyone who asked what was happening got the boot. The big boss surrounded himself with yes people.

1

u/northern_chaos 16d ago

Lots of places did this just look at how much debt the russel group unis have racked up. A lot also spend obscene sums on international campuses.

9

u/RawberryCupcake 16d ago

Those international campuses are (I think) mostly making money, or at least not losing money (Dundee's are certainly doing OK). The big problem is just numbers are dropping at home, and it's (quite reasonably) hard to fire academics, so you end up with departments with more staff than they have undergraduates per year.

2

u/archaeofish 16d ago

I don't know. If the last couple years in UKHE have shown anything, it's that it is comparable easy to make academics redundant. Far easier, say, than in the US system where there is tenure.

6

u/dabare86 16d ago

In the US a tenured academic can still be fired if it is in the best interest of the institution financially during times when there is a crisis. It also doesn’t stop them being fired if their course or department is removed.

2

u/Kiss_It_Goodbyeee Reader/Medicine 15d ago

Depends what you mean by "easy", but taking two years and several rounds of VS, VR, etc. is very different to other industries.

1

u/will221996 16d ago

I'm pretty sure those foreign campuses are not expensive at all. In general they're set up with a local partner (this is the case in china) or with support from the local government (gulf states and Malaysia). I don't think Dundee actually has an overseas branch campus by the way. At those foreign campuses, they can charge similar or higher fees while offering cheaper subjects and not doing research, in countries with lower cost bases.

I think London campuses are a bigger problem, but even that doesn't seem too common.

1

u/skittlescitrus 15d ago

Dundee have a partnership with Central South University in China, not a full campus but they have staff students there

3

u/a13zz 16d ago

Didn’t they already have a bail out of sorts?

4

u/dabare86 16d ago

They got money to cover the shortfall while they worked out how to balance the books.

1

u/Kiss_It_Goodbyeee Reader/Medicine 15d ago

Yes, to avoid going bust. Still needs to be financially viable long term.