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Unease over Liverpool's plans for a research-focused 'realignment'
15 January 2009
Voluntary redundancy offer may herald further upheaval, says UCU. Melanie Newman reports
The University of Liverpool is offering voluntary redundancy to all staff as it moves to boost its research profile.
Campus trade union sources said that up to 200 redundancies were planned. In addition, the sources said, an academic recruitment freeze had been operating informally since June.
The cuts are part of a "realignment" to achieve goals set out in the university's new strategic plan. Vice-chancellor Sir Howard Newby's strategy for Liverpool's next five years includes a plan to "sit in the top half of the Russell Group in terms of total research income" per staff member, to reach the top 75 in international league tables and to increase the proportion of postgraduate students to 20 per cent of the total student body by 2014.
The strategic plan also outlines Liverpool's intention to increase the proportion of overseas students to 25 per cent of all students and to achieve a recurrent surplus of 3 to 5 per cent of total income.
Under the plans, half of academic staff are to be "engaged in knowledge-exchange activities", and income from continuing professional development will be trebled.
Some academics have interpreted the plan, and the call for voluntary redundancies, as evidence of an intention to focus the university on the sciences.
One Liverpool academic who asked not to be named said: "If the vice-chancellor wants a big increase in research-income generation, that is only going to be achieved through big science projects. My suspicion is that many departments, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, will be deemed 'uneconomic'."
A university spokesperson said: "Like all universities, Liverpool will be looking closely at the results of the research assessment exercise, but we have no plans to focus the university on the sciences. We have very strong departments in the arts and social sciences, and this will not change."
The sector has been watching the university with keen interest since Sir Howard took up the vice-chancellorship in September. Sir Howard, a former chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, was a controversial appointment because he had joined the University of the West of England as vice-chancellor just 16 months before.
Sir Howard's plans to improve UWE's links with business and increase knowledge exchange, and the university's appointment of his wife, Sheila Newby, as assistant vice-chancellor, led to criticisms by campus trade unions.
Spirit of Creation, a private consultancy used by UWE during Sir Howard's leadership, has been used by Liverpool for "work associated with strategic planning". Spirit of Creation's website says it enables organisations to "transform themselves into engines of change".
In a statement, the Liverpool branch of the University and College Union says: "There is a lot of concern and uncertainty around the intended restructuring that forms part of the university's new strategic plan. We are dismayed at the university's recent tendency to circumvent established structures and procedures in pushing the plan through.
"More generally, much of the plan's underpinning logic makes it difficult to see how the University of Liverpool's historic role as a major civic institution, making an important contribution to UK society, may be salvaged in the years ahead," the UCU statement says.
melanie.newman@tsleducation.com.
Readers' comments
I think you will find that Sheila Newby was appointed as assistant VC BEFORE Howard got the job as Vice-Chancelor at UWE. you should not insinuate it was any other way.
here here "Ximines". It is amazing to think that having seen that the ineffectiveness of circumventing the normal decison making structures and seeing off those who do not agree at U.W.E, that the VC would try it on again at Liverpool. From all accounts it has taken U.W.E. a long time to recover from its experience (there are those who think it never will) and Liverpool should have taken a lesson from that.
Part of most job applications requires the taking up of references. Given that it looks from this article as though Howard Newby is repeating all the things he tried at U.W.E (the employment of the Spirit of Creation, circumventing established structures and procedures particularly round senior management appointments, knowledge exchange etc) one has to wonder what his references said that convinced the Liverpool governors to employ him.
I'm intrigued that so many comments, critical of the Newby's management style, appear and then rapidly disappear from this site. Are they a little too near the mark, perhaps?
Joan. I think you will find that Sheila Newby was appointed as assistant TO the VC and NOT assistant VC and you should not insituate it was any other way.
re NSWF I agree as I see my comment in response to "Joan" was removed and then reiterated by Nemesis. As a UWE employee it always amazed me how on earth we stayed out of the press so long when HN was in power there given the madness of some of the tings that were going on but it seems even the mighty THE can be cowed in these circumstances!!
"transform them selves into engines for change".... are they on drugs? metaphors are fine, but they shouls be metaphors FOR something, not instead of something - for example, "the Emporer's new clothes"...
Ximenes - in answer to the question about staying out of the press given what went on at UWE, HN must have seen Leeds Met as a god send. What will he do now that Simon Lee has departed.
Those following the Newby story will perhaps be interested to note that today popular local news blog 'The Bristol Blogger' was taken down by WordPress due to 'ToS violation'; after a morning of speculation, it transpired that this related to "material he had published on Sir Howard Newby in 2007." The word 'defamation' was bandied around. The material in question (as I understand it) related to Newby's use of consultants connected to him and his wife, the appointment of his wife, and other such issues - all mentioned before or after in other places, including THE, Private Eye, The Guardian etc. TBB is now back online, but WordPress is insisting on the removal of the references to Sir How 'Ard.
Where is the money for the legal action coming from - does anyone know?
Spirit of Creation's website says it enables organisations to "transform themselves into engines of change".>>>> Good heavens, what perfect congruence between the company's name and its business! An abstraction generates vacuity.
http://www.spiritofcreation.com/download/UniversityCaseStudy.pdf Isn't that great. You an download a case study from Spirit of Creation and it tells you how great a job it did for UWE.
At UWE we knew the Spirit of Creation as the Spirit of Cremation, it is ironic in the extreme that they are suggesting that they did a great job for us.