We are the University of Dundee and we say no to this recovery plan

The University of Dundee thrives because of its staff, students, and trade unions who care passionately about its future and our city. That’s why we are outraged by the University Executive Group’s shocking plan to axe over 690 jobs in a move that threatens livelihoods and the very heart of our Institution.

If the University Recovery Plan (URP) goes ahead as intended, the university will have lost approximately 1000 staff (including those who have left outside the VS scheme), or nearly half (around 45%) of all core-funded staff (i.e., staff who are not funded through external research grants), in the eighteen months between November 2024 and May 2026. This includes vital student support staff, lecturers, researchers, maintenance, technical and administrative staff, and many others. More than 100 colleagues have already left in just the last six months and around 300 people are expected to leave through voluntary severance by the end of September. An additional 390 jobs are proposed to be cut in the URP by May 2026, including 170 through compulsory redundancy. No institution can survive this level of cuts to the only resource that generates its monetary value and reason for existence, i.e. staff, and have a thriving future. And yet the University Recovery Plan suggests that over the next 5 years student numbers will recover and research income will continue to come in at a steady state. These figures are simply not credible with this level of staff reductions, either in the foreseeable or long-term future.

The main argument adopted by the University Executive Group to justify job cuts relies on the notion that staff costs are the University’s largest expenditure. Hence, cutting staff seems like the easiest way out of a financial crisis. However, income and expenditure are not independent factors. Everything we do, everything that generates revenue and value in Higher Education – teaching, research, commercialisation, student recruitment, community engagement – requires staff.

The argument that Dundee needs large staff cuts in order to become sustainable is a fallacious one. In 2023/24, the University of Dundee had around 3259 FTE (full-time equivalent) staff and 14,000 students, numbers comparable to other Scottish Institutions that are similar in size and student numbers such as the University of Aberdeen and the University of St. Andrews. However, when we compare percentage staff costs over total expenditure over the same period of time, the University of Dundee seems to be spending less on its staff (55%) than the sector average in Scotland (58%), and way below Aberdeen (61%) and St Andrews (68%).

The higher proportion of staff costs observed in other Scottish universities indicates that they must have had much lower operating costs than the University of Dundee. Why are non-staff operating costs so high, and why are these not being targeted for reduction? HESA and financial data suggest that in 2023/24, Dundee was awarded more research income and taught significantly more students than the University of St. Andrews, and achieved this with the same number of staff. This would suggest that the University of Dundee is maximising efficiencies through the hard work and diligence of its staff.

On 21st August, just a few weeks ago, a room filled with anxious staff was shown a graph predicting the inexorable fall of our beloved Institution unless we all subscribe to the narrative that job cuts are inevitable, that there is no other alternative. In reality, if it was possible to make such accurate financial predictions over a five year timeframe, anyone possessing basic analytical skills would be extremely rich. In fact, the single action that can make or break our University over the next few months is the decision whether to accept the generous financial support that the Scottish Government has offered, and focus on reducing job losses from the 632 compulsory redundancies proposed in March of this year.

Yet since that offer was made in June 2025, the University Executive Group has spent two months drawing up a plan that will slow down the decline of an institution whose staff continue to deliver teaching and research excellence, instead of expediting the process to accept financial support from SFC and develop a plan that will allow the institution to thrive.

This support package has the ability to stabilise the University finances for at least two years, which is probably as long as one can make reasonably accurate predictions. This time can be used to work together with staff, students and unions to find less disruptive and more innovative ways to contain costs and generate revenue streams.

As trade union representatives, we have had the opportunity to attend a series of workshops organised by the taskforce led by Sir Alan Langland. Many suggestions on revenue generating activities have been made in those rooms, including philanthropy, development of remote and micro-credential teaching programmes, optimisation of our estates and catering services. None of these suggestions have been incorporated in the current URP, thus demonstrating an ideological stand taken by the University Executive Group, one of managed decline rather than sustainable growth. This stance also shows the disregard of the University Executive Group not just for staff, students and unions, but stakeholders in the city of Dundee who value the university and recognise the immeasurable contribution that it makes to the city and the Tayside region.

Moreover, the proposed cuts to around 1000 jobs in the URP will have a devastating impact on the economy of the city and the region as it is bound to affect thousands of families. In 2022, the University supported one in twelve jobs in the city. New figures have shown that the university generates additional value of £507 million for the Tayside and Fife economies. A managed decline of the institution will surely have a similar impact on the city and the region.

Not least of our concerns about the URP is that these devastating cuts are going to be implemented by an interim leadership. While the staff writing this article have had a minimum of 10 years of service at the University of Dundee, the managers who want to push these cuts through have not been at the university long and are planning to leave within months of swinging the axe. They won’t be here to face the brunt of their reckless actions.

In short, we believe that an alternative plan is possible.

We call on a fully and properly constituted University Court to oppose any further plan involving job cuts and fully engage with the Scottish Funding Council to secure the funding our Institution needs to survive.

We call on all of Dundee’s elected representatives to support us staff, our students, and staff unions in rejecting this plan which will lead to the destruction of a great institution.

We do not have confidence in the current leadership to protect the interests of staff and students.

The future of the University of Dundee is now in our hands.

4 September 2025