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Angry lecturers at the University of Birmingham have voted for potential strike action in a bitter storm over more than 80 threatened redundancies.

Members of Birmingham University and College Union (BUCU) voted in an indicative ballot by a 77.8 per cent majority in favour of action in protest at proposed job losses in the Medical and Dental School and the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.

Staff also voted by a 79.3 per cent majority in favour of action against the refusal of management to negotiate over ‘grant capture’ duties, forcing lecturers to pull in research grant funds as part of their roles.

Dr Roland Brandstaetter, president of BUCU, said: “Despite repeated attempts from our side making suggestions to avoid compulsory redundancies, the University is going ahead.

“They have announced that their revised proposal was approved by the University Council and that 25 individuals remain at risk of redundancy in Neuroscience and Pharmacology. There are no changes to the proposed 59 proposed redundancies in Engineering so far.”

In an email last month to the University’s Provost and Vice-Principal Professor Adam Tickell, Dr Brandstaetter said: “BUCU rejects your statement about grant capture and remains firmly opposed to grant capture as a disciplinary necessity and generic duty.

“We would like to urge you to stop the implementation of your grant capture policy as set out in your statement.”

But Professor Tickell said by reply: “I have read through the various comments which you have assembled from your members but, taken as a whole, they do not persuade me that our policy needs revision. In light of this, I am afraid that this is not a matter for negotiation between the University and BUCU.”

Dr Brandstaetter added: “Students pay very high fees for their education and want value for money. As a senior lecturer, I want to focus my work on this but we are more and more under the impression that management disagrees with this student-centered approach because many of us, including me, are targeted to generate more income and compete for external funding rather than concentrate on working with students.”

BUCU is now asking management for further negotiations on the issues covered by the indicative ballot in a bid to avoid industrial action.



Statement by the University of Birmingham

The report that 80 jobs are going is not true .



We are currently in a consultation phase and take seriously any level of redundancy. We anticipate that a small number of posts will no longer be needed and the overwhelming majority will be lost through voluntary measures. Across neuroscience and pharmacology a maximum of 10 posts will be lost seven of which have already been mitigated through voluntary measures. Across Engineering we anticipate 20.5 FTE posts will be lost and we will seek to achieve these through voluntary means.

The University of Birmingham is a large organisation, with 7000 employees, and in common with other leading research universities, we are focused on developing and innovating our research in areas we can excel and make the biggest difference to people’s lives and ensuring that our students receive the highest standard of teaching, informed by outstanding research.

To allow us to do this we have to reduce our activity in research areas that have not been productive or where we don’t have a critical mass to deliver high quality competitive work. Careful consideration has been given to this refocusing including performance in consecutive external assessments in 2008 and 2014.

The University has always kept and will continue to abide by the terms of our agreement with Birmingham University and Colleges Union on seeking to avoid compulsory redundancies arising from our restructuring proposals.

Education

The University has the second largest Medical School in the UK and is committed to delivering the highest standards of medical education and training.



The restructuring of our research activities in neuroscience and pharmacology will have no impact on the level, quality or quantity of teaching.



Not only are these areas regulated by professional bodies, but the University works closely with our partners in NHS Trusts to deliver an exceptional standard of education and trains doctors that serve the city, the region and the country with distinction.

The University is proposing to merge three schools of engineering in order to enhance the quality of our engineering education. We are constructing a £5m Collaborative Teaching Laboratory to serve the engineering disciplines, which will open in 2016 and are designing our curriculum to ensure that our engineering graduates continue to be amongst the best in the United Kingdom.



All of the changes are designed with students in mind and are focused on delivering improvements in innovative new teaching formats, improved practical teaching facilities, and collaborative and interdisciplinary working, which we know are key skills that employers are looking for.



We have worked with the national professional engineering bodies in developing plans that will lead to an enhanced educational experience in engineering and allow us to improve our research further.

Grant Capture

The University of Birmingham believes that student fees should be used to deliver an excellent education to our students.



In common with other leading research universities, where academics need external funding (grants) to conduct high quality research, the University expects, over a period of time, academics to secure such grants.



We recognise that the grant funding environment is highly competitive and provide exceptional support for academics in their applications, including training and mentoring and strong professional support.