The British university system has lost the financial stability that it expected when core funding was shifted from government to student fees in 2012. Academic and professional staff are now losing their jobs on a regular basis. University managers are shuttering academic programmes and research centres, with no accounting for losses to knowledge creation or instruction. At many or most British universities, academic life is increasingly focused as much on a scramble for funds as on learning and research. Staff are subject to stress and overwork, on top of declining real-terms pay. Their professional concerns about systemic degradation are brushed off by policymakers or self-censored.
The premise of this research project is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Nor should it, as the intellectual and social losses to Britain and to Europe are too great.
Our initial goal is to assemble the internal problems of the post-2012 funding model into a coherent and understandable narrative about what has really happened to universities. This is a political story with significant financial implications, but it must also analyse management, student life, and welfare, and the conditions and experiences of academics themselves. We will develop and then integrate research on each of these dimensions of systemic issues, with special attention to the first-hand experiences of academics.
Christopher Newfield, ISRF Director of Research
December 2025
Dispatches: Experiencing Academia’s Decline
A collection of reflections from academics and students navigating universities in crisis.
