Music. Modern Languages. American & Canadian Studies.
French has been taught here since 1897. Nottingham is now the only Russell Group university offering zero modern language degrees.
Music. Modern Languages. American & Canadian Studies. Signed off by Council on 1 October 2026 — alongside 560 posts — after the academic Senate voted no twice.
Closed
Department of Music shut. Five degrees axed.
Approved 1 October 2026 despite 15,000+ petition signatures and condemnation from the Ivors Academy, ISM and Musicians’ Union. Some music tech moves to Computer Science and performances stay at Lakeside Arts.
Press report Bachtrack, 7 Oct Save Music petition
The toll
Official record
Union / SU
Press report
560 FTE posts cut in the final plan.
Trimmed from 608 in the May draft after 2,697 staff were put at risk of redundancy, on top of 300–350 support staff already lost in Phase 1.
22% heavier student load per academic.
Management’s staffing model pushes the student-to-staff ratio from 18:1 to 22:1 while scrapping traditional personal tutors for “Tutoring for Student Success”.
Two-month autumn strike wave: 5 Oct to 11 Dec.
Backed by an 87% strike vote (64% turnout) after 62 summer strike days. Staff sacrifice a day’s pay for every day on the picket line.
More names on the wall
- 2,697staff handed redundancy-risk notices on 12 May 2026Union / SUUCU
- 73 → 10Master of Research (MRes) degrees slashed by 86%Press reportTHE
- 42–48courses frozen for 2026 entry across all 5 facultiesOfficial recordVC PDF
- 5 → 3faculties collapsed into 3 mega-colleges by Aug 2027Press reportEd Daily
- 96%UCU no-confidence vote in VC Jane Norman & executiveUnion / SUBBC
- ~20students blocked from graduating in Sept after refusing fake marksPress reportTHE
- 300–350support staff cut in Phase 1 (£20m/yr from IT, libraries, estates)Union / SUSU
- 454,600emails, passport & disability records leaked in June 2026 cyber breachPress reportHIBP
What was hit
Far wider than Music. Children’s Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, Engineering, Agriculture, Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy were all put in the firing line. Tap any area to open its dossier immediately below.
Senate said no.
Council said yes.
Senate is the university’s academic authority. Council holds executive power — and rammed Future Nottingham 2 through twice despite Senate’s rejection.
Senatethe academic body
No1st vote
No2nd vote
Rejected the restructuring plans by majority vote, twice.
Union / SUCouncilthe governing body
Yes6 May draft
Yes1 Oct final
Signed off the 608-post draft in May, and the final 560-post closures on 1 October while staff struck outside.
Press report96%No confidence in VC Jane Norman, Chair Sir Keith O’Nions & UEB (UCU ballot, Feb 2026; joint motions with UNISON & Unite)
93%No confidence in University Council for overriding Senate (UCU ballot, 21 July 2026)
87%Voted for industrial action on a 64% statutory turnout (UCU ballot, 1 May 2026)
The spire
that snapped
Management points to an £85.3m deficit. Open the audited 2024–25 accounts and see what actually caused the crisis.
Castle Meadow: 81.7% wiped out
£78.9m book cost → valued at just £14.4m–£18m.
Unanimously approved by Council in Oct 2021 (0 abstentions; property risk dismissed). Bought for £37.5m, refitted for £40m+ until 2024, now handed to CBRE to sell.
The £85.3m deficit: +£0.8m day-to-day
£74.8m non-cash property impairments + £11.3m restructuring costs.
Strip out those two items and day-to-day operations were +£0.8m in the black, with £59.2m cash in the bank on 31 July 2025.
How we
got here
Every step from Council’s unanimous £37.5m Castle Meadow gamble to closing three academic departments over Senate’s head.
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12 October 2021
Council buys Castle Meadow for £37.5m — zero abstentions
Council unanimously approves buying the former HMRC offices. Minutes record Finance Committee judging the university strong enough to afford it and Council dismissing property-expansion risk while peer universities were shrinking theirs.
Official record Council minutes, pp. 5–6 (PDF) -
2024–2025
Phase 1 strips 300–350 support staff and £20m/yr
Before touching academic departments, Future Nottingham Phase 1 removes roughly 300–350 professional-services roles across IT, libraries, estates and administration.
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8 May 2025
UNISON challenges 258 FTE cuts + 98 axed vacancies
UNISON submits a 12-point Phase 1 counterproposal modelling £31m–£50m+/yr in savings — led by halving ~£18m in external consultancy to save ~£9m/yr instead of cutting frontline staff.
Union / SU UNISON counterproposal (PDF) -
November 2025
~£80m Castle Meadow campus abandoned for disposal
Barely a year after finishing £40m+ of refurbishment works in 2024, management abandons its flagship city-centre campus strategy and prepares to offload the site through CBRE.
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November 2025
42–48 courses frozen for 2026 entry across all 5 faculties
The VC’s own presentation suspends 2026 recruitment over the following courses: Music, Modern Languages, American & Canadian Studies, Children’s & Mental Health Nursing, Theology, Agriculture, Microbiology, Plant Biology, Mathematical Physics, Engineering MEng routes, Education BA and Social Work MA.
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25 November 2025
Audited accounts expose £64.5m Castle Meadow write-down
The 2024–25 accounts post an £85.3m deficit, made up of £74.8m in non-cash property impairments (£64.5m on Castle Meadow alone, valued down to £14.4m–£18m from £78.9m book cost) plus £11.3m restructuring. Underlying operations sit £0.8m in surplus.
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Nov 2025 – Mar 2026
34,000+ petition signatures, 7 MPs & national music bodies
Petitions top 19,000 signatures for Modern Languages and 15,000 for Music. Seven Nottinghamshire MPs, the Royal College of Nursing, the Ivors Academy, ISM and the Musicians’ Union call on management to halt the closures.
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25 February 2026
96% vote of no confidence in VC Jane Norman & executive
UCU members pass a 96% vote of no confidence in the Vice-Chancellor, Chair of Council Sir Keith O’Nions and the University Executive Board, backed by parallel UNISON and Unite motions.
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1 May 2026
87% vote for strike action on a 64% turnout
Staff deliver a decisive statutory mandate for strikes and a marking and assessment boycott to stop compulsory redundancies and department closures.
Union / SU UCU ballot result -
6 & 12 May 2026
Senate votes no. Council approves 608 cuts. 2,697 put at risk.
Overriding Senate’s academic rejection, Council signs off the Future Nottingham 2 draft on 6 May. Six days later, 2,697 staff receive letters placing their livelihoods in redundancy pools.
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20 May 2026
62 summer strike days & marking boycott begin; SU demands guarantees
UCU launches 62 summer strike days and a marking boycott. The Students’ Union publishes a 4-page position paper demanding published Equality Impact Assessments and binding written teach-out protections.
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May 2026
Nobel laureates, chemists & pharmacy regulator sound the alarm
~2,700 physicists (including 10 Nobel laureates) condemn plans to cut 20 of 71 Physics posts as “academic sabotage”; Chemistry opposes cutting 14 of 46 academics; the pharmacy regulator follows up on 11 proposed Pharmacy cuts alongside larger MPharm cohorts.
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June 2026
Cyber breach exposes 454,600 email, passport & disability records
In the middle of IT and support-staff restructuring, an extortion breach claimed by ShinyHunters leaks 454,600 email addresses alongside passport scans, visa files, hardship records and disability support notes.
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June 2026
UCU delivers 228-page costed alternative (£36.7m–£43.9m/yr)
Staff table a 69-page alternative business case and 159 pages of school-by-school plans achieving £36.7m–£43.9m/yr in recurring savings with zero department closures and zero compulsory redundancies.
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21 & 30 July 2026
93% no confidence in Council; 82 of 124 staff proposals sidelined
UCU passes a 93% no-confidence motion in University Council alongside joint UNISON/Unite governance scrutiny calls. Nine days later, management confirms only 42 of 124 staff alternative proposals were accepted in full or part.
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12 August 2026
HEPI warns Nottingham will be the sole Russell Group university with zero language degrees
National policy institute HEPI warns that abolishing Modern Languages degrees at a founding civic research university teaching French since 1897 marks an unprecedented Russell Group retreat.
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28 September 2026
Hundreds lack real marks; ~20 students blocked from graduating
After months of unassessed scripts, management issues predicted or averaged contingency grades. Around 20 students who refuse estimated marks and wait for genuine assessment cannot graduate or progress on time.
Press report THE, 28 Sep -
1 October 2026
Council overrides Senate again: 3 departments shut, 560 posts cut
While staff strike outside, Council approves the final Future Nottingham 2 plan: Music, Modern Languages and American & Canadian Studies close; 560 FTE posts go; 73 MRes degrees shrink to 10; five faculties collapse into three colleges; personal tutoring is replaced.
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5 Oct – 11 Dec 2026
Two-month autumn strike wave confronts the closures
UCU launches a 68-day strike window across autumn term — backed by a statutory mandate running into April 2027 — fighting compulsory redundancies and demanding transparency from Council.
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Jan – Aug 2027 (scheduled)
Three mega-colleges replace five faculties
Executive college leadership takes over from January 2027 ahead of formally merging all five historic faculties into three colleges (Health; Humanities & Social Sciences; Science & Engineering) in August 2027 while closed degrees enter teach-out.
Press report The Education Daily
Six coffins
Open each lid to inspect the damage — and the primary documents behind it.
- Phase 1 (2024–25): 300–350 professional-services roles removed (£20m/yr stripped from IT, libraries, estates and administration) after management proposed 258 FTE redundancies and 98 unfilled vacancies.
- Phase 2 (May 2026): 2,697 staff placed in redundancy-risk pools on 12 May under a 608-FTE draft business case.
- Final plan (1 Oct 2026): 560 FTE posts confirmed for removal while staff picket Council outside.
- Music closed: All five undergraduate degree routes axed despite 15,000+ petition signatures and protests from the Ivors Academy, ISM and Musicians’ Union.
- Modern Languages closed: French (taught since 1897), German, Spanish, Russian and Chinese degrees scrapped — making Nottingham the only Russell Group university without modern-language degrees.
- American & Canadian Studies closed + 86% MRes cut: Department shut and 73 Master of Research programmes collapsed into 10, after 42–48 courses were frozen in Nov 2025.
- Heavier loads, thinner pastoral care: Academic staffing targets push the student-to-staff ratio from 18:1 to 22:1 while replacing dedicated academic personal tutors with “Tutoring for Student Success”.
- Unmarked work & stalled graduations: Hundreds entered autumn without genuine marks; ~20 students who refused averaged/predicted grades could not graduate or progress in September.
- Unanswered SU safeguards: The Students’ Union demanded published Equality Impact Assessments and written course-by-course teach-out guarantees for disabled, placement, year-abroad and doctoral students.
- 87% mandate on 64% turnout: Lecturers, researchers and academic-related staff voted overwhelmingly to put their own salaries on the line to defend jobs and disciplines.
- 100% pay docked per strike day: Every day on the picket line costs striking staff a full day’s pay after months of summer deductions.
- Mandate runs into spring 2027: UCU’s industrial-action mandate extends beyond the 5 October – 11 December wave if Council refuses to pull back compulsory redundancies.
- Two Senate rejections ignored: The university’s own academic Senate voted against Future Nottingham 2 twice; Council approved both the 6 May draft and 1 October final business case anyway.
- 124 staff proposals, zero public ledger: Management stated 42 of 124 staff alternative submissions were accepted in full or part (with 9 under review in July), but has never published the full 124 proposals or why the rest were rejected.
- 96% and 93% no-confidence votes: Staff passed crushing votes of no confidence first in VC Jane Norman & UEB (Feb 2026) and then in University Council itself (July 2026).
- £74.6m in a single year: Audited 2024–25 accounts book £74.6m under “professional and other fees” (bundling consultancy, legal, audit and technical contractors), while UNISON cites ~£18m in recent consultancy spend.
- ~£117m on Project Transform & UniCore: UCU estimates ~£82m spent on Project Transform and ~£35m on the Oracle-based UniCore rollout that left staff battling daily admin bottlenecks.
- Governance & Nolan-principles scrutiny: The 21 July joint union motion formally demanded conflict-of-interest transparency around external consulting firms, including incoming Council chair Michael Queen’s prior PA Consulting role.
Another plan
existed.
Two detailed union business cases showed how to balance the books without shutting a single department or forcing compulsory redundancies.
£36.7m–£43.9m
Modelled recurring annual benefit across 69 pages of financial modelling and 159 pages of school-level plans (June 2026) — zero closed departments, zero compulsory layoffs.
£24.08m · Voluntary & executive payroll reform
Natural attrition, voluntary reduced hours and progressive executive pay restraint instead of compulsory sackings.
Natural turnover & vacancy management£16.06m
Progressive senior-management salary contributions£4.15m
Voluntary fractional & reduced-hours options£3.87m
£11.1m–£17.8m · Non-pay, consultancy & capital discipline
Slashing external management consultants, pausing speculative estates vanity spend, tightening procurement and reforming surplus targets.
£1.5m–£2.0m · New teaching & research revenue
Growing modular, short-course and international partnerships by keeping flagship humanities and language staff in post.
£31m–£50m+
Modelled annual financial effect in UNISON’s 8 May 2025 counterproposal challenging 258 FTE support-staff redundancies and 98 deleted vacancies (distinct Phase 1 model — not added to UCU’s 2026 total).
Halve ~£18m consultancy → save ~£9m/yr
Senior pay cap & executive freeze
Defer non-urgent capital projects
Cut agency & outsourced contracts
Voluntary 4-day / reduced-hours scheme
Managed vacancy & redeployment pool
Commercial estate lettings
Campus energy-efficiency drive
Expand short courses & CPD
Targeted alumni endowment drive
Audit UniCore & Transform waste
Protect frontline student support
This doesn’t have to be the fate for the living.
A university isn’t just CBRE brochures or executive spreadsheets. It is the people who teach, learn and research. Over 35,000 people have already signed to defend Nottingham’s departments and livelihoods. Push the petitions, sustain the strikers, and take your demands to the Council below.
Save Modern Languages
Defend French (taught since 1897), German, Spanish, Russian and Chinese degrees at Nottingham.
Save Music at Nottingham
Stand with students, alumni, the Ivors Academy and the Musicians’ Union against shutting Music.
Save American & Canadian Studies
Protect dedicated American and Canadian Studies degree provision from abolition.
Stop the Job Cuts Petition
Back library, IT, technical, estates and student-support staff hit by Phase 1 & Phase 2 cuts.
Protect Doctoral Supervision
Demand continuity of PhD supervision and real safeguards as 73 MRes routes shrink to 10.
Donate to the Strike Hardship Fund
Strikers lose 100% of a day’s pay for every day on the picket line. Keep them standing strong.
Protect UoN Music Hub ↗
Physics Open Letter (~2,700 sigs) ↗
Chemistry Open Letter ↗
Musicians’ Union Open Letter ↗
Students’ Union Future Nottingham Hub ↗
Tell The Guardian how you’re affected ↗
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