21percent.org. The 21 Group

A staff group founded at Cambridge in 2023, supporting members facing institutional retaliation.

Blog · 14 Nov 2026

The Whyte Report — or the Whyte-Washing Report?

The Whyte Report was prompted by the Employment Tribunal case brought by Professor Wyn Evans, an astrophysicist who raised concerns about the treatment of female colleagues at the Institute of Astronomy. However, there have been long–standing concerns about the effectiveness, professionalism and…

Recent posts

02
Blog · 8 Nov 2026

Cambridge University and the MRC Units

Private Eye’s “High Principals” is a long-running investigative and satirical column devoted to the management of universities and other higher education institutions, particularly the conduct of vice-chancellors, principals, university executives and governing bodies. Unsurprisingly, Cambridge is making regular…

03
Blog · 31 Oct 2026

False allegations in Old and New Cambridge

Background Prof David Sabatini is a prominent molecular biologist, who was a professor and principal investigator at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, affiliated with MIT in (New) Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prof Kristin Knouse, then a junior…

04
Blog · 25 Oct 2026

Today it may be UIS, tomorrow you …

In the UK, academic tenure in the American sense barely exists. Since the Education Reform Act (1988), universities have been able to dismiss academics not only for misconduct or incapacity, but also on grounds of redundancy.…

05
Blog · 19 Oct 2026

No Surprises

The following is an excerpt from a meeting transcript at the University of Cambridge. It records a junior academic receiving feedback from their Professor. Junior Academic: I’m sorry (sobbing)Junior Academic: I I attempted suicide last year…

06
Blog · 15 Oct 2026

Whistleblowing in Academia

My article on whistleblowing, published in Nature, is here. At the University of Cambridge, whistleblowing investigations are overseen by one of three senior officers: the Registrary, the Academic Secretary or the Vice-Chancellor. Yet the whistleblowing policy has still not been…

08
Blog · 4 Oct 2026

Who Is Reviewing Cambridge?

In the wake of the loss of the Cambridge Whistleblowing Tribunal, and with the Grace impending, the University of Cambridge has announced the membership of the committee tasked with examining its human resources (HR) processes. The…

Browse by subject.