Here, we will track the real performance of Cambridge University’s endowment over time and isolate the impact of administrative spending growth above inflation. We express values in constant 2025 pounds, taking inflation into account through CPI index, and we benchmark investment performance against the MSCI World Index. We show a Read more…
The mean inflation-adjusted pay of University of Cambridge staff has been flat for more than a decade. In isolation, that might sound like stagnation. In context, it is far more revealing. When pay rises are captured by those at the top, the average should rise. If it does not, there Read more…
The 21 Group has extracted some statistics from the University of Cambridge’s End of Year Financial Reports. They make interesting reading. Given this background, we highlight again the interesting contribution made on the previous thread by Autophagy here The corruption has advanced in several phases 1. In the first phase, Read more…
In our previous posting, we raised the issue of the spending by departments and central administration at Cambridge University, based on the End of Year accounts here. As illustrated in the Figure, adjusting for inflation reveals that departmental budgets since 2016 are flat then fall. At the same time, the Read more…
Cambridge’s problem is not lack of money. It is where the money goes. Over the past decade, the university has steadily starved its academic departments in real terms — while allowing the central administration to expand at pace. The result is a university increasingly run around teaching and research rather Read more…
Harvard Business School is well-known for its case-based learning model, which includes real-world examples of companies and organisations that failed. Universities are brand-driven institutions. Brand-dependent organizations unravel quickly when misconduct and corruption is exposed. The 21 Group predicts in ten years time, there will be Harvard Business School MBA course Read more…
Imperial College London has a formal zero-tolerance policy on bullying and harassment. Like many universities, however, that policy is hardest to enforce precisely where power is greatest: among the senior leadership team. Professor Alice Gast was a chemical engineer who served as 16th President of Imperial College, London from 2014 Read more…
The Registrary of the University of Cambridge, Ms Emma Rampton, has announced that she will step down from her role on 31 December 2025 here. Her decision comes at the end of a year marked by considerable institutional turbulence. This has included a disorderly Chancellorship election, a protracted and ongoing Read more…
The oligarchy has come back for the Cambridge Vet School, as reported here by the BBC. An attempt was made to shut the Vet School last year because of concerns over its accreditation. Now they have returned with new arguments that it is financially unviable. The power play began by Read more…
An interesting Employment Tribunal case has appeared on the gov.uk website that records the Tribunal decisions F versus University of Nottingham has few details, though it is related to disability discrimination. (In cases involving disability discrimination, the Tribunal may make a “Restricted Reporting Order” (RRO) where evidence of a medical Read more…