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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…

Our colleagues in Oxford University are showing us the way. As another article appears on sexual harassment in Oxford in The Times, we learn that Oxford academics are now putting a motion to Congregation on the secrecy about bullying and harassment, protesting the use of gagging orders, non-disclosure agreements and Read more…

The real story is: Who made this recording at Council and then leaked the story to the press in an attempt to discredit the Vice Chancellor? And why? According to a leaked recording obtained by Varsity and The Sunday Times, at Monday’s meeting of Cambridge’s University Council – the University’s policy-making body of Read more…

The infographic shows the number of staff employed in the Human Resources division in Cambridge University over time, together with simple parabolic fit to the data. We can see a very steep rise since 2021 that still is continuing apace (despite budget cuts for everyone else!) We highlight the contribution Read more…