(Video clip from Googlebox, hat-tip to Plashing Vole on BlueSky)
“Have you ever betrayed anyone?”
“Well, I work in HR”
“So, yeah”
This video clip is for anyone working in UK universities.
Categories: Blog
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The Gaming of Athena SWAN
Athena SWAN is run by Advance HE. Universities pay fees to Advance HE for assessment, application and renewal of the Athena SWAN accreditation. Advance HE is a company limited by guarantee (as well as a Read more…
22 Comments
TheResearcher · 31 October 2025 at 18:18
I wonder how the HR who read the blog feel about this and if they proudly say they are part of university HR when they are asked what they do for a living. I will be the last person defending HR, namely the HR of UCam, but I came to the conclusion that they are not the worst in the institution. (*) Most of them could not change the situation even if they wanted, but many senior members could definitely change it, and they do not do it.
(*) Of course, this statement does not apply to the Lead HR Business Partner of the most discussed case by the 21 Group. We all know who she is.
21percent.org · 31 October 2025 at 19:38
https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-research-councils-2025-2-ukri-hr-staff-investigated-in-lengthy-bullying-probe/
“Complaints made over the conduct of several HR staff at UK Research and Innovation have been upheld following a long investigation into bullying at the national funding agency, Research Professional. According to multiple sources, well over 50 UKRI employees—including other HR staff—came forward with evidence under an investigation launched more than a year ago”
There are undoubtedly people in Cambridge HR that are victims, just as in the scandal at UKRI
TheResearcher · 31 October 2025 at 20:16
Curiously, I have sent that link to the CEO of UKRI and the Executive Chair of BBSRC recently when I was asked to contribute to the Community Consultation of BBSRC. Why did I do that? On 12 December 2024 I went to a public event of BBSRC and asked the following question to the Executive Chair of BBSRC:
“I have a question for Anne Ferguson-Smith specifically. My question is a general one, but it is motivated by my personal experience as a BBSRC Discovery Fellow in the institution where Anne Ferguson-Smith is a Pro-Vice Chancellor, the University of Cambridge. I would like to ask Anne Ferguson-Smith what specific mechanisms will BBSRC employ under her tenure to address reports by BBSRC fellows or grant holders of harassment, manipulation, intimidation and misuse of public funds in their host institutions. I have been through the worst period of my life, alone against a powerful institution, and I want to know what measures BBSRC is taking so that others do not experience the same. Is BBSRC and UKRI more generally, planning to request independent investigations of reports such as these in the future? Claiming that these are internal matters of the host institution, as BBSRC currently does, is obviously flawed because there are clear conflicts of interest.”
Who can guess what happened after this? Let’s say they know my name very well now!
21percent.org · 1 November 2025 at 07:56
The question to BBSRC is excellent and gets to the heart of the matter.
All grant giving organisations (UKRI, Leverhulme, Cancer Research UK, Wellcome) have strong statements on bullying and harassment on their webpages. However, if approached, they do nothing but send the problem back to the University
For example, Cancer Research UK (then headed by Prof Leszek Borysiewicz) were repeatedly informed of this very serious matter
https://21percent.org/?p=1371
CRUK did nothing to help the many victims
If bullying & harassment in universities could be fixed with empty talk & meaningless statements on websites, the problem would be long gone
Here’s a semiderelict website set up by UKRI (so the Research Councils including BBSRC) — hasn’t been touched in two years
https://www.ftbh.org.uk
This is what they mean by tackling bullying. They are not serious.
TheResearcher · 1 November 2025 at 10:42
It is perhaps coincidence that Prof Borysiewicz had been Vice-Chancellor of UCam before heading CRUK in that case? Or that the Executive Chair of BBSRC was the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at UCam when BBSRC received reports of research and behavioural misconduct and did absolutely nothing? Of course, in the latter case BBSRC was reassured—verbally—by the Head of Department that all the processes and procedures of UCam had been followed and thus could not be bothered with evidence from DSARs that the Head of Department had lied to them.
They all know that this is part of the game. Either you accept it as it is with its unwritten rules and stay, or you do not accept it and leave. You become a threat when decide to stay and openly protest about those unwritten rules.
MrChatter · 1 November 2025 at 11:26
Prof Leszek Borysiewicz was widely believed to be the University hierarchy’s choice for Chancellor in the recent chaotic election. He in the end did not run, leaving the University hierarchy backing a flawed establishment candidate in Lord Browne.
We don’t know why Prof Borysiewicz in the end resisted the urgings of the powerful. For whatever reason, he decided not to run.
It is possible that one reason was the interview in The Guardian of the first publicly declared candidate, Wyn Evans, who made it clear that bullying would be one of the issues of the campaign
He may then have realised that the running of CRUK would then come under scrutiny, and its record on tackling bullying in medical research is abysmal.
TheResearcher · 1 November 2025 at 11:58
It is rather ironic that Prof. Borysiewicz fostered the Borysiewicz Biomedical Sciences Fellowships in UCam that took “outstanding Cambridge postdocs and develop[ed] them into motivated, strategic future leaders ready to pursue a range of global questions and problems.” I believe these fellowships no longer exist but the idea of thinking globally without acting locally is concerning.
https://www.gci.cam.ac.uk/global-challenges-research-cambridge/ongoing-research-projects/borysiewicz-biomedical-sciences
MUSKETEER · 31 October 2025 at 21:23
AF-S was an active participant in one of the worst scandals at UCam. As a member of the oligarchy under the Canadian insignificant lawyer and under the American Queen she is well acquintaded with lies, bullying and toxicity! At BBSRC she will continue to support best practice…
TheResearcher · 31 October 2025 at 21:52
Unfortunately, AF-S did not like my question and started fuming. How odd? Perhaps she got embarrassed with the fact that the event was being recorded and transmitted online?
TigerWhoCametoET · 1 November 2025 at 18:51
Is there a link available?
TheResearcher · 1 November 2025 at 19:29
This was the event:
https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/bbsrc/who-we-are/community-webinar/
The Panel Q&A started after 1h and everyone could read the questions of the audience, the panel and the audience, in real time. Regrettably, they did not show in this recording the questions submitted and only addressed some of them. You can, however, see how the mood of AF-S changed from her talk to the Q&A. My question was one of the first to be submitted and I submitted with my own name. I am sure that AF-S remembers me as I sent that text to several people in UKRI after, namely to the CEO of UKRI at the time who is also from Cambridge, Dame Ottoline Leyser, who incidentally never replied to me but talked substantially about me internally according to subject access requests.
Anon · 1 November 2025 at 08:28
Joining up the Gogglebox comment on HR deception and England’s Dreaming’s spot-on description in the previous blog post, of “a carefully organised fiction, in which statues and procedures exist to provide only an impression of legal order” further explains the monstrous deception which is allowed to happen at the hands of a few malicious law-trained individuals, who have ended up in HR or senior management.
The fictional set-up is presented as “legal” and not following it as breaking the law. A whole range of HR-advice-dependent people, including Heads of Department and Heads of Schools, can then be deceived and misled on a daily basis. Where HR advice might be questioned because it appears extreme, absurd, counterintuitive, it can be coupled with suggestions or threats that not following it would lead to actual legal issues or “risk” for the university…
Such deception is easier when the HR advice-provider has a legal background…
…and/or when so-employed legal personnel dip in and out of HR advisory roles rather than sticking to their actual roles (i.e. advising with reference to actual legislation). The blurring of legal fact and fiction is then complete.
England's Dreaming · 1 November 2025 at 10:52
This is not the story of one research lab, department, or academic institution.
It is a story of institutional decay that illustrates in microcosm the challenges and failures of reforming this country.
___________________________
Throughout its history England has consistently failed to achieve a constitutional order. Ours is a land of “stop-gap” measures, “making do”, and “muddling by”.
What has held this creaking system together is a set of informal institutions around “decency” and “fairness” that, for a sufficient period of time, have allowed Britain to function “as if” a constitutional state existed.
This code is rooted in the British class system, or more specifically, the norms that guide interactions of the nobility; and later “civilised” to society as a whole.
The central assumption of British high society is that “we” are all decent persons, and as such, uphold the “rules of the club” – to wait one’s turn, follow protocol, never speak out of place. Such a system has its charm, and sometimes produces fair outcomes.
But time and time again, it has led to horrendous injustice.
If it ever worked, the system no longer does.
First, though superficially fair, it is a culture that codifies hierarchy and implicit bias: we never question the integrity of others at “our level”, while ignoring abuses of “hoi polloi”. To go to the most egregious example, a predator such as Jimmy Savile could rub shoulders with royals, newspaper editors and celebrities, while the working-class boys and girls who were his victims were repeatedly dismissed.
Second, this system only functions as long as all members do, indeed, uphold such norms. Our systems are exceptionally poor at dealing with cases where powerful figures act egregiously. To keep with Savile example: his behaviour was widely known, yet none of the “decent” and “fair” members of high society called him. The only attempt to uphold the laws of this country by calling out his behaviour was in 1978 in a BBC interview with Johnny Rotten: whose self-declared anarchism in this case meant allegiance to a higher law – to uphold ethical standards and use his voice to speak out for victims and the marginalised. For this “indecency” the BBC blacklisted Rotten. Savile subsequently went on to abuse countless more.
The same pattern holds, again and again. We see it in ways small and large, across the whole of British society. I have no doubt that a fiasco such as the “post office scandal” could have occurred anywhere in the world; but what I do not think could happen in America, Canada or Australia, is that it would have taken two decades for victims to find their voice or for the courts, media and parliament to take action. This is endemic in British society. Action is taken only subsequent to tragedy.
Negligence is our national way of life.
The reform that is needed is not simply a change of rules or procedures. No amount of tinkering can fix a culture that is as rotten as this. What is needed is a revolution in basic values based on complete and total public transparency.
TheResearcher · 1 November 2025 at 11:15
“What is needed is a revolution in basic values based on complete and total public transparency.”
True, the issue is that it is not really clear who would want that change given how things are, and what “tragedy,” using your own words, would be necessary to foster that change. At least in UCam, it is not clear what one can do when every door you knock gives you is indifference at best or even retaliation if you openly say that you do not accept the current values and practices.
TigerWhoCametoET · 1 November 2025 at 11:57
But it has already happened, just not been reported no? I mean with CRUK and the other labs? That is already a tragedy as are the individual cases too? I feel there is a real mystery around how it can be that people went through all this and yet nothing has happened in response?
TheResearcher · 1 November 2025 at 12:07
The “real mystery” is called Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice Chancellors, Academic Secretary, Registry, Heads of Schools and university HR/legal, together with external help from “highly-regarded defamation and reputation management law firms” such as Carter-Ruck.
Bloody right · 1 November 2025 at 23:22
Bloody right
21percent.org · 1 November 2025 at 14:09
@Tiger, we understand that some of the individual cases are heading to the Courts, so details will emerge into the public domain on this huge scandal in the next year or two.
21percent.org · 1 November 2025 at 14:03
@England’s Dreaming, Robert Skidelsky makes similar points about the Post Office scandal here
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/uk-post-office-scandal-reveals-danger-stumbling-into-authoritarianism-by-robert-skidelsky-2024-01?utm_source=chatgpt.com
We’d agree that the wrongful conviction of more than 900 postmasters exposes the complete collapse of Britain’s systems of institutional accountability. What is happening in Cambridge and other universities is just a small part of a greater national malaise.
The Post Office Scandal really is a key event in understanding modern Britain, because of the extent of the acquiescence of politicians, civil servants, barristers, lawyers and judiciary in the tragic events & the cover-up. The crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of a few individuals, but with the passive acquiescence of many, many more.
The parallel with events in Cambridge University is close, albeit the Post Office Scandal is on a much larger scale.
SPARTACUS · 1 November 2025 at 17:28
Many of the names mentioned here are deeply involved in the UCam/CRUK scandal. The lies, viciousness and unlawfullness of the scandal will eventually emerge into the public domain! Prof Teflon, Prof Drinkalot and Prof Smallman I am sure will be outed! You just wait… tic toc tic toc tic toc. Then: booooom!!!
MUSKETEER · 1 November 2025 at 17:37
“The crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of a few individuals, but with the passive acquiescence of many, many more.”
The same was true in the UCam/CRUK scandal! In that case there was one unscrupulous individual. Her name will also surface! But she could never have done it without the 3 rogue Professors mentioned above! What a tragic farse! World class research and a group of very talented young scientists have been decimated!
No Kings (or Queens?) · 1 November 2025 at 17:38
Robert Skidelsky’s article is worth reading and you only need to substitute Post Office with the university and it is the same story
“In contrast to authoritarian regimes, the power of governments in liberal democracies is checked by constitutions and an independent judiciary. But the Post Office Scandal underscores the degree to which the systems designed to hold the powerful to account in the UK have eroded”
It is the same in every respect… The gross inefficiency and multiannual delays of the judicial system, plus the covering and lies of regulators, plus the hungry lawyers who seize on the opportunity to abuse victims of injustice with the collusion of management…
If there is one source of hope it is that all these people were exposed in the end…
And they will be again…
May the Express and Daily Mail have the last word on them all..
…one by one by one…