We hope everyone who was able to take some leave over the summer actually took it. As we begin the new academic year, unfortunately there isn’t a great deal of progress to report from our ongoing negotiations with the University – not because the branch has been inactive, but because very little has moved on the University side.

As we head towards the start of semester, here’s where things currently stand.

📅 Branch Meeting – Monday 7 September, 12:00 (Teams)

Our first branch meeting of the 2026–27 academic year will take place on Monday 7 September at 12pm on Teams.

We’ll be providing updates on:

• Academic Career Framework negotiations
• Trade Union Recognition Agreement negotiations
• Policy negotiations
• Workload planning and WAMS
• The Learning Model and other university developments

We’ll also be asking for your views on the branch itself. We’d like to hear your thoughts on our strategy for the coming year, meeting frequency, meeting formats, communications, and anything else you’d like to see from your union.

If there’s something you’d like to add to the agenda, or if you’d like us to raise something with the uni and can’t attend the meeting, please submit it through the General Reporting Form.

👀 Watch This Space…

We’re also planning a number of union events around the start of the semester. We’ll share details as soon as they’re confirmed, so keep an eye on your inboxes and our usual communication channels.

Negotiations: still waiting

There has been little substantive progress over the summer on the issues we have been negotiating with BU, including the Academic Career Framework and outstanding policy work. Meetings have been postponed or cancelled while the University considers its position, leaving us waiting to continue work that in several cases began months ago.

We are also continuing to see unacceptable delays in individual casework and grievances, with some processes now taking many months – and in some cases considerably longer – to resolve.

We will update members on the current position at Monday’s meeting.

Workload planning: we need your experiences

Initial workload planning is now underway, and we are already hearing significant concerns.

We have seen workloads that are inaccurate or incomplete, and some colleagues have apparently been advised not even to pay attention to their initial allocations yet.

We have also been contacted by members whose manager’s advice and understanding of the workload model and WAMS contradicts what is on SharePoint and communicated by the university centrally.

This raises some fairly fundamental questions about what the University’s workload model is actually intended to represent.

We are also hearing differing interpretations of the 160-hour citizenship allocation and what activity is supposed to fall within it. If managers and staff are interpreting the framework differently across BU, it is difficult to see how the system can produce either transparency or equitable workloads.

We need evidence. Please let us know if:

• your workload allocation is inaccurate or incomplete;
• you have been told not to rely on your current WAMS allocation;
• you have been told that you are expected to work more than the hours allocated through WAMS;
• you have received conflicting information about what counts as citizenship; or
• you have other concerns about how workload planning is operating in your area.

We will collate members’ experiences and raise them with the University through JCNC.

If you can’t attend Monday’s meeting, please submit your feedback through the General Reporting Form.

Research planning

We also want to hear how the new research planning process has worked in practice.

What research time did you request? What were you allocated? Were decisions explained? Were plans changed or rejected, and if so, on what basis?

We are considering further action around research planning and allocation, so evidence from members across faculties will be particularly important.

If you can’t attend Monday’s meeting, please submit your feedback through the General Reporting Form.

What should the branch prioritise this year?

The Branch Executive Committee has a strategy day coming up, when we will be planning our priorities and approach for 2026/27.

Before we do that, we want to hear from you.

Monday’s branch meeting will include time to discuss what members think our priorities should be, what is and isn’t working in the branch, and where you want us to focus our collective effort this year.

Please come along if you can. If you can’t attend, you can always contact us through the UCU inbox or the General Reporting Form.

NEC by-election – please vote

Ballot papers are out for the current UCU NEC by-election. Our own Tilia Lenz is standing for the HE UK-elected seat, and BU UCU strongly encourages members to give Tilia their first preference.

This is an opportunity for our branch to have a direct voice in shaping UCU nationally and influencing the union’s approach to the crisis facing higher education.

The ballot closes on 17 September, but as ballots must be returned by post, please aim to have yours in the post by 15 September at the latest.

You should now have received the national consultative ballot on this year’s pay offer. This is your opportunity to help shape UCU’s response to another below-inflation pay settlement. Whatever your view, please take a few minutes to cast your vote—high participation helps ensure the Higher Education Committee has a clear picture of members’ priorities when deciding next steps.

ECR wellbeing event

Colleagues are also running a drop-in wellbeing activity for Early Career Researchers on Thursday 10 September, 2–4pm in P221.

There will be space for creative activities including colouring, writing, drawing, Lego and sand play, as well as some optional reflection activities. You are welcome to bring your own creative activity – including knitting or other crafts – and can attend for the whole session or simply drop in for 15 minutes.

Spaces are limited to 40, so please book if you would like to attend.

And finally…

There are a couple of developments from over the summer that deserve rather more attention than we can give them in this update – particularly around career progression at BU, and who apparently still has access to it.

We’ll have more to say about that very shortly.

For now: please join us on Monday, and tell us what is happening where you work. The more evidence and feedback we have from members, the stronger our position will be when we set our strategy for the year ahead.

We look forward to seeing many of you on Monday 7 September. In the meantime, make good trouble, and illegitimi non carborundum.

In Solidarity,

BU UCU Executive Committee