This paper was kindly contributed by Dr Jane Lethbridge and Professor Patrick Ainley from the University of Greenwich. It is the fourth in our series titled ‘Manifestos for Change’, in which we are seeking forward-thinking responses to the present Covid-19 crisis, and the crisis of marketisation more generally. If you have created a similar proposal...Read More

This report was contributed to CDBU by Vision for Roehampton, a grassroots campaign organized by members of the UCU Roehampton branch. It is the third in our series titled ‘Manifestos for Change’, in which we are seeking forward-thinking responses to the present Covid-19 crisis, and the crisis of marketisation more generally. If you have created...Read More

by Prof. Patrick Ainley (University of Greenwich) Ken Roberts (pictured), Professor of Sociology at Liverpool University, described ‘The real trend in social mobility from upward to downward’ at the latest seminar in a series on precarious labour hosted by the University of Greenwich Business School on 13th February. He said that sociologists and others had...Read More

Continuing our coverage of overseas reactions to the foundation of the Council for the Defence of British Universities, Germany’s leading newspaper and radio news outlets have also picked up the story. Germany’s most celebrated daily newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, devoted two articles to the CDBU in November.Read More

One of the leading historians of twentieth-century Britain, Dr Ross McKibbin of St John’s College Oxford, has greeted the foundation of the CDBU  with an insightful piece ‘In Defence of British Universities’ in the London Review of Books. Those who would defend universities, he argues, must be ‘prepared to meet those who today make funding...Read More

Professor Martin Hall, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford and historical archaeologist, has written a piece in support of CDBU on his personal blog, which has also been reproduced on the higher education blog Wonkhe. Here are a few excerpts:Read More

The CDBU was recently featured in an article in the International Herald Tribune. The piece was subsequently reprinted in the New York Times. Here’s an excerpt:Read More

Writer, broadcaster and CDBU Founding Member Melvyn Bragg (pictured here on the right) recently wrote a short piece in the Telegraph about the CDBU’s launch last week. Here’s an excerpt:Read More

BY Philip Moriarty (University of Nottingham) Today’s Times Higher Education leads with a cover story on the formation, motivations, and objectives of the CDBU. Two articles by Sir Keith Thomas and Lord Martin Rees  – founding members of the CDBU, and past presidents respectively of the British Academy and Royal Society – lay out, in a stirring call...Read More