Dear Professor Bowen, Professor Greer, Professor Martin and Professor Girardone
We, the undersigned, are writing to ask you to reconsider the proposal to eliminate 40 FTE or 28% of the academic staff in Essex Business School. Equally troubling is the decision to close the Southend campus, a move that will have profound and far-reaching consequences for both students and staff. Although we are of course more than abreast of the highly challenging circumstances facing UK universities and alert to the extremely difficult strategic and financial choices which senior managers in HE institutions are having to make as a result, this proposal is of great concern to us for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, and as you are of course aware, EBS employs many world-leading scholars in their respective areas of expertise, amongst which are some of the most pressing issues of the day. It is home, for example, to renowned researchers specialising in what might be broadly termed challenges to well-being and equity at work, including precarity, digitalisation, AI and automation, declining individual and collective employment rights and in-work poverty. Alongside this, management research engages critically with the social economy, sustainable and responsible forms of organising, public and community sector management, cooperatives, and the ethical governance of emerging technologies such as AI. Complementing these strengths, marketing research examines consumer cultures and market dynamics with particular attention to sustainability, ethics, inequality, digital innovation and the wider societal consequences of contemporary marketing practices. Another very strong specialism is gender and allied foci such as aesthetics, emotions, sexuality and the body as they relate to work and workplaces.
EBS researchers, equally, are renowned for work exploring how accounting is implicated in - or accountable for - global development, climate change and vulnerability. This group also examines how accounting both exacerbates but can play a role in ameliorating precarity, exclusion and social injustice across the world and takes a specific interest in emerging economies. Relatedly, the finance research group, amongst other foci, treats finance as a key aspect of global political economy in their exploration of crucial issues including the performance and regulation of banks and the associated risks, corporate governance and the behaviour of financial actors in real- world markets. This group also publishes in areas including the financing of SMEs and financial inclusion as well as sustainable finance and banking.
Researchers in strategy, operations and entrepreneurship, likewise, focus on real-life global concerns including social sustainability, risk and resilience, logistics and supply chains. Their work, moreover, extends into big data and its considerable benefits, but equally its substantial demerits. The precarity of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Operations research and teaching is felt even more strongly, as it is undertaken by the group based in Southend. EBS researchers and globally-renowned research centres such as CWOS and COVER are at the heart of all of this work.
The proposed redundancies would, as we understand the situation, mean that many of these academics would lose their jobs and the remaining colleagues at Southend be forced to relocate (via a difficult and costly commute) to the Colchester campus. As a result, the University of Essex would lose much of what makes its Business School so distinctive and renowned. In the current climate, distinction of this kind is often what attracts students across all levels to study at a specific university in a very crowded market, not to mention the obvious and severe impact on the School’s future performance in the REF, the TEF and the KEF as well as in funding applications.
These changes would also have a substantial impact on research engagement and knowledge transfer activities, for which the School has a widely respected reputation and especially in the Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Operations group at Southend. And EBS has always been proud of its close links with professional associations such as the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the Chartered Institute of Management Accounting and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, as well as with accreditation bodies including the AACSB and AMBA. Ultimately, the proposed redundancies will threaten these organisations’ views of EBS, risking further reputational damage if these accreditations were to be lost.
Further, the scale of the proposed redundancies would mean that many PhD students would lose their chosen supervisors. Given EBS’s record of producing outstanding doctoral graduates for many years now, the vast majority of which have gone on to very successful academic careers, the future pipeline of such graduates would be seriously affected. And, because EBS teaching has always been underpinned by the highest calibre of research, the experience of undergraduates and Master’s students would likewise be badly impacted, quite apart from the TEF.
These concerns prompt us to urge the University to reflect carefully on the direction and implications of the proposed actions. We believe there remains scope to reconsider elements of the current approach in a way that better aligns with the University’s stated values, safeguards staff morale, and protects its long-term academic and reputational standing, including its financial sustainability. We hope the University will take this opportunity to pause, listen, and engage constructively in order to identify more sustainable and inclusive alternatives to what we fear, for the above reasons, risks decimating Essex Business School. Again, for the reasons outlined above, our view is that the School’s continued viability is vital to the future financial stability and success of the University of Essex.
Yours sincerely