University of Sunderland threatens to make more than 1 in 10 academics redundant

The cuts also impact professional services staff and will fall across the university. Management intends to force some staff out as soon as Friday 1 November, meaning they would be unemployed going into the Christmas break. This is the second formal notification of redundancies in under six months. In neither this, nor the previous notification, were any management jobs put at risk.

The announcement comes a few months after the university admitted it would shut down the national glass centre, despite a big campaign to save the important regional arts institution.

UCU said it will fight the jobs cuts, which threaten to damage student provision and tarnish the university's reputation.

UCU regional support official Jon Bryan said: 'The academic year has just started yet staff have returned to campus to learn they could be made redundant before Christmas. Cuts of this scale would severely damage student learning and harm the university's standing. We will now seek our members' views on how we fight back against these cuts, and the university could face a strike ballot unless it changes course and works with us to protect jobs.'