QMUL In The News

Twice a week, staff and students at QMUL get an email full of press cuttings. Somehow, these ones haven’t made their way to that email onslaught…

1. Where is the money going
2. Reorganisation Humanities & Social Sciences
3. The treatment of protest against genocide — on campus and of our Global Professor
4. Punitive Deductions
5. Terrible ‘mitigation measures’ to neutralise the boycott
6. Snitch forms
7. Spycams
8. The Principal’s undeclared Graphene shares
9. Barts namechange?

Where is the money going

• Financial Times, The shadow economy behind the international student boom (22 September 2025)
• The Times reports on the Principal spending lavishly on a MOOC conference with Chinese AI investors, to organise a private meeting between the UK Minister for Skills and her Chinese counterpart and the Chinese ambassador (18 December 2024).

Reorganisation Humanities & Social Sciences

• Times Higher Education, Will UK department mergers boost interdisciplinarity – or just cut costs? (8 May 2025)
• The Pie, Queen Mary University of London stops several online courses (10 June 2024)
• Times Higher Education, Parents left in limbo as university plans on-site nursery closure (12 June 2024)
• Roman Road, Queen Mary University of London’s Nursery Shutting Amidst Protest (7 June 2024)
• The Stage, Queen Mary University Redundancies the Latest to Hit Drama Provision (14 March 2024)
• Times Higher Education, UK funding crisis forces three more universities to cut jobs (15 March 2024)
• London Whitechapel, Is Queen Mary Still the Best University for Social Mobility? (22 January 2024)

The treatment of protest against genocide — on campus and of our Global Professor

• The Guardian: Gaza protest camps at UK universities wind down amid legal action (7 July 2024)
• Liberty Investigates: Revealed: the universities offering police intel on student Gaza protesters (2 July 2024)
• The Guardian: ‘Political arrest’ of Palestinian academic in Israel is civil liberties threat, say lawyers (26 April 2024)
• Times Higher Education: Calls to boycott university over detention of Palestinian scholar (26 April 2024)
• The Tab: Queen Mary guards ‘break into’ UCU offices and tear down pro-Palestine posters (February 2024)

Punitive Deductions

• Times Higher Education: Queen Mary Staff allowed to challenge marking boycott pay cuts (4 October 2024)
• Times Higher Education: Queen Mary marking boycott wage deductions challenged at tribunal (1 October 2024)
• The Guardian: The miserly tale of how a university took its staff’s wages – and the public paid the price (22 December 2023)
• BBC reporting on the 113 days of pay deductions for withholding just a couple of assignments (25 September 2023)
• The Independent: Striking university staff ‘forced to cut back on food’ as they ‘can’t pay the bills’ (25 September 2023)
• LBC visiting our picket line on 25 September 2023, interviewing staff and students about industrial relations, about the impact of the intimidation on staff and students alike, and the experiences of staff and students.
• Times Higher Education: Rayner shows her support for striking academics (17 February 2023)
• The Guardian: Universities condemned over threat to dock all pay of striking staff (27 November 2022)
• The Observer: University accused of ‘vindictive attack’ as staff lose 21 days’ pay over protest (30 July 2022)
• FT: Thousands of university students face disruption as staff strikes continue (6 June 2022)
• Times Higher Education: Examiners quit en masse over Queen Mary’s threats to freeze pay (22 February 2022)
• The Evening Standard: ‘It’s aggressive’, say university staff about 100% pay cut for striking (10 February 2022)

Terrible ‘mitigation measures’ to neutralise the boycott

• AP: Lecturers in the UK refuse to mark exams in labor dispute, leaving thousands unable to graduate (7 August 2023)
• ITV: Queen Mary University English and Drama students can’t get degree after strikes leave exams unmarked (24 July 2023)
• The Tab: QMUL students refunded £500 each for not receiving degrees at their graduation ceremony (February 2023)
• Times Higher Education: Boycott-busting Queen Mary markers blasted for ‘basic’ feedback (20 June 2022)
• Times Higher Education: Queen Mary head threatens to close course over marking boycott (8 July 2022)
• Honi Soit: Queen Mary University of London may use Australian consultants to break staff marking boycott (20 May 2022)

Snitch forms

• The Guardian: Students at top London university urged to ‘snitch’ on striking lecturers (5 March 2023)
• The Evening Standard: Top London university hit with resignations over approach to strikes and working conditions (27 February 2023)

Spycams

• Nature: Campus Surveillance: Students and Professors Decry Sensors in Buildings (20 October 2023)
• Times Higher Education: Queen Mary Installs Cameras to track staff office use (22 June 2023)

The Principal’s undeclared Graphene shares

• Private Eye: High Principals; Thin Pickings
• Whitechapel London: Staff at Queen Mary’s call for investigation into principals shareholdings (20 April 2022)

Barts namechange?

• The Times: The Times view on a change of title at Barts: Name Dropping (3 February 2022)

In the university’s Teaching Excellence Framework narrative submission, the relentless press coverage is spun as ‘a good thing, actually’. We’re not sure we agree. And Council, our governing body, shouldn’t either. Could you help let them know that the institution whose reputation they are responsible for is being tarnished?