There is a joint academic workload task-and-finish group that is jointly chaired by Allan Pacey (Acting Dean FBMH) and Simeon Gill (UMUCU). It has met seven times since the end of November 2023, charged to investigate the challenges of workload for academics.

The group wishes to use six focus groups to help refine ideas and identify priority areas for change. We would like your help to collect nominations for members to contribute. There will be 12 participants in each to balance input from three faculties, comprising 6 people nominated by UCU and 6 people nominated by the faculty. The make-up of each group of six should ideally be as diverse as possible, including members on fixed term contracts, lecturers, senior lecturers, readers and professors, on T&S, T&R and R contract types. See here for more detail.

Please could you register your desire to attend by filling in this form or by emailing ucu@manchester.ac.uk with the subject Workload Focus Groups, before Dec 2024.

Additionally, Employee Relations are happy to receive comments to employeerelations@manchester.ac.uk clearly marked AW Focus Group Comments in the subject field.