Historians on Brexit

Universities face much uncertainty over the coming years because of Brexit. We want your help to spread information about how Brexit is affecting you!

Brexit EU pictureThe aim of this blog is not to take sides in debates about Brexit. Instead, we wish to present this as a platform where historians can exchange information about how Brexit is affecting us personally and professionally, as individuals and within our departments and universities more broadly. Groups like Scientists for EU have very successfully gained wider coverage about scientists’ views on Brexit. This means that much of the coverage and government interest in Brexit and Higher Education has focused on how these issues affect scientists. While we admire their success, we partly wish to provide an alternative voice, to remind politicians and the general public that Britain’s university sector is a diverse community.

This has inspired us at History UK to offer a platform for historians and History programmes throughout the UK to express their views. In order to do this, we need your help. All you have to do is send us a short email or tweet. This can be anecdotal evidence about your experiences or links to relevant research or articles. We want to know about how Brexit is affecting funding, travel, and future plans, both at an institutional level and at a personal level. We will use this blog and our Twitter feed to provide a forum for the exchange of such information (anonymously, if desired).

History UK will also draw on your evidence to inform our activities as we negotiate Brexit, the upcoming REF, the introduction of Teaching Excellence Framework, and a variety of other proposed changes to Higher Education in the UK.

This will help us present History experiences and views to the wider public and policy makers, ensuring these potentially seismic shifts in Higher Education recognise the importance of one of the most popular subjects in the UK.

Rachel Bright
11 April 2017

Call for new co-convener

History UK is inviting expressions of interest in the post of Co-Convenor. Andrew Dilley is stepping down after seven years of sterling work for the organisation, three of them as Co-Convenor.

The next three years will be critical ones not simply for History UK but for the higher education system in which it operates. The next REF, the mooted ‘TEF’ and the financial turbulence unleashed by changes to tuition fees and research councils will affect us all. History UK has a role in shaping these developments and responding to their consequences and representing the interests of academic historians. Co-Convenors have a role in representing History UK.

Any academic historian working in the UK is eligible for nomination, and we would particularly welcome applications from historians less white, male and English than the other members of the executive. Although the deadline for nominations for executive officers is 21 days before the next scheduled plenary meeting on 16 November 2015 (see here), we would be grateful if informal enquiries reach us by the first week of June. This is so that we can explain what the job entails, ensure a smooth transition and arrange with the Secretary for an election in the event of multiple candidates. For informal enquiries, please contact the Co-Convenors Marcus Collins (marcus.collins@lboro.ac.uk) and Andrew Dilley (a.dilley@abdn.ac.uk).