UCU: Resisting the triple threat: Trump, AI and marketisation in HE

Motion

Motion title: Resisting the triple threat: Trump, AI and marketisation in HE

Motion text: HESC notes that
1. UK Higher Education faces a major market crisis with OfS predicting 70% of
English Universities to run at a loss next session.
2. UK HE also faces an anti-intellectual threat driven by popular
misunderstandings of generative AI and potential impacts on graduate jobs.
3. These two threats combine with Donald Trump’s second US presidency,
promoting ‘anti-woke science’ discourses from politicians, including from
Conservative and Reform parties, to create an existential threat to UK HE.
HESC believes the question, What is University For? must be central to our
defence.
HESC resolves to
a. Launch a series of UK-wide public debates hosted by UCU branches to debate
these questions, inviting politicians and the media.
b. Call on UK Government to invest in HE and boost critical thinking in all
aspects of the curriculum.
c. Integrate this programme into a fight to defend jobs and courses in the
sector.