Dear colleagues,
Below you find a template text for a letter that you could modify as you wish and send to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Exeter as a response to the current situation (see here for a brief summary: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jul/01/fury-exeter-university-plan-scrap-dozens-humanities-posts).
We would be grateful if you could rewrite the text as you wish, and email it signed with your official signature and affiliation, to the contact email below. This will enable us to collect all the letters together and have them delivered to Exeter management as soon as possible. We thank you very much for your time and care in helping to address a dramatic situation for our colleagues in the social science and humanities in Exeter, which is also crucial instance of what is happening to our disciplines around the globe, and particularly in the UK at the moment. Solidarity at this difficult time is everything.
Best wishes,
Sabina Leonelli and John Dupré
Dear Executive members of the University of Exeter, including Vice Chancellor Prof. Lisa Roberts, Senior Vice-President and Provost Prof. Dan Charman, Pro Vice Chancellor and Executive Dean Prof. Gareth Stansfield, Deputy Pro Vice Chancellors Prof. Helen Berry and Prof. Adam Watt,
We have signed this letter to express our profound concern at the proposed redundancies affecting academic staff within the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Exeter, including staff at Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences. We urge the University to reconsider these proposals and to recognise the Department and Egenis as valuable assets that should be nurtured and celebrated.
Over the past 20 years, Egenis has established its reputation as one of the world’s leading centres for the interdisciplinary study of the life sciences and their ethical, social, political and philosophical implications. It is renowned across the globe for its lively and collaborative research culture, which had pioneered new understandings of genomics, systems biology, microbiology, the historical sciences, embodied cognition, data intensive science, automation and artificial intelligence.
A thriving, interdisciplinary research centre like Egenis cannot exist in a vacuum. Its work depends upon a wider ecosystem, which includes researchers in sciences (e.g. biosciences, biomedicine, data sciences) and those working in the humanities and social sciences (e.g. anthropology, philosophy, sociology). It also depends upon researchers having sufficient time and resources to pursue these collaborations and advance their research.
Researchers at Exeter are leaders in their fields. Their work is published in the most prestigious international venues. Their projects attract grants from highly competitive international funding bodies. They play leading roles in the most important international networks in their fields. Their work has impacted policy in countless areas, from genomics to artificial intelligence. Their alumni have carried Exeter’s reputation across the globe.
Establishing the reputation of a university, and a research centre like Egenis, takes years of dedication and hard work by generations of researchers and students. Although we do not underestimate the challenges facing universities at this time, we urge the University of Exeter to reconsider these proposals and withdraw all threat of compulsory redundancy as an essential step to protect some of its most valuable assets.
Signed,