Update on Academic Career Pathways (ACP) talks – November 2025
We have had several meetings now and, as ever, getting meetings is not an issue.
Following on from the motion passed in September 2025, we sought to agree Terms of Reference for the talks, essentially asking for (i) an evaluation of the justification and utility of the ACPs at MMU and the impact of these on post-92 academic contracts, job roles and duties (including job descriptions), and the allocation of work, (ii) a consideration of workload implications, and (iii) a consideration of objective setting and performance management within the ACPs.
Academic Career Pathways
The first aspect was dismissed. There has been no movement in any of talks over the fundamental objections raised around the Pathways. Arguments that job roles have significantly changed the work many of you can and can’t do have been dismissed as “perceptions of change”, rather than real changes.
Management argue that the changes to the job descriptions align with the required criteria as set out by UCU nationally. We maintain the position that the changes made to job descriptions and the way these have evolved and been implemented amount to a change in terms and conditions, and for EPC staff especially, do not align with the post-92 contract.
We have repeatedly been told that the ACPs are working, that management are being told that they are success, and that they are winning awards for them, and therefore that we, that you, are wrong.
We have accepted that the ACPs are complex and that there are those who prefer to focus on Practice/Pedagogy. Our argument remains, however, that there should be an element of choice and flexibility in the ACPs to accommodate, as far as possible, a desired career focus. The way the ACPs have been developed and evolve do not facilitate that.
ACPs have been presented by management as a necessity for navigating the competing demands in the sector, and as a way of seeking to recognise a parity of esteem between research and practice. It is true that many institutions are pursuing similar strategies but they are not necessarily as rigid as those implemented at MMU.
We have made it very clear we do not agree with the management position on the ACP.
There is, however, engagement with some of the issues raised. They are, instead, categorising the issues we are raising as workload ones, and have said they are willing to talk to us about that, including RSA. They are also willing to talk about performance and progression. So while there had been no agreement on Terms of Reference, they have agreed agenda items.
Workload
We met with them on 21.10.25 to talk about workload issues. They adopted quite a broad interpretation of these, which would explain more about why in previous talks issues had been classified as workload ones, rather than as ACP ones.
The main points from that meeting were:
- From next year all EPC staff will get 90 hours, self-directed “P” time (as the RSA entitlement). Two faculties apparently already have this. REC do not get this as they are expected to use their research allowance for this.
- They don’t think the PhD policy is too exclusionary or that EPC staff are excluded from annual reviews. Their position is that the change in position to now allow EPC supervision (under certain circumstances) is appropriate and establishes parity, given the differing demands of progression for the Pathways. We will send them the wording and why we think it’s exclusionary and they will look into the PGR review aspect.
- There was lots of discussion on the demands of the sector and on staff, and on the transfer process and how a functional and realistic one might work. We said we were wanting to look at how this could be amended. There is some disagreement over the extent to which UCU was involved in agreeing the existing process.
- There is a commitment to not go over 550 hours for teaching but disagreement on what is included in this. Although this is something we may need to pick up outside of the ACP talks.
- We talked about the impact of changes to roles in terms of identity and career progression. Their position was that people hired onto the Pathways know what that means and are given lots of support and opportunities to develop. For those who were moved onto EPC and would rather not be, they characterise this as a necessity because they weren’t achieving what was required of them. We pointed out that the majority of these decisions were made in the context of Covid and block teaching etc., where many had been flexible and made sacrifices to prioritise teaching and student support, without realising/being told what the consequences of that were/would be for their roles/careers. And that as a result, damage had been done to wellbeing and identity, and career development.
- They said that EPC people can still apply for funding (with what seem like quite a few restrictions including the funding not being research council funding), and be part of REC bids if approved (but not as a PI). They were very careful to state that the word “research” couldn’t be used in the context of EPC.
- They also accused UCU of being too down on EPC and devaluing it. We pointed out that we were just reporting what our members were experiencing. That we recognised there were a group of people who were absolutely happy with their Pathways, but there were also many people who were not.
- We pointed out that we weren’t able to agree to anything and that we would obviously need to go back to members before making a decision, but that pursuing a dispute under the Recognition Agreement in line with the motion remains a possibility.
Performance and Progression
We then met with them on 4.11.2025 to talk about performance and progression.
The main points were:
- If we pursue a dispute, the things we talked about and they said they would put in place in the previous meeting would be withdrawn. We had originally planned to have a branch meeting to make the decision on 05.11.2025 but have deferred the decision to the scheduled November branch meetings instead and we informed them of that, and they were pleased about that.
- They kept arguing that performance and progression weren’t really pathways issues and that by us classifying them as pathways issues, it was stopping us from having a proper conversation about these. We obviously refuted this as, as long as we operate within the pathways, and those have different objectives etc attached to them, they are very much a pathway issue and need to be considered in that context. In particular we argued about the pressure being felt by REC staff and the difficulties in meeting targets with so many competing workload demands.
- We raised the concern that some REC staff were being threatened with a Pathway change for poor performance. We were assured that a transfer from REC to EPC would not be approved solely on the basis of performance issues on REC.
- The main gist from their perspective was that processes are in place and that if individuals are not happy, or they are not working properly, these are things that individuals can raise. So essentially individualising issues which we know are wider. They did, however, agree that there were workload and support issues to discuss around these issues.
- There wasn’t much time to talk about progression so we just asked about two issues. We requested equality data on the REC/EPC breakdown of staff which they said they could provide. We also raised the exclusion of tutors and grade 7s from the Pathways. Again they said this wasn’t a pathways issue, it was a general progression issue, but they said they would look into development opportunities/what was currently in place.
They have scheduled our next meeting for the 9th December 2025. But we will follow up on a couple of issues by email before then.
