Solidarity with Ukraine

Following a motion passed at our AGM, the committee has considered the best way we, as a branch, can support and show solidarity with Ukraine. This has now resulted in a £200 donation of branch funds to the Help Ukraine Emergency Appeal.

The branch committee has also raised a motion for the next UCU East Midlands Regional Committee, calling on them to condemn the unprovoked, unjustified military attack by Russia against Ukraine; to support the provision of any form of aid that Ukraine needs, including military aid, humanitarian aid; to consider tougher political and economic sanctions against Russia; and to discuss cooperation and affiliation with the Ukrainian Solidarity Campaign. The motion also asks the East Midlands Regional Committee to call on UCU to engage with the Ukrainian community in the UK, including Ukrainian academics hosted by British universities, to ensure stronger representation of Ukrainian voices; to state opposition to the UCU Congress motion 5, and for UCU to recall it; to follow the Ukraine Peace Appeal’s call for more informed solidarity, and to call for its support by UCU; to call on UCU to express solidarity with colleagues and students in higher education in Ukraine or displaced by the war, and within the wider Ukrainian diaspora; to call on UCU to support initiatives helping displaced Ukrainian colleagues and students, aiming at the reconstruction of Ukrainian higher education institutions; and, finally, to call on UCU to review and change the governance procedures that resulted in the wording of motion 5 and the contradictory passing of both motion 5 and motion 6 at UCU Congress.