Thom Brooks (Newcastle), who organized the earlier petition, writes with two requests connected to the effort to get the AHRC to drop the political sloganeering:
FIRST, I ask that you contact all learned societies and associations you are working with and ask them to contact Prof James Ladyman (Head of Department, Philosophy, Bristol). He is organizing a joint statement to be agreed by learned societies across the arts and humanities that will call upon the AHRC to remove all references to the "Big Society" in its delivery plan and other documentation with immediate effect. Please contact James by early next week or earlier. His email address is James.Ladyman@bristol.ac.uk
SECONDLY, I REQUEST ALL FELLOW MEMBERS OF THE AHRC PEER REVIEW COLLEGE TO CONFIRM WITH ME (t.brooks@newcastle.ac.uk) WHETHER THEY WILL JOIN US IN THREATENING TO RESIGN FROM THE PEER REVIEW COLLEGE BY THE END OF THIS MONTH IF NO ACTION IS TAKEN (current members-only). I genuinely hope there will be no need for us to make good on such a threat. However, I believe that the time has come to show the AHRC how many of us on its own Peer Review College genuinely oppose its decision to include the "Big Society" in its delivery plan. If you are not on the college, please contact colleagues who are and ask them to contact me ASAP. A full list of Peer Review College members can be found here: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/About/PeerReview/Pages/default.aspx
A few thousand of us have signed the petition and several hundred have written emails and letters. The AHRC continues to deny the problem and it refuses to act. Please let us stand together across disciplinary and political divides to make a stand against the inclusion of political campaign slogans of ANY political party entering into the delivery plans for strategic research funding priorities in the arts and humanities. If we do not win this debate, then we may well expect political campaign slogans to loom ever larger in research council plans. This is a position of principle, not politics. Please contact learned societies and AHRC Peer Review College. I remain hopeful that no resignations will be necessary, but clearly we must do something more to demonstrate the strength of our opposition to the AHRC's delivery plan.
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