_Images: University of Dundee_
**Institution’s leaders say research activity is contributing to the crisis, with insolvency “a real possibility”**
The University of Dundee would run out of money by June this year without an emergency bailout from the Scottish Funding Council, the head of its governing body has said.
Tricia Bey, acting chair of Dundee’s university court, told the Scottish parliament’s education committee on 19 March that the university is in “a very grave cash crisis”.
“Without the very welcome liquidity support from the SFC, we will run out of cash at the end of June,” she said, adding that this is a problem that is likely to last “for a few more years”.
Earlier in proceedings, the university’s interim principal Shane O’Neill said the institution had asked the Scottish government for an extra £22 million, which had been “made available”.
In February, the SFC made £15m available to help ailing universities, which was topped up with an additional £10m last week. Scottish education secretary Jenny Gilruth said the money was “to assist universities such as Dundee with navigating immediate financial challenges”.
But Bey warned that the assistance may not prevent Dundee from going to the wall. “We do have to bear in mind the possibility that we become insolvent, and it is a real possibility,” she said.
Last week, the university said its economic forecast, even after taking actions to reduce operational spend and make immediate savings, is for a £35m deficit in 2024-25.
**Management ‘failures’**
O’Neill, who became interim principal in December following the resignation of Iain Gillespie, said there had been a “false assumption” towards the end of the 2023-24 financial year that the university was close to breaking even.
“That did not turn out to be the case,” he said. “We were well off break-even position, and that only became clear in November.” O’Neill said there were “failures in terms of reporting at executive and court level”, and that questions about why the university’s financial position was not being reported properly would be addressed in an independent inquiry, the details of which will be announced imminently by the SFC.
Asked whether there had been incompetency in the way the university had been led before he took the reins, O’Neill acknowledged that “perhaps there were some gaps in the competency of the leadership”. However, he said he had seen no evidence of “criminality”.
**Research activity a factor**
In his opening address to the committee, O’Neill described the situation at Dundee as “regrettable”. Last week, the university announced it would [cut 632 jobs and scale down its research activity](https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-universities-2025-3-dundee-cuts-institution-funded-research-to-address-35m-deficit/).
“I want to apologise to all those who are affected by those challenges, and we are very mindful of the negative impact that is having on our staff, on our students, on the city and the country,” he said. “We’re deeply sorry that they’re facing such a destabilising and anxious period.”
While partly attributing the situation to pressures impacting the rest of the sector—such as a drop in international student recruitment and the recently announced increase in national insurance employer contributions—O’Neill said “there are also quite a few Dundee-specific causes to the problems”.
In addition to “inadequate financial discipline” and a “lack of accountability”, he said the level of R&D at Dundee is a factor.
“We are a very research-intensive university—far more research-intensive than most of our size and scale—and achieving a balance to cross-subsidise and support that research intensity has been a challenge for quite a few years,” he said. “We have to address that now.”
Dundee has said its recovery plan includes “significant academic and professional restructuring”. Its eight academic schools will be folded into three faculties, and it is moving to “minimise institution-funded research”.