It’s been an especially grim start to 2025 for many in UK higher education. News in early January of cuts and job losses at the universities of Canterbury Christ Church, Northampton and Staffordshire has been followed by announcements from Cardiff, Durham, Newcastle, Reading and, once again, Kent. This, moreover, is only a selection of the institutions currently pursuing cuts to staffing, reductions in course provision, restructures and mergers.

While few subject areas are immune to what is now a full-blown financial crisis in UK higher education, the arts and humanities continue to bear the brunt. This includes History which is the discipline represented, in schools and universities, by our four organisations: the Historical Association, History UK, the Institute of Historical Research and Royal Historical Society.

The problems facing education far exceed the capacity of any single subject association. On the ground, case-by-case, each of us provides support and speaks for our distinctive memberships and constituencies, through targeted research and campaigns. But it’s also the case that the concerns and priorities on which we focus individually are shared by this quartet of historical organisations.

When we meet together – or with organisations including the British Academy and Arts and Humanities Alliance, which pursue similar agendas – our work highlights common areas for attention. These include the ‘pipeline’ between school and university, and why some students are being turned away from history; a loss of support for history teacher training in UK universities; and the need to articulate more forcefully and clearly the skills – professional, personal and civic – inherent to the study of history. Here, we work to connect with communities, from students and parents to teachers and politicians, who are sometimes unaware of or resistant to these positives.

In addition, despite History's immense popularity at large – evident in the public appetite for historic sites, podcasts, film or television, and private research – the health and vitality of our subject in schools and universities cannot be taken for granted. While History remains attractive at GCSE and A level History, in Higher Education in particular it is under growing pressure. In addition to the challenges posed by an over-marketized, increasingly broken HE infrastructure, it is increasingly vulnerable to uninformed comment about its value compared with other areas of study.

Here our four organisations have common cause.

While engagement with our particular constituencies continues, we’re also working closely and strategically for History across and beyond education. These activities include the sharing of information, to understand the changing environment in which history is studied, taught and practised; identifying and communicating the value of history education; demonstrating the diversity of a subject which is as likely to involve big data analysis as it is a trip to a print archive; and working to close the gap between ‘popular history’ and the specialist teaching and research on which this depends.

In these ways, we seek a more co-ordinated approach to advocacy, so that we might better campaign and speak up for History. Collaboration, between historians, and with fellow humanities organisations, has never been more necessary. If you wish to help us, please get in touch.

Claire Langhamer, Director of the Institute of Historical Research
Lucy Noakes, President of the Royal Historical Society
Antonio Sennis and Sarah Holland, Co-chairs of History UK
Alexandra Walsham and Rebecca Sullivan, President and CEO of the Historical Association