financial crisis when it made a £74m loss in the financial year ending on 31 July 2022. The university's income was £295m, but it spent £370m: 48% staff costs, 16% pension scheme provision, 26% other costs, 8% depreciation and 2% interest on loans. The university expected to make a £34m loss in the financial year 2023/24 and had predicted that there would be £45m yearly losses by 2026/27.
The university's teaching block, also known as the Lasdun Wall, urgently required major repairs; its condition was described as "deteriorating fast" and it was said that if repairs were not done it might have "to be closed permanently" and would be "unusable by 2025". The financial turmoil alongside a previous vote of no-confidence by the UCU branch of East Anglia, and a "scathing" letter written to the UEA Council by the professoriate demanding change, led to the immediate resignation of vice-chancellor David Richardson on 17 February 2023, who had been in the role for ten years.
Questions were asked about the university's sudden crisis in Parliament, with the local MP Clive Lewis talking of the institution being in a "death spiral". Professor David Maguire, formerly vice-chancellor at the University of Greenwich, was appointed as the new vice-chancellor on 22 May 2023, initially on a fixed-term basis. According to a UEA press release, Maguire "will lead UEA through a significant period of transformation and change as it works to secure its future financial stability, and continue its success as a world-leading teaching and research University for future generations of students and staff". This meant job cuts and threats of compulsory redundancy (113 staff posts were lost over the summer).
In September 2023, it was announced that some of the university's student accommodation would be temporarily closed, due to government guidance on the unsafe nature of the building material RAAC. The dwellings affected were the iconic Ziggurats (including both Norfolk and Suffolk Terrace), visiting person accommodation at Broadview Lodge and …
