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Queen’s £43,000 bill for staff trip
Monday, 29 June 2009
Queen's University has spent tens of thousands of pounds on sending its senior staff on two separate trips to the Far East to confer honorary degrees, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal today.
The news comes as the university — which will receive £110m in public funding in 2009/10 — announced it was to lay off more than 100 staff and axe its German department.
The Telegraph has learned that QUB:
- spent over £43,000 on flights, accommodation and expenses on a four-day trip to confer a degree on the King of Malaysia in |February.
- sent 14 people — including Vice Chancellor Peter Gregson, academics, students and university staff — to Japan where they handed over an honorary degree to a religious sect leader last month. Part of this delegation — including Prof Gregson — flew on to China for a six-day trip.
The news has drawn a stern reaction from members of Stormont's Employment and Learning Committee who demanded more details on the trips and what benefits they bring to the university.
On the Japanese trip, from May 16-18, a party of 14 university representatives travelled to Tokyo.
The trip was to confer an honorary doctorate on Daisaku Ikeda, president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a lay Buddhist group.
The SGI e-bulletin listed the full QUB delegation including Pro vice-Chancellor, Professor Ken Brown, three senior non-academic staff members and four PhD students.
The university would not reveal the cost of the trips. But following a response to an FOI request it emerged that the business trip to Malaysia cost £43,848.
The Belfast Telegraph calculated that the cheapest flights to Tokyo, according to a travel website, would cost just under £500.
This would mean flights would have cost at least £7,000.
Queen’s confirmed the delegation stayed at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Toyko with a basic room costing around £142 per night. This would work out at just under £2,000 per night for the university group.
The Vice-Chancellor along with four members of staff then travelled to China to visit leading universities from May 19-24.
In the same month a delegation headed by Prof Gregson flew to New York to give actor Liam Neeson an honorary degree.
The costs emerge as the university’s Senate agreed to a plan cutting 103 academic jobs and closing its German department.
DEL committee member David McClarty from the UUP called for more openness and transparency about the amount of money spent on such trips.
“Given the fact that a number of people will lose their jobs and the decision was made to remove German from the university and that a sizeable amount of Queen’s is funded by public money, people have a right to know exactly how much is spent on these trips.”
The SDLP’s Pat Ramsey said study visits can have a “return investment”, but questioned the overall costs.
A spokeswoman for the university said three members of Queen’s staff accompanied the Vice-Chancellor to Japan to hand over the degree.
But added as part of its “international research strategy”, Queen’s also had meetings about potential collaborations and participated in two research-related symposia in Tokyo.
“This involved 10 academics and post graduate students and helped cement research and study abroad links with Soka Gakkai University, in the areas of translational studies and conflict resolution,” the spokeswoman added.” she said.
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I'm originally from Tokyo. I have stayed at the Keio Plaza Hotel and know it's not expensive one.
@neal, some additions. As I know there is nowhere Soka Gakkai University but Soka Uni, I could say this article is not well-written. Dr Ikeda is also famous in many fields, even apart from the religion. I am sure because I've known in my study of Peace and Conflict studies.
Posted by Kai | 17.07.09, 00:28 GMT
I'm an international PhD student at Queen's. I came here because of my supervisor's research reputation. No 'publicity' trip was required to raise my awareness of QUB - it's the quality of the academic staff that draws postgraduates. I'm also fully funded by QUB, so they're not bringing in anywhere near the 43k GBP spent on that trip to Malaysia. Trips may be an acceptable way of publicising QUB, but show some fiscal restraint. Especially when you're firing important academic staff!
Posted by Sarah J. | 02.07.09, 13:30 GMT
To Graham:
The question is: was it necessary to bring so many people away in each of these occasions ? Re the trip to NY: any need to send a delegation when Neeson returns frequently ? What a good add for Belfast it would have been to see Neeson around Queen's: that would have put Belfast on the map... I thought that's what the VC wanted, but his acts contradict his words.
Posted by PJ | 02.07.09, 12:28 GMT
Davros - QUB throwing money at Computer Science. As a graduating student from that department I can tell you.-CS was taken over by Electronics Eng. some time ago and the expenditure on the EE professor's pet projects would make the VC's trips look like a Sunday school trip to Bangor. I have heard that several of the best teachers are being dumped in Computer Science - meanwhile the classes get bigger and bigger. And QUB Electronics research is years ahead of the Japanese/Koreans - NOT!!!
Posted by BitMan | 01.07.09, 23:58 GMT
@neal. Another narrow-minded opinion. What exactly is the problem with the Buddist faith or any other that is not 'Christian'.
Openess and tolerance my friend. Its a big world out there!
Posted by ALB | 01.07.09, 19:18 GMT
The VC has money for what is of interest for him: trips around the globe... but not for you students, sorry ! In the new 'state-of-the-art' library, you'll be able to learn everything through books and computers: German, Law, Business, etc. Or else you can go to a trully 'centre for excellence' university, such as Oxford, Cambridge or half of UK universities who performed better than Queen's in the last RAE in most subjects.
Posted by PJ | 30.06.09, 13:36 GMT
This is outrageous behaviour on the part of QUB, spending this amount of money on these trips when at the same time cutting jobs. I am especially outraged at the conferring of a degree on the leader of the Soka Gakkai sect in Japan. My understanding is that this group are very anti-Christian in nature, and that Soka Gakkai is an extreme Buddhist sect.
Posted by neal | 30.06.09, 02:49 GMT
I write this as a QUB academic. QUB like many other universities has to compete and recruit students on the global stage. As to the amount of money involved it is relatively insignificant in the scheme of things. If QUB recruited just four international students on the basis of these trips they would cover their costs. If they managed to recruit 20 international students through these ventures they would be nearly £150,000 in profit. This is a non-story written by a bored journalist.
Posted by graham | 29.06.09, 23:03 GMT
£43000 would pay the salaries of two Teaching Fellows in the German Department....
Posted by Jerry | 29.06.09, 21:03 GMT
How can they justify closing German Studies when clearly there is money to fund this department?
Posted by James | 29.06.09, 20:13 GMT
At a time when QUB staff are being targeted due to an alleged lack of money it is strange to discover that thousands of pounds have been found to fully equip the new free gym which opened last month at QUB's world-class ECIT Institute. For some reason the gym is referred to by staff who train there as, “The Library”. Even the gym’s website address uses “thelibrary”, with no hint of it being a gym! Are the financial controllers at QUB/ECIT trying to hide its existence?
Posted by Denise Tremble & Gladys Allover | 29.06.09, 16:33 GMT
This sort of trip is essential for all universities to help maintain their reputation throughout the world, and is also a great opportunity to recruit students to the university who bring in vast sums of money
Posted by Bob Scott | 29.06.09, 16:04 GMT
As a QUB alum, I see nothing wrong with this. Universities need maintain links and increase their profile. It's really not worhty of the Daily Misery treatment. Chill people!
Posted by John | 29.06.09, 15:23 GMT
An 'insignificant amount' but it would pay the salary of one of the research associates threatened with redundancy. The VC and non academic staff on the trip would earn significantly more than £43000! I am so disgusted by how university is being run that I have encouraged my children (who either have or are predicted 4As at A level) not to go to QUB as I suspect the teaching will not be up to scratch. No concern is being shown for teaching or training the researchers of the future
Posted by ann | 29.06.09, 15:18 GMT
Yes, we do need to make contacts and generate business overseas but these types of spending trips are commonplace in many business enterprises and there is no need for them ,in many instances, except they're a nice little chance to travel and create more carbon dioxide.
Have they ever heard of video conferencing?
Posted by robbo | 29.06.09, 14:17 GMT
Any wonder our education is in the state it is whith that sort of spending they should be more accountable for spending like this surly that money should have been spent on education here and not on holidays call it what you want but at the end of the day it was a holiday
Posted by Martin | 29.06.09, 12:47 GMT
As far as public sector waste goes I've seen much, much worse. Though the axing of Geology Department was outrageous. My only concern is they'll keep throwing money at Computer Science when they should be doing green tech.
Posted by Davros | 29.06.09, 12:43 GMT
So what? It seems our local politicians have short memories, not to mention brass-necks to question costs and ask for transparency. 43k is nothing, What hypocrites.
Posted by William | 29.06.09, 11:47 GMT
Clearly in times of recession and with impending job cuts, this may seem a an unnecessary expense. However, surely:
1. £43,000 is a relatively insignificant amount of money in the grand scheme of things.
2. Queen's, and the VC, must make trips like this to enchance and maintain the reputation of the University throughout the academic and business world.
Posted by Patrick | 29.06.09, 10:54 GMT