Who am I?

My name is Ula. I am a scientist and I have worked in academia for over a decade. During this time, I have seen many colleagues suffer from bullying, discrimination and other forms of unprofessional treatment, mainly from people in more senior positions to the victims. Most people suffered in silence or left the job without reporting the unprofessional behaviours as they were afraid that they would be victimised.

Recently, I became a victim of bullying and harassment myself. I was pregnant at the time and was worried that the huge amount of stress I was subjected to would cause harm to my baby. Therefore, I made a decision to report everything to the top management of the organisation. It was not an easy decision but I was desperate for help and truly believed that I would receive it, especially that there are policies in place stating that these kinds of behaviours are unacceptable and they would not be tolerated.

I couldn’t be more wrong. The facts were first ignored and then the institution tried to cover up everything to protect the bully - my line manager.

My life changed upside down. I found myself in a situation that I was not only bullied but also victimised and at a risk of redundancy. This also affected my health during pregnancy and my baby started under growing. I felt so helpless that I began regretting standing up to the bully. I felt that it would have been easier to suffer in silence until my maternity leave starts. At that point, I understood why so many people never reported anything and chose to suffer. After seeing how badly the institution was handling the situation, I knew I would not be able to get any justice or even a fair treatment without legal support.

As I was 7-months pregnant and my health was deteriorating due to the stress caused by the way my employer was handling the process I hired a solicitor. With my solicitor’s assistance I managed to collect a great amount of evidence for how the institution failed to support me and how they protected the bully throughout the whole process. This revealed that there are several individuals who were involved in protecting the bully at the expense of my career and more importantly at the expense of my health during pregnancy. I would like to hold all of them accountable for their actions and I am prepared to take the institution to Employment Tribunal.

My aim is to have a positive impact on current research culture. I am striving for the true implementation of all policies and zero tolerance for bullying, harassment, discrimination and other forms of unprofessional behaviour in academia. It is not acceptable that the perpetrators are allowed to carry on with building their career while the victims are left to rebuild their shattered lives.

Why my case matters?

Bullying, harassment, discrimination and any other forms of unprofessional treatment at work places are destroying people’s lives.

As reported by the Guardian in 2018 a culture of harassment and intimidation is thriving in Britain’s leading universities. Professor Venki Ramakrishnan, the president of the Royal Society, called for an overhaul of workplace practices, saying that bullying has become ingrained in the culture of too many academic institutions. Institutional failures to address these issues appropriately wastes tax payers’ as such cases are often secretly resolved by signing non-disclosure agreements in exchange for financial pay-outs that allow the institutions to not hold the perpetrators accountable.

I am one of the too many victims and this needs to stop. Thanks to the huge amount of evidence collected my case has a very high potential to become a landmark case that finally makes a change but I can’t do it alone. I need your help to be able to help others.

How much I am raising and why?

I am aiming to raise £ 60,000 to allow me to continue the ongoing fight for all of us without having to consider the institution’s settlement offer that would aim to silence me and let the perpetrators’ continue to destroy other people’s lives. Your contributions will go towards my legal costs to date (i.e., £ 30,000) and future legal costs covering:

• the preparation of complaints against all those who have failed;
• the preparation of complaints about this institution to third parties including the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Charity Commissioner’s and the funders of this institution;
• any further processes including taking the case to the Employment Tribunal.

Please donate to support this very important legal challenge, and please share with others who may wish to support me.

Thank you