Number of rejected university speakers ‘sharply increased’ in 2020/21

Almost 200 speaker requests or events were rejected by English universities or other higher education institutions in 2020/21, new figures show.

The numbers, published by the Office for Students (OfS), show that out of 19,407 external speaker requests or events, 193 were rejected in 2020/21, compared with 94 in 2019/20, 141 in 2018/19 and 53 in 2017/18.