ACADEMICS have welcomed a "major u-turn" by Queen's University Belfast which will see single honours sociology and anthropology degrees remain open.
The University College Union (UCU) said the "dramatic climb-down" by the governing senate body followed a major campaign by students and staff.
They have been highly critical of the university over cuts to jobs, student numbers and courses, the planned merger of university schools and tough research funding targets for probationary lecturers.
A working group from the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences involving academic colleagues and student representatives had been considering the sustainability of some single honours degrees.
The university said recommendations to end them were to be taken to the executive board and senate.
The senate agreed on Tuesday that new single honours programmes in both anthropology and sociology would start in 2018.
The university said the development of the courses would provide new opportunities for learning, research and engagement.
"We are delighted with this decision," said Queen's UCU President Dr Fabian Schuppert.
"It's a vindication of our stance on the threats to humanities and social sciences generally and to sociology in particular. It shows that top-down thinking and marketisation aren't working.
"And it's a major victory for students and staff, who campaigned hard over the last number of weeks. I’m glad that management have finally listened."
While Queen's agreed to keep the degrees open, he added, it was uncertain who would now oversee the implementation of reforms within the sociology and social anthropology programmes.
Sociology lecturer Dr Véronique Altglas added: "We are delighted of course that our campaign has been a success. This is very encouraging. But we are also deeply concerned that the same people who tried to close our degrees earlier may now been put in charge of `reforming' these degrees."
