Fury as uni where staff faced repeated lay-offs will spend two years researching DEATH METAL at cost of £200k
A UNIVERSITY where staff faced repeated lay-offs is to spend two years researching death metal — costing £200,000.
News of the bizarre music project sparked fury after three lots of cuts in a year.
Bosses asked for more voluntary redundancies last month before Dr Eric Smialek’s “ridiculous” quest was announced at the University of Huddersfield.
The Canadian senior research fellow will analyse vocals used in extreme metal — which includes death, doom and black metal — from bands including Possessed.
He is being backed by £190,380 of government funding, from UK Research and Innovation.
But one insider said: “What benefit will this bring anyone?
“And it comes in the current climate with people starving and unable to pay bills and some losing their jobs. It’s ridiculous.”
The students’ union has criticised university job cuts there while TV star Stephen Fry has spoken out for under-threat staff.
He tweeted: “I was shocked to hear that a savage knife has been taken to the quite brilliant linguistics department there.”
Explaining the project, Dr Smialek said: “The early extreme metal bands had not grown up listening to extreme metal, so their vocalists have very individual styles.
“It’s interesting and fun to chart all the nuances, like a map, and see how different conventions developed.”
The university said: “The project is not being paid for by the university.
“It is being funded by UK Research and Innovation.”