DURHAM University is to cut several departments in an £8.7m reshuffle.
This week the university officially decided to close its Department of East Asian Studies, phase out its European Studies programme and look into transferring its Linguistics course to the University of Newcastle.
The sweeping changes, which were approved by the university's governing council this week, are being billed as a reinvestment programme.
A spokesman for the council said the savings will be reinvested into other departments and although 40 jobs are threatened, the same number of new posts will be created.
He said: "This hasn't been done just to save money. It's to move money around and strengthen the best departments and offer more places to students on subjects where demand is high, such as history, English, geography, law and so on."
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