literature at the request of Cambridge UCU, supplying it for publication in written form instead. In the wake of Trinity's departure from the scheme, the Covenant Advisor to the USS Trustee, PwC, advised that the covenant remained strong but would now be placed on 'negative watch', with the threat that it might be downgraded to 'tending to strong' should another employer exit from the scheme. By May 2021, the USS Trustee was said to have become 'inordinately concerned' with the risk that other employers might follow Trinity's lead, and this prompted the employers' organisation, Universities UK (UUK), to formulate proposals for a 20-year moratorium on departures. 2021 negotiations Without change, the planned contributions for 2022 would rise to at least 28.5% (from 23.7% in October 2021) for employers and from 11% to at least 13.6% for employees. In an effort to conclude the 2020 valuation in accordance with the pensions regulator and other parties, employers offered a plan in which contributions would not increase, but the DB salary cap would be lowered to £40,000 (down from £60,000) and accrual would reduce from 1/75 to 1/85. In two further changes, it was suggested that institutions would lose the option of leaving USS and that inflation indexing of pensions would be capped at 2.5% and that indexing would be conditional on circumstances. Such conditional indexation may be seen by the regulator as non-binding and thus would increase the solvency of the scheme by significantly lowering liabilities. Around 20% of university academics have opted out of the scheme, prompting the suggestion of lower tiers of membership to stem this flow. In September 2021, an independent analysis under the auspices of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research found that although the most likely future outcome was that USS's assets would meet or exceed the obligations of the fund, there was "a significant probability – often 30% or more – that assets would run out before all pensions have been paid". The authors encouraged a more public debate about risk-appetite and risk-sharing among USS stakeholders, and as strike action on the issue from 1–3 December unfolded, intense debates unfolded in the pages of publications such as the Financial Times, Times Higher Education, and elsewhere. Debate continued with the publication of a working paper, one of whose authors was a UCU negotiator, that argued that UUK had underestimated the likely losses of cuts to