However, QUB acting chief people officer Alistair Finlay defended the decision to open the campus in India, adding that the current funding model for higher education did not work as the money from Stormont did not cover the costs of home students from Northern Ireland.

He said Queen’s was investing between £5m-£7m in the new campus.

Addressing concerns around financial transparency with the union, Mr Finlay told Good Morning Ulster that QUB had provided a “large amount of information”.

“We have done everything we can to engage with the trade unions in this whole discussion so that everybody can understand what is driving this but we need to balance our income,” he added.

The union has described the planned redundancies as “brutal and unnecessary” and said it was deeply concerned about the workloads faced by the remaining staff.

It claimed the severance process “requires applicants to outline how their duties will be redistributed among remaining colleagues or otherwise suppressed”.