EMINENT historian Stuart Macintyre has slammed an independent review of the University of Melbourne's school of historical and philosophical studies as lacking evidence and overseen by international academics with little experience of the Australian sector.

Professor Macintyre, a former dean of arts at Melbourne and a professor at the school, said he feared the review was a "fix" to justify further staff cuts.

The review blamed falling student enrolments at the school partly on the alleged reluctance of some staff to commit to the university's Melbourne model.

It also said there were too many Australian historians compared with student demand and recommended that the Australian Centre scrap undergraduate teaching and cut academic staff from 12 to two....