Christopher Smith
@christophersmith.bsky.social
University of St Andrews; Executive Chair, Arts & Humanities Research Council; International Champion and Creative Industries Sector Champion UK Research and Innovation All views my own, but none of the poetry.
March 2027: Oxford World's Classics edition of Pierce Egan's "Life in London" (1821) will be published. First modern, annotated edition of a novel that defined the age. In this plate by the Cruikshank brothers, the chums get in a fight & Egan has his notebook nicked. global.oup.com/academic/pro...
'A principal aim of Research England funding right now is stability. With research performing organisations under financial pressure it is vital that it is possible to plan ahead, and the latest set of funding allocations offer that sliver of reliability that has been hoped for.' 1/2
Research England funding allocations, 2026-27
What institutional-level formula allocations look like for the coming year
wonkhe.com
Good to see science and universities bundled into the same analysis rather than treated as separate entities (as they are by their dismemberment in separate government departments). But it would be QUITE NICE if 'science' could be construed in the European sense of science. It's not STEM alone.
Time for Andy Burnham to smile on UK science
Waning support for basic research threatens Britain’s technology ambitions
ft.com
Finding beauty in everyday life: Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779), French painter of tranquil, luminous still-life & genre scenes, admired by Manet, Cézanne, Matisse and Proust. La Fille de Cuisine 1738, NGADC | Panier de Pêches, avec noix, couteau, verre de vin 1768, Musée du Louvre
'The purpose of each project will be to develop new international research led by and grounded in the humanities and/or social sciences, to further understanding of mobilities. Genuinely productive and integral interdisciplinarity is a requirement'. Up to £300,000 over 2 years.
The British Academy@britishacademy.bsky.social · 2d agoAre you interested in developing genuinely interdisciplinary piece of research? Applications for the International Interdisciplinary Research Projects, focused on the theme of ‘Mobilities’ are now open. Apply now: https://bit.ly/4y9wiwJ
From Homer to Heritage Science: exploring the Odyssey through ancient objects 🏺🏛️🧜♀️ www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-h...
In the course of a lot of social media I responded to a post about the cuts in arts and humanities with reference to the parallel conversation around STFC. This has understandably been interpreted as unfeeling towards that community. That wasn't my point but it was unhelpful so I apologise
Urania is the Muse of #astronomy; here is a small homage, and a reminder that she needs all her sisters with her. anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com/2026/08/02/u...
Urania and the Music of the Spheres
Hesiod, a Greek poet writing some time in the 8th or 7th century BCE, lists the Muses and the last two are Ourania (Latinized Urania) and Calliope. The last is the greatest of all, he says – …
anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." Happy birthday, James Baldwin!
Urania is the Muse of #astronomy; here is a small homage, and a reminder that she needs all her sisters with her. anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com/2026/08/02/u...
Urania and the Music of the Spheres
Hesiod, a Greek poet writing some time in the 8th or 7th century BCE, lists the Muses and the last two are Ourania (Latinized Urania) and Calliope. The last is the greatest of all, he says – …
anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com
Another great episode by @thisisnotadrillpod.bsky.social with @gavinesler.bsky.social talking with Professor Ali Ansari. Really covers stuff we are not seeing covered in Western press on the conflict.
Reign of Tehran – Inside the new Iranian regime
Podcast Episode · This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler · July 30 · 27m
podcasts.apple.com
The Henry Moore sculptures currently on display at Kew Gardens @rbgkew.bsky.social combine to create a truly powerful experience especially in this summer of intense heat … #London #Weekend
1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.
The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science
As a labor-augmenting technology, large language models (LLMs) have the potential to accelerate scientific activity across the research pipeline. But even if LLMs perform on par with human experts at ...
arxiv.org
New discovery: Roman mosaic unearthed at ancient city of Tralleis in western Türkiye. www.aa.com.tr/en/culture/2... 🏺
I no longer use X/Twitter, so here I am to support @stianwestlake.bsky.social who has written well on @ukri.org 's strategy I believe his argument is correct: a science funder must fund both curiosity driven and applied research, and that will demand difficult choices 🧵 x.com/stianwestlak...
As discussions continue on STFC prioritisation decisions, we've put together an overview of its ongoing investment in discovery & curiosity-driven research in PPAN: www.ukri.org/publications... We've also set out facts on its funding relating to e-MERLIN & Jodrell Bank: www.ukri.org/publications...
What STFC is investing in: supporting discovery and curiosity-driven research
ukri.org
An encouraging message from Tim Roca, MP for Macclesfield, on continued and alternative funding for @jodrellbank.bsky.social @ukri.org
It's heartening to see the support for @jodrellbank.bsky.social and that as much comes from its architecture and history as its science But as @jodrellbank.bsky.social note, the site, its science and its outreach are continuing - and here are some facts from @ukri.org www.ukri.org/publications...
Factsheet: Jodrell Bank, e-MERLIN and UKRI funding
ukri.org
A new issue of Future Observatory's house magazine has landed - entitled In Abundance it is full of sharp, provocative and important essays, challenging our approaches to material, housing and economics. #Design rethinking a regenerative, prosperous future fojournal.org/issue/in-abu...
In Abundance - Future Observatory Journal
fojournal.org
And not just Exeter. At least 2 History Leicester FBAs have had to leave the University to stay in the profession due to risk of redundancy, and they won't be the only ones. The much broader issue affects thousands of excellent academics across a spectrum of disciplines (including STEM ones). 1/2
New British Academy fellows at risk in Exeter jobs cull
Being at the ‘top of your game’ no guarantee of job security, warns decorated historian now facing the chop
timeshighereducation.com
Creative & performing arts subjects received £16.8 million SPG 2024-25; £12.9 million in 2025-26; £ O million in 2026-27. The University of Creative Arts will thus lose half of its government funding this year; Art University Bournmouth 40.7%, Norwich U of Arts 40.4% and Leeds Arts U 30.3%. 1/2
Arts institutions hit hard as OfS details teaching grant cuts
University for the Creative Arts loses more than half of its funding after support for creative subjects reduced to zero
timeshighereducation.com
@ukri.org have posted on the continuation of @jodrellbank.bsky.social 's site, science and outreach, and this post from @manchester.ac.uk is also helpful www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/display...
UK Research and Innovation@ukri.org · 7d agoWe've seen a significant amount of discussion online following STFC's update on its prioritisation decisions. We want to make sure the facts are clear.
We've seen a significant amount of discussion online following STFC's update on its prioritisation decisions. We want to make sure the facts are clear.
@ukri.org have posted on the continuation of @jodrellbank.bsky.social 's site, science and outreach, and this post from @manchester.ac.uk is also helpful www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/display...
UK Research and Innovation@ukri.org · 7d agoWe've seen a significant amount of discussion online following STFC's update on its prioritisation decisions. We want to make sure the facts are clear.
Liverpool University Press@livunipress.bsky.social · last wk.We're pleased to share that Humanities Forward: Opportunity, Innovation, Policy in the 21st Century is now available #OpenAccess. This new collection brings together scholars and practitioners who have developed innovative responses to the challenges facing the #Humanities. bit.ly/HumanitiesFo...
apart from making the case implicitly for the Scottish degree (!) the one thing to add perhaps to @jimdickinson.bsky.social 's super piece here is an analysis of why we chose the modularisation / semesterisation path we did and if there was another turn in that road wonkhe.com/blogs/curric...
Curriculum reform is a wedge issue
With curriculum reform converging on fewer, larger modules across the sector, Jim Dickinson argues that consolidation solves institutional problems while reallocating regret onto students least able t...
wonkhe.com
There's new Alice Oswald coming: “I’m looking for the voice of poetry before it knows it is poetry, when it is still improvising itself out of human emergency and memory and the song of the seed-sower and the bone violin... The word poetry is not wild enough to hold them all."
Rhapsody: A Manifesto
A daring, genre-defying work of nonfiction from one of our greatest poets. Alice Oswald goes in search of poetry in its original, wildest form—before it was written down, before it belonged to a single voice—and finds it still speaking all around us. “I’m looking for the voice of poetry before it knows it is poetry, when it is still improvising itself out of human emergency and memory and the song of the seed-sower and the bone violin. . . . The word poetry is not wild enough to hold them all,” she writes. What begins as an attempt to “interview” Homer becomes a wide-ranging exploration of an anonymous tradition that exists beyond authorship, spanning a world of singers, storytellers, mourners, and listeners, of nightingales, grasshoppers, and rivers. Zigzagging through ballads, riddles, pibrochs, drama, interviews, artificial intelligence, and sonnets, Rhapsody is a restless, miraculous exploration of poetry in its most vital form, and a resounding manifesto for the oral tradition. At once intimate and expansive, Oswald invites us to listen to the voices that shape us, and to recognize poetry not as a solitary, written art, but as a communal, essential human inheritance.
ptreyesbooks.com
From Troy to Ithaka, Glasgow to Palermo - stories of homecoming and the unhomed anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com/2026/07/26/c...
Coming Home, Becoming Unhomed: From Nolan’s Odyssey to a Palermo Collective
“One can replace, to all intents and purposes, the word ‘exile’ by refugee, misfit, outcast, outsider, expatriate, squatter, foreigner, clandestine, heretic, stranger, renegade, drifter, a displace…
anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com
