3/ the core claim: these publishers charge ~10x what article processing actually costs them. They’ve locked down copyright terms that block cheaper alternatives to public access (green OA). The complaint alleges that they caused unreasonable and unnecessary charges to the government.

The Doomsday Clock and @bshsnews.bsky.social are the same age; both will be 80 next year. I hope they'll both see many happy returns yet! #histSTM

Alex Wellerstein@wellerstein.bsky.social · 5d ago

I have not had much time to write this week (because I’ve been writing something else, which will come out in a couple weeks...), but I did manage to get down some ideas for DOOMSDAY MACHINES on an intrusive thought of mine: What's the opposite of the Doomsday Clock?

So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)

In late 2023, the Society spent a day with Hertfordshire’s historians. We saw the quality, creativity and distinctiveness of teaching, research and engagement. We were told by a (now departed) senior manager that History was ‘a portfolio the university will guard very carefully’. bit.ly/4hLediN

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3d ago

So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)

As Exeter is in the news for destroying its reputation as a world-class research university with the help of an Australian firm called Nous, "Top UK universities are making dramatic cuts to faculty while the use of consultants continues to rise". We at @dalfaculty.bsky.social know Nous' errors.

John Heathershaw@jheathershaw.bsky.social · 4d ago

I never thought that I would have to write this piece about my university. But after weeks of demonstrating privately to senior managers that their case is based on a false prospectus, that their data are inaccurate and their claims misleading, there was little choice. substack.com/@lucasamin/n...

I spent many hours, days, nights, weekends in cafes, in my office, at home, trying to understand Ran Raz's classical parallel repetition theorem and whether I could prove a quantum version of it. This period of struggle was important for me.

"The paper is correct and clearly written but not interesting enough for this journal" is half of the referee reports I get. Many journals ask referees for a quick opinion (don't check it's correct just tell us if it's interesting) first. Nothing new here.

Much of this also applies to the University of Edinburgh[*] whose VC earns a similar vast salary to the Exeter VC and is disliked by almost everyone who remains on the staff at Edinburgh. [*] @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social , not that they use the account much.

A deeply destructive and inexpert management consultancy class has emerged whose sole purpose is to shrink Anglosphere universities and to undermine their future - all the better to secure more work. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...

Inside Britain's university crisis

As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter

democracyforsale.substack.com

before alphageometry (etc) there was alphafold; nice essay below on the problems the latter shares with the former, much obscured by the hype

John Trant@trantteam.bsky.social · last mo.

New sanctioned (t)rant about AI just dropped. On the limits of Alphafold and my worries about the disaster its use will cause for the literature and early-stage academic drug discovery. Look, they commissioned it. And by commissioned I don't mean I got paid, just invited. Awesome process btw.

Not the Big Funder precision targeting my 3 biggest bugbears of current maths comms

interesting move given the SMF's decision not to formally participate

CNRS Mathématiques@cnrs-insmi.bsky.social · 2w ago

France, with its world-renowned school of mathematics, is taking part in #ICM2026 under the joint banner ‘Math In France’ 📌See you next to the Benjamin Franklin Stage! @cnrs.fr | IHES | IHP | @cirm-math.bsky.social | Mathdoc | CIMPA | @franceuniversites.bsky.social | QRT | BNP Paribas | CFM

I am excited and humbled to lead @4sweb.bsky.social, which I joined first as a graduate student, into its next half-century. The work of #STS scholars has never been more important, and I aim to continue to build the organization to support our research, education, and public and policy presence!

University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy@fordschool.bsky.social · 5d ago

Congratulations to Professor @shobitap.org, incoming President-Elect of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, the leading international association for researchers in science and technology studies! 🎉 Read: https://myumi.ch/WD5D9

So much think-piecing and op-ed'ing about data centers. I wish folks knew that some scholars have been studying these things — as real estate, as geopolitical battlegrounds, as ecological disasters — for a decade+. Mél Hogan, Alix Johnson, Ingrid Burrington, Jen Holt, Patrick Brodie, et al

The making of critical data center studies - Dustin Edwards, Zane Griffin Talley Cooper, Mél Hogan, 2025

In this article, the authors demonstrate how the data center has become a key site, object, and metaphor for interdisciplinary scholarship of the internet. Whil...

journals.sagepub.com

having myself submitted essays for student essay prizes where there were few submissions and no prize awarded, gutted for the three rejected submitters to @4sweb.bsky.social this year

"Math[...] papers ordinarily explain why a theorem is true, and occasionally why a question is natural. Much more rarely do they ask how the question itself became mathematically meaningful. However, the meaning of a mathematical problem is no less historically contingent than that of its solution."

“Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Harvard Paid McKinsey $250,000 For FAS Consultation, Internal Documents Show | News | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.

thecrimson.com

sakura christmas@prof-christmas.bsky.social · 6d ago

Unsurprising that all these cuts being made to #Harvard —from the Office of Student Services to the Writing Center to now the Dudley Co-op—are happening with input from McKinsey, a firm made up of The Second Worst People I knew in college there

The scam economy makes so much unpaid work for all of us.

next Greek epic for hollywood treatment needs to be Euclid's Elements. overdue

Our classes are creating publications that we'll share publicly, and we're exploring layers of GenAI protection: hosting everything behind a web AI firewall, using CAPTCHA + Glaze, managing email requests (rather than posting openly). I RESENT the Labor of Avoidance these assholes have necessitated.

So, from its origin, Jodrell Bank is intertwined - through materials, through social relationships - with the Second World War, and therefore its storied, even mythologised, associations of science, national survival and national identity That is, if such a meaning needs to be made...

As a historian of Jodrell Bank, I agree! And the reason it is important is that it has been made to mean different things to different people at different times. Who's up for a mega thread on how and why? (I'm off for lunch now, but I'll do it after. I'll need the energy...)

John Grindrod@grindrod.bsky.social · last wk.

Really one of the most important postwar sites in Britain

Literally all of this has been applied here, bought in from some speak-your-weight consultancy. Neither academic staff nor students were consulted. The result is a far worse degree in every subject, and widespread sackings, which was the point.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last wk.

'Strip away the grandiose language and a pattern emerges – some combination of fewer, larger modules, almost always wedges of 30 credits, an all-core or heavily prescribed first year, reduced optionality in later years, curated pathways instead of individual module choice... [cont.] 1/4

finally catching up to Thomas Kuhn 🧩

Rebecca Colesworthy@rcolesworthy.bsky.social · last wk.

linkedin keeps sending me announcements about there being a new skill available -- PUZZLE SOLVING

back when our uni was doing "curriculum transformation" instead of "spending restraint" I tried to tell anyone who was asking for input that the biggest proven gold standard higher ed intervention we were missing and should invest in was foundation writing courses plus writing centre

Mary Lewis@profmarylewis.bsky.social · last wk.

It‘s quite possible that with this move, @harvard.edu could become the only Ivy League university without a writing center. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Summer academic: 1) I'm not getting enough writing done 🥲 2) Huh, I just wrote 12K words in the last 4 days, reviewing other peoples' work. 😵‍💫

🏆 Congratulations to Lucy Jameson (Durham) and Michelle Pfeffer (Oxford), winners of the 2026 BSHS Singer Prize! Read about their award-winning essays, the special commendations and the panel's comments here: bshs.org.uk/singer-prize... More on the authors coming soon!

apparently some people are now trying to score cheap wins by announcing slop counterexamples to recent big results of other mathematicians and it is with true sadness that I am reaching for my biggest popcorn bowl

Michael Barany@mjb.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · last wk.

everyone getting worked up about genAI's big new trick (counterexamples) needs to take a beat and revisit their Lakatos

everyone getting worked up about genAI's big new trick (counterexamples) needs to take a beat and revisit their Lakatos

academicirregularities.wordpress.com/2026/07/23/u...

Universities: Lights on, Nobody Home

This piece is about the current mood of hopelessness in higher education. It is escalating rapidly as new cuts and redundancies are announced. And the consequences are now apparent on many campuses…

academicirregularities.wordpress.com