UK foundations: you can opt-in to be assessed in the Foundation Practice Rating! If you're not included by random selection, you can get assessed alongside those who are, for a small fee. We offer this b/c fdns asked for it. Details here: foundationpracticerating.org.uk/opt-ins/

Reminder that UKRI's National AI in Research Survey is up and running and open for responses until 4 September. Have your say, whatever that is. www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/NationalAI...

National AI in Research Survey

Please take the time to complete our survey. Your feedback is important.

smartsurvey.co.uk

Lovely, clear essay to add to the explainers about the UK's #SocialCare problem theconversation.com/why-the-uk-s...

Why the UK still can’t fix social care – and what four other countries got right

Social care reform has failed in the UK for 25 years. Four international examples show what a lasting fix actually requires.

theconversation.com

We have suggested that most of this won’t go down well with students but they don’t care. Ironically they’re trying to put forward one of my abolished modules as a TEF and accessibility excellence case study, whether I stay or go. Infuriating.

Over the last 20 plus years of attending academic conferences I've watched the assistant professor and graduate student presenters become increasingly more methodological sophisticated and the methods become increasingly complex. And it's hard to keep up.

Today, a "99" was £3.50. So the ice cream has gone up 250%, while my salary is worth -30% in the same period. 🙃 😢

We need to learn from countries that are further ahead in thinking about how to deal with wildfires. This includes controlled fires to create firebreaks, households making their homes more defensible and total fire bans in periods of highest risk www.ft.com/content/5481...

‘Black Summer’: how Australia rethought its wildfire strategy

Fire-prone country relies on earlier warnings and better data to stay ahead of increasingly destructive blazes

ft.com

UKRI are recruiting for a new Exec Chair for Research England (£160k-£170k). It is a crucial role including QR funding and the REF. I hope they get a great field. But I worry a bit. It's hard to find on their website (see link below) fa-evzn-saasfaukgovprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

UKRI Careers

fa-evzn-saasfaukgovprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com

Alright don't make me regret this: Doing some revisions to the Future of Work grad class. Who's got serious research about actually existing AI in actual workplaces? Closer to the shopfloor the better, we traditionally use each week for a different domain (health, transport, etc).

Higher education is one of the clearest areas where ideologically extremist politicians disregard the value of a decades-built institutional reputation and assume, baselessly, that none of their meddling, censorship, or upheaval can affect it or their state’s economy.

eileen chengyin chow@chowleen.bsky.social · 8mo ago

What a time to decide to learn less about the world. dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

Characters who let the baby escape, only to face him years later as a fully grown threat

Speculation that we may get BEIS recreated. If there is going to be a machinery government change in this area my plea is that we reunite science/research with universities. The disconnect between these briefs is causing all sorts of loss to research capacity www.ft.com/content/fec8...

TIL the Italian encoding for Country of Birth of #Macedonia translates into English as "Fruit Salad"! 🤣

looks like Thames Water has given a 14% pay rise to its chief executive and a 26% rise to its finance director

Good morning, Michiganders. Today it will be unsafe to breathe outside without a mask, eat salad, be outside for too long in the heat, be away from a toilet, and count on the electric grid to hold up under peak demand. Also, our additional escape route to Canada is still closed. Have a pleasant day.

Pure Michigan Logo Animation

Alt: Pure Michigan Logo Animation

static.klipy.com

The “because AI” explanation for redundancies might be true. Not because AI is replacing human labor, rather because the amount of money sunk into AI requires costs be cut somewhere, fast, and labor has traditionally been the first cost to be cut by Mr Corporation.

A side-note to this thread, and a direct rebuke to anyone who says “Eh you must just be a bad teacher”: One reason it’s all so demoralizing is that Andrew’s teaching materials are exemplary. Just incredibly good. Go look at them. When someone like him is despairing, things are real bad.

Kieran Healy@kjhealy.co · 4w ago

If students are simply uninterested in the core bargain of a class like this, it’s hard to know what to do. You teach the material because you think it’s important they know it; they don’t give a shit, but want the credential; and the university wants their money. Your main option is “pretend”.

If students are simply uninterested in the core bargain of a class like this, it’s hard to know what to do. You teach the material because you think it’s important they know it; they don’t give a shit, but want the credential; and the university wants their money. Your main option is “pretend”.

Andrew Heiss@andrew.heiss.phd · 4w ago

woof ≈80% of assignments this summer term have essentially been just raw chatgpt/claude output, including assignments that required designing stuff in illustrator/affinity/canva. The battle is lost for asynchronous online courses.

When something is so obviously a terrible idea, it is ok to just...say no thanks and ban it. We don't have to wait 15 years and then slowly ban if after a whole bunch of irreperable damage has been done to individuals and society.

I cannot remember a serving politician ever before making such *honest* statements and sensible analyses. Pleasantly surprised, if not optimistic. Maybe she could become Chancellor? www.thetimes.com/article/ed1b...

The chancellor has made a mistake. It has to be reversed

We expected anger over student loans. Instead we found a generation of graduates trapped in deep despair

thetimes.com

Visiting my university’s new, expensively-refurbished space for startup incubators and senior management and cannot imagine a better illustration of the American university at this moment in time than a breathlessly press-released “collaboration room” featuring a single desk and chair.

What a great article not only on faculty workloads, but how little our salaries actually factor in to most university budgets. A few highlights. First, our salaries are falling:

Perhaps now is the time to see if even a small subset of them and their many fellow prominent alums could assist Sussex to navigate these treacherous waters? There's a lot to be saved at Sussex. It's a gem of a university with a distinctive history in both teaching and research.

'The proposed industrial action is over plans to cut 200 jobs as the Brighton facility attempts to save £35m annually. It comes after more than 600 staff were put at risk of redundancy across academic, technical and professional services departments.'

University of Sussex staff vote whether to go on strike over job cuts

Hundreds of people face redundancy as the Brighton-based facility tries to save £35m.

bbc.co.uk

Oh GOOD, a training session on how to complete statements to justify one's continued employment, align activities with the university's vacuous strategic priorities etc. Much caring, very support.

I'm really sorry to hear this news. The Research Professional team are excellent and have helped the HE and research sector keep up with what is happening. We will be less intelligent without it. Good luck to individual staff members affected, who are excellent writers and journos.

John Morgan@johnmorgan3.bsky.social · last mo.

Very sad to be sharing this news: Research Professional News to discontinue publication at end of 2026. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-o...

LOUDER for the bean-counting regulator scaredy cats in the back: www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/empt...

Empty lectures stem from students’ fractured relationship with effort

Covid’s cultural effect is difficult to overcome, but we can at least resist the trend of infinite accommodation, say Mario Senovilla and Elena Liquete

timeshighereducation.com

Request, please: I'm looking for a trainer experienced in Elite, Expert, & Stakeholder Interviewing Technique (Social Sciences & Management). Workshop will be October/November 2026, all academic levels but likely 50/50 newbies/refresher. Thanks!

Anyone else unable to get past journals.aom.org interminable CloudFlare "protection"? I am getting more & more of these on every website imaginable, and it's driving me mad while seriously hampering my produtivity. What is going ON?

Yes! In a paper I recently edited, I wrote this to the author. "You will see that reviewer 3 is an inordinate fan of Dr. ____. While I have no doubts that this work is excellent, I was unable to find the connection to your present paper and encourage you to be judicious in following their advice."