So, 2020 hey? What a trip. I don’t know about you, but concentrating on my work when the world feels like it’s up in flames, literally and figuratively, has been, well – difficult. In order to keep my shit together in front of students and co-workers I’ve been, as a Japanese theme park put it, […] … learn more→

Australia and the UK experience regular annual outrage over vice-chancellors’ pay. This is unsurprising – in Australia their average pay at the 37 public universities topped A$1 million in 2019. Those at prestigious Group of Eight universities were paid more than A$1.2 million on average. Vice-chancellors’ pay has soared over recent decades (although most accepted pay cuts this year […] … learn more→

On 24 November, Twitter exploded with outrage at the announcement that the publisher Springer Nature plans to introduce an open access (OA) option for its Nature research journals, with an article processing charge (APC) of a whopping €9,500 (£8,290 or $11,390). Particular scorn was heaped on a subsidiary pilot scheme called “guided OA”, whereby authors can pay €2,190 in […] … learn more→

About a year ago, a small American company in the medical field, Geisenger , published surprising results on the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to estimate the short-term risk of death of patients with certain heart conditions, based on their electrocardiogram . To do this, they trained a neural network with almost two million electrocardiograms of almost […] … learn more→

There are many who believe that trying to direct academics is like herding cats. As people who have all attempted this feat at various points in our careers, we know that some can certainly be resistant to changing their teaching. But the idea that the research evidence of an entire discipline can be ignored simply […] … learn more→

The murder of the schoolteacher Samuel Paty, beheaded by 18-year-old Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov in October 2020 after Paty had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a civic education lesson, has understandably caused shock and fear among teachers in France. Many teachers were already struggling to manage classroom discussions on sensitive topics such as the […] … learn more→

Australian academic Kylie-Moore Gilbert is finally free and back home. The Melbourne university academic was unjustly deprived of her liberties for 804 days for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was arbitrarily imprisoned on cooked-up espionage charges while visiting Iran for a conference. While we are celebrating Moore-Gilbert’s freedom here in Australia, let […] … learn more→

The positive impact of universities on society has never been clearer than during the Covid-19 pandemic. University graduates are delivering treatments on the frontlines. University research is being applied by governments to inform lockdown decisions and, in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, to develop vaccines. For so many different strands of university activity to come together […] … learn more→

At some point in the writing process, most writers develop a plan. Some writers may already have, before they plan, chunks of text or a crappy first draft that needs to be beaten into shape. Other writers begin with the plan, perhaps making an outline. Regardless of the point at which the planning happens, the […] … learn more→