The small Scottish town of St Andrews is home to one of the UK’s oldest and most highly regarded universities. The University of St Andrews has grown very rapidly in recent years, witnessing a threefold expansion in student numbers between 2002 and 2017. Today, there are 9,000 full-time students matriculated in a town with a […] … learn more→

Thursday the Department of Education made an announcement about the nearly 100,000 borrowers who have been waiting at least a year for the Department to consider their borrower defense to repayment claims: A whopping 21,000 or so of them will finally get an answer. In total, the Department officially approved 12,900 claims for former Corinthian Colleges students, […] … learn more→

The “unstoppable machine”. That is how Yiannis Gabriel, one of the UK’s leading social thinkers, labelled the academic-publishing complex in a recent piece for Times Higher Education (“We must rescue social science research from obscurity”, Opinion, August 10). His ire was directed, in particular, at social science research, which he sees as falling into aimless, […] … learn more→

There has been a lot of noise on cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin of late. While some suggest cryptocurrencies are a fraud, others believe them to be the next biggest economic revolution the world has seen since the internet. Bitcoin has brought to light blockchain technology, which offers great potential for food safety and verification in the agrifood sector. Yet it […] … learn more→

The Muslim children in my classroom withdrew from political debate when the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy cast me as an informant. Prevent infers a duty on all teachers and doctors in England, Scotland and Wales to report signs of so-called “extremism” and “radicalisation” in their pupils and patients. Applying this duty is particularly difficult as “extremism” has not […] … learn more→

I can’t emphasize strongly enough how our campuses are being mismanaged. Yes, many administrators have (bogus) Ph.D.’s in Leadership and Vision, but those degrees really don’t represent any actual knowledge of how to run a campus. One of the weird thing about the many hate crimes on campus is how often they are hoaxes. Nearly […] … learn more→

Nothing comes for free, especially online. Websites and apps that don’t charge you for their services are often collecting your data or bombarding you with advertising. Now some sites have found a new way to make money from you: using your computer to generate virtual currencies. Several video streaming sites and the popular file sharing network The Pirate Bay have […] … learn more→

At a time when the effects of climate change are accelerating and published science overwhelmingly supports the view that humans are responsible for the rate of change, powerful groups remain in denial across politics, the media, and industry. Now more than ever, we need scientists and policymakers to work together to create and implement effective policy which […] … learn more→

What do you expect to see from the cannabis industry in 2018? Do you have reason to believe that things will pretty much stay the same over the next 12 months? Or are you among the group of people who are expecting huge growth over this period of time? The cannabis industry is not standing […] … learn more→

Last week I reached thirty two. Thirty two doctoral researchers who successfully defended their research. Thirty two Doctors let loose on the world. And two things are now on my mind. Not thirty two. Just two. The first thing I’m thinking about is how heavily the viva weighs on me as a supervisor – not nearly as […] … learn more→