News

By Scott Jaschik, for Inside Higher Ed

Editors have noted a “certain level of sloppiness” creeping into research papers, the executive editor of the Nature Publishing Group has said.

Students who use a Btec qualification to progress to a degree are slightly more likely to gain employment than their counterparts who take A levels, but will be paid less per hour, research has found.

Universities should lower their entry tariff requirements for students born in August to reflect the lower achievement levels of children born in the summer, a new study suggests.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has called on British universities to help remedy the suppression of Burmese universities by the nation’s former military regime

Unity decries decisions made ‘ad hoc’ without consulting scholars

V-c believes ‘radical solution’ is the way to rise up the rankings. John Morgan reports

A new grouping of southeast institutions accounts for a third of EPSRC-funded work. Paul Jump reports

More than half of academics are either not aware of universities’ knowledge transfer services or do not use them, a survey has found

Asia breaks into the Universitas top 10 rankings

Undergraduate-led learning environment is eroding academics’ authority, Jack Grove writes

These striking posters are part of the personal material donated by playwright Willy Russell to Liverpool John Moores University’s Special Collections and Archives

Entrepreneurial and academic excellence are pursued side by side, and the dividends are clear to see

Research reveals conservative fears of left-wing influence are unfounded

Obama defends discipline from Republican attacks

Open online courses’ cohort much less massive at finish line

Embattled French leader’s attempts to fix university sector’s problems have met with a mixed response

East London institution is mired in difficulty as leadership disintegrates

Institution targets untapped foreign market

Data infrastructure centre ‘decimated’, says 16-year veteran

Questions are raised about whether colleges have outgrown the university’s federal structure

David Willetts and Vince Cable appear to prefer visiting Russell Group to post-92s, writes John Morgan

But investigation finds that practice ‘did not always meet’ expected standards

Will Yale’s lure empty out the sixth forms?

Universities UK has moved to head off any prospect that the new immigration bill, announced today in the Queen’s Speech, might herald a crackdown on the use of public services by overseas university students.

One of the largest US massive open online course providers has announced a deal with publishers that will allow students free access to relevant excerpts from text books for the duration of their studies.

University College London is seeking a new site for its £1 billion Stratford campus after abandoning contoversial plans to redevelop a housing estate in East London.

The University of Salford has accepted more than 200 students on to courses that it is considering closing within weeks and may face a “significant backlash” as a result, an internal document suggests.

A grant of $500,000 (£320,000) from the Carnegie Corporation of New York has enabled Yale University to join forces with a wide range of international institutions to develop a global network of scholars devoted to the study of Asian topics.

Planned reforms of higher education in Ireland have come under fire in a speech by the outgoing president of the sector’s main union.

From Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Edward Cullen in the Twilight series, vampire characters have long had the ability to capture the public’s imagination.

Details have been released about proposals to allow universities in England to win more undergraduate places if they can show they are recruiting strongly.

A “big data” health research centre at the University of Oxford has been announced as the latest to benefit from the government’s UK Research Partnership Investment Fund.

College leaders have voted to scrap the University of London Union after backing a review which said the student union’s federal structure was outdated and offered poor value for money.

Four more universities have announced plans to offer massive open online courses via the UK-based Futurelearn platform, taking the total number of higher education institutions involved to 21.

Two-minute blasts from students’ own music collections to allow dancing in lectures every 20 minutes is one of the techniques being employed by a university to encourage less sedentary behaviour while learning.

Critic says Nature Materials is breaking its own rules

Chinese student at Bath convicted on bribery, firearms charges

UK settlement not on agenda for most, poll shows

Students from ethnic minorities are less likely to be offered a place at a leading research-intensive university than white pupils with the same A-level grades, the UK’s admissions service has confirmed

Blog posts reveal a lack of ‘socio-academic’ confidence among doctoral students paying their own way

Overseas students beat UK peers’ tariff scores on many courses, analysis suggests

Research and publication is by far the most important factor in career advancement, according to a survey of academics

Leader sought to guide Hefce through period of upheaval

Essex scholar raises fears over peer review integrity

Survey finds median wages and employment rates are holding steady

University of London college targets graduate employability and research cash

Germany ensures degrees of highly skilled migrants are recognised. Frances Mechan-Schmidt reports

Growth in university enterprise societies marks a change

Victorian ‘penny dreadfuls’ offer priceless insights into social history

John Elmes investigates the growth in university-sponsored academies