Academic freedom is alive and well at Sussex University's Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research (SPRU). Staff have responded to a memo from their boss imploring them to stop passing internal documents to the press... by sending it to The Times Higher . In the memo, Mick Johnson, acting director of SPRU, expresses concern "about the distribution of long complaining e'mails to the whole of the SPRU list. Anywhere else in the university, I might consider this to be a useful way of airing and resolving grievances. However, such internal debates in SPRU have an unfortunate tendency to find their way into the national press, where they damage the institution's reputation."