Social science

Forthcoming policies on ‘low-value courses’ and grade inflation must acknowledge how pandemic will hit graduate prospects and undergraduate preparedness for years to come, says QAA deputy chief executive Vicki Stott

Ambiguous status of postgraduate research students in lockdown has underlined why they should be treated as staff, says Rebecca Teague

University administrative staff are often the first point of contact for troubled students but training on how to manage these encounters is non-existent, says Sarah Bones

Growing impatience with online learning in South Korea highlights the limitations of socially distanced teaching, says Justin Fendos

Academics should not be seduced by the moral certainty on either side of the ‘with us or against us’ divide, says Brad Evans

Ministry warns researchers against ‘degrading’ nation in pursuit of international journal publication

Calls to redesign curricula for online study ignore how scholars need time and peer support to reinvent courses, says Carole Binns

A huge endowment could help draw the talent and capital to counterbalance the golden triangle, say Neil Lee and Javier Terrero Dávila

The movement to ‘decolonise’ university curricula has leaped into the political and educational mainstream in the wake of George Floyd’s death, dividing opinion on campus and beyond. Anna McKie examines how scholars are handling difficult discussions and where the agenda goes next

Expert views conflict on humanities graduates’ employment prospects, and whether Australian funding changes will make arts the preserve of the elite

Office for Students sets out plans for tougher minimum standards related to student outcomes, including degree completion rates and graduate employment

Linguistic framing of coronavirus on campus by management has dodged a proper assessment of risks to students and staff, writes a UK academic

The holy grail of a business model for open access monographs that works at scale for publishers, libraries and scholars is close, says Martin Paul Eve

The removal of Donald Trump from the White House could lead to major reform in college education, but many other issues require urgent action, argue Sandro Galea and Nason Maani

Discussions about how the UK’s largest pension scheme covers its deficit ought to consider whether all employers and members should pay the same rate, argues Paul Hamilton

Coronavirus will not stop China’s growing and ambitious middle class from seeking a Western university education for their children, says Sabrina Wang

Ministers’ eagerness to launch yet another review when so many others remain unpublished is testing the patience of universities, says Andrew McRae

Gambling studies expert puts extraordinary output down to collaboration and hard work

Urgent action is needed to help doctoral candidates whose research has been halted by Covid-related travel bans, says Lorena Gazzotti

Publications must always permit debate on the quality and relevance of research – plus the efficacy and costs of derived policy, says Robert Dingwall

Leading human rights barrister calls on UK law schools to address ethnic minority under-representation among academic teaching staff

Instilling graduates with a global outlook is a mission more vital than ever, says Duke Kunshan University vice-chancellor-elect Alfred H. Bloom

Seeking out students for personal tutoring in socially distanced times is the labour-intensive but necessary task that may defeat universities, says Michael Wynn-Williams

The novel coronavirus has transformed how research is done in many disciplines. But scholars are divided over whether the accelerated pace of science is an entirely good thing

Bavaria’s rules to keep university tutors on precarious contracts unfairly penalise those who want to work, says a lecturer caught out by red tape

Confining students with disabilities to ‘special-education castles’ within Chinese universities does not provide true opportunity, says Zhang Yuexin

Amazon’s and Netflix’s obsessive focus on using customer data to improve user experience has valuable lessons for universities, argues Mike O’Connor

Vilified abroad and distrusted in their homeland, Chinese students overseas have been marginalised as a result of a geopolitical struggle beyond their control, says Brian Wong

Those who fear a resurgence of coronavirus as campuses reopen can take heart from how Taiwan’s universities maintained in-person teaching throughout the pandemic, explains Cher Chiu

NYU Abu Dhabi’s vice-chancellor explains how her institution kept its campus open during the pandemic and what others can learn from this experience

Experts unimpressed by new attack on queer theory, post-colonial theory and other forms of ‘social justice scholarship’ by controversial authors

The pivot to online learning during the coronavirus pandemic has shown why university educators should embrace artificial intelligence, says Y. J. Jang

Scholars should not face official censure for making provocative statements on social media, but they have a responsibility to embody academic values of empathy and self-reflection in their online posts, argues Chris Barker

The A-level grading fiasco has highlighted the limitations of using exam results to assess undergraduate preparedness, says Suleiman M. Sharkh

Practical help for students and universities left exposed by the A-level results chaos is needed, not political point-scoring, says former Ucas chief executive Mary Curnock Cook

Critics underestimated the human imagination’s capacity to render concepts flexible, says Frank Furedi

The virtual reality technology market is booming thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. Jack Grove asks whether it might finally catch on in higher education

Eugenia Cheng defies convention with her approach to teaching. The Chicago-based British mathematician tells Matthew Reisz why similar out-of-the-box thinking is required to improve gender equality

Michelle Donelan says higher rates of university entry among black Britons highlight how narrative about social mobility can be misleading

The government’s tinkering with red tape is welcome but it won’t be enough to overcome Covid-19 uncertainty, says James Pitman

Most doctoral candidates show ‘clear preference’ for academic career despite high exit levels from sector, finds Higher Education Policy Institute study

Pastoral support for east Asian students has been re-engineered during lockdown and may offer lessons for the future

Two leading social scientists accused of producing racist scholarship say journals should rethink how they deal with such explosive allegations

The prizewinning economist discusses how economics must focus on beliefs and identity, along with the influence of TV on our choices

Institution’s efforts to make teaching more coronavirus-resilient could mean research-led teaching is ‘jettisoned’, critics claim

‘Unprecedented’ financial pressure on university budgets should result in reduced subscription charges, says UUK-Jisc group

The urge to be proved right and the mantra of publish or perish amount to a toxic scholarly brew. Reflection is the best policy, says Simone Eringfeld 

Finding your feet at a new university in lockdown can be tough. Jack Grove spoke to some recent starters about how universities can help their new staff

Open access publication of PhD theses makes it difficult for studies to be published as books, says 93-year-old Shakespeare scholar

Andrew Norton tells THE webinar that researchers on priority projects could be cut in coronavirus lay-offs while those doing less vital work are spared

Pandemic research is booming, with hundreds of new projects under way. Jack Grove speaks to experts on why insights beyond science are needed

With £7,500 tuition fees off the agenda, new strategies to rebalance English higher education could be introduced, says post-18 education review chair

UK research will become more interdisciplinary and community-focused in wake of pandemic, academic leaders tell THE event

World’s biggest academic publisher signs ‘global first’ open science agreement with Dutch universities and research councils

Social scientists should be more open that their policy advice is usually based on small experiments done in university settings, study recommends

Record year for university philanthropy in UK and Ireland sees Oxford and Cambridge dominate fundraising

Whether it’s to be ‘business as usual’ or not, social scientists have much to offer in discussion about how to move on after ravages of Covid-19

Trade-offs involved in pandemic are ‘bread and butter’ for the discipline and it could be ‘drawn into the broad sciences’, experts suggest

University of Glasgow principal Sir Anton Muscatelli says inputs into England’s TEF will become unreliable owing to pandemic shocks

Yes, excess haste can lead to mistakes, but the same is true of natural science, says Sandro Galea