For the record

AHRB cuts loose from HEFC

The Arts and Humanities Research Board has been incorporated as a public company and can now employ its own staff and run its accounts separately from the Higher Education Funding Council. A review of arts and humanities funding announced last week is considering whether it should become a research council.

Fulbright fair cancelled on advice of Met police

The Fulbright Commission has cancelled tomorrow's College Day, its educational fair in London, after the World Trade Center attacks.

The event, normally attended by some 2,000 people, is for potential students to look at opportunities in the United States.

After discussions with the Metropolitan Police, the commission decided that "the safety of those who come to the fair is paramount" and called it off.
Details www.fulbright.co.uk

£100m deal to expand Edinburgh science park

Edinburgh University has clinched a deal worth £100 million to expand its science and technology park, Edinburgh Technopole.

The 50-hectare site on the Bush Estate near Penicuik, Midlothian, will be developed in conjunction with Grosvenor, the international property investment and fund management group headed by the Duke of Westminster (pictured below). The estate already houses world-class research institutes including the Roslin and Moredun institutes.

New board will work to train more engineers

The new Engineering and Technology Board, successor to the Engineering Council, will set up four advisory panels to look at education, marketing and communication, business interests and professional interests.

The board will encourage more people to study engineering and persuade universities to train more incorporated engineers and technicians rather than concentrating on chartered engineers.

Minister focuses on teenage education gap

Education secretary Estelle Morris has unveiled plans to beef up the Learning and Skills Councils' power to reorganise post-16 education and training.

A consultation paper proposes that the LSC should be able to press for changes following area inspections by Ofsted, which should be extended to cover education and training for 14 to 19-year-olds.

The paper also proposes that it should become easier for good schools to open new sixth forms to help plug any gaps in provision left by "failing" providers.

Oxford to meet Chelsea and her security corps

Chelsea Clinton, daughter of the former US president Bill Clinton, is expected to arrive in Oxford to take up her place at University College to read for an MPhil in international relations in the next two weeks. Ms Clinton will make her own security arrangements.

Fraud squad probes college subsidiary

The Serious Fraud Squad has launched an investigation into allegations of misuse of public funds by Progress Training Ltd, a subsidiary of crisis-hit Barnsley College.

The company, which sold distance-learning courses, collapsed with debts of £350,000.

The inquiry follows an audit of Barnsley College by Learning and Skills Council accountants which established that the college had overclaimed £5 million for distance-learning courses.

UUK chief calls for women in top jobs

Baroness Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, called for more women in senior positions at an Athena research conference this week.

Athena was set up to promote women academics in science, engineering and technology and will be incorporated in the UUK's new equality challenge unit.

"Out of 158 members of UUK and the Standing Conference of Principals, only 19 are women. When the gender mix of councils, appointment committees/ panels, and interview panels is skewed, it seems to be inevitable that the problems of women's career advancement are compounded," Lady Warwick said.

Work starts on £23m biosciences centre

Building has begun on Liverpool University's £23 million biosciences and incubation centre.

The project will bring together the university's school of biological sciences, provide facilities for post-genomic technologies, create a new teaching centre and provide space for 15 start-up companies.

Cern data demands met with computing power

A computing grid project to handle the vast amounts of data expected from the Large Hadron Collider is to start at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory.

Prototype equipment and techniques will be developed to distribute data through a network of tens of thousands of computers in universities and institutes around the world.

Lords invite online views on stem cells

The House of Lords select committee on stem-cell research is inviting members of the public to give evidence online in consultation.

The committee is due to make recommendations on issues connected with human cloning and stem-cell research by the end of this year.

Details: www.publicevidence.net .

Imitation cows dupe dozy flies

Meet the Trojan cow. Disease carrying tsetse flies are dying after being duped into biting artificial cattle packed with insecticides.

Scientists from Greenwich University, who helped design the deadly traps, have recently returned from Zimbabwe with data that show their use has almost wiped out the cattle disease nagana.

Although they look nothing like the animals, being made from large sheets of black or blue canvas, they have been impregnated with a blend of chemicals called kairomones that make them smell like cattle to the tsetse fly. One bite and the insect is doomed.

Corrections

The University of Stirling has asked us to make clear that Allan Buchan, jailed for sexual assault, was never a lecturer at the university, as stated in a headline in The THES of September 21. He was a GP employed by an NHS practice located on the campus. We apologise.

James Hough of the University of Glasgow has been elected a fellow of the American Physical Society. He is not at the University of Hertfordshire as we reported on September 14 and September 7.