The week in higher education – 4 October 2018
The good, the bad and the offbeat: the academy through the lens of the world’s media
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Australia’s free speech backlash ‘absurd’, says chancellor
Gareth Evans adds that ‘inherent lack of trust’ prompted Australian National University to decline Western civilisation course
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Interview with Lee Cronin
The award-winning chemist attempts to explain his reasons for wanting to create a chemical brain, but suggests we won’t be moving to Mars any time soon
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The REF is perverse to ignore journal hierarchies
The research excellence framework’s reliance on hasty peer review by generalists limits sample size and accuracy, three academics argue
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Performance management is performance mismanagement
Research will suffer from the collapse of professional development into financially fixated assessments of ‘capability’, say Gill Evans and Dorothy Bishop
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Writing recommendation letters is a courtesy, not an obligation
If academics object to students’ intended destinations, they have a right not to write, says David Palumbo-Liu
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University campuses and buildings must remain public places
Restricting access to university property is a sorry symptom of commercialisation that is making students poorer, laments Les Back
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Group think: scholars assess the state of sociology
Sociology, once a discipline seen as the embodiment of social progress, is now subject to frequent scepticism over its methodology, politics and career relevance. Here, five sociologists offer their...
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Birkbeck mulls withdrawing from domestic league tables
University says its mission and nature of its students ‘make it difficult to climb much above 90’ in UK rankings
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Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018 honours enzyme research
Frances Arnold, George Smith and Gregory Winter share prize for development of proteins used in new medical treatments
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Free college plans enter US Democratic mainstream
More Democrat candidates than ever running on some kind of free college plan, but there are splits within party
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Video: universities, governments and industries partnering for economic growth
A panel of leading industry, government and university representatives discuss the challenges they face when fostering collaborative research systems