Usefulness of rankings outweighs concerns
World university rankings may be 'simplistic' but they offer comparative information that is otherwise unavailable, writes Phil Baty
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AHRC Big Society row deepens as 42 peer reviewers pull out and call for mass resignations
Senior academics have carried out their threat to resign from the Arts and Humanities Research Council's peer review college in a dispute over "Big Society" research – and are now calling on...
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Strikes loom as Middlesex cuts up to 200 jobs
The threat of up to 200 compulsory redundancies at Middlesex University may lead to a ballot for industrial action, a union has warned.Jenny Compton-Bishop, branch secretary of Unison at Middlesex,...
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Sussex v-c to become head of 1994 Group
Michael Farthing, vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex, has been announced as the new chair of the 1994 Group.Professor Farthing will succeed the outgoing chair, Paul Wellings, vice-chancellor...
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Private colleges better value over universities’ ‘ridiculously long vacations’, former minister says
For-profit higher education providers could “really strike a chord” with students worried about the value for money of traditional £9,000-a-year degrees with “ridiculous” long vacations, according to...
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AHRC resignation threats in big row over Big Society
More than 40 senior academics have said they will resign from the Arts and Humanities Research Council's peer review college on June if the council does not take "clear steps" to remove references to...
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For the many, not the few
It is time to extend R.H. Tawney's 1922 vision of universal secondary education to universal access to tertiary study, argues Simon Szreter, and also to reject the coalition's fatally misguided...
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Title fights
With scholars exploring digital platforms to make their work more available, Matthew Reisz looks at possible replacements for the monograph
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Front lines
At a Unesco forum, Matthew Reisz hears about the hunger for libraries, corporate creep, and what should and should not be archived on the net
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An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science
Seemingly lunatic exploits by eccentric explorers had a serious purpose, Robert J. Mayhew finds
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Evening's Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe
Ronald Hutton welcomes an ambitious study of post-medieval society's leap into the darkness
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Attack of the Difficult Poems: Essays and Inventions
To judge a book by its cover (which is what book covers are for, of course), the reader of this book, given its 3D, blocky, Pop Art-style yellow-on-orange lettering, might expect witty, irreverent...
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Everyday Life in British Government
This is a surprising book. One approaches an analysis of the inner workings of the Civil Service with something approaching trepidation. Of course it's an important topic, but how much will one's...
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Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and our Daily Lives by the Year 2100
A peer through the toyshop window at internet glasses and avatars fails to inspire Athene Donald
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George Inness in Italy
George Inness is far and away the most compelling American landscape artist of the 19th century. I can't remember having seen his work before settling in the US in 2008, but after doing so I saw it...