News in brief

American studiesHigher demand down to ObamaA rise in the number of applications for places on American studies courses is being attributed to an "Obama bounce", according to George Lewis, director of...

The invisible hands that help shape intellectual inquiry deserve credit

Marquard Smith believes the editors of academic journals have played a key - if underappreciated - role in improving research quality

Cause for celebration

RAE cash will broaden the UK's research base, so the Russell Group should stop complaining, says Malcolm McVicar

Daytime TV: Equality and faith

Gary Day enjoys a look at strike activists and their impact, and muses on a new species of teenager

Promoting religious beliefs in the workplace

We recently reported on the issues that an employer should consider when faced with employees’ conflicting beliefs in the workplace. The issue of religion and belief has again been in the public eye...

Cartoon by Ham

The regional powers in world physics

Data provided by Thomson Reuters from its Essential Science Indicators, 1981-2007

We are all crazy now

Our thrusting Director of Corporate Affairs, Jamie Targett, has declared that he "totally agrees" with Dr Bruce Charlton of Newcastle University, who recently argued that universities lack sufficient...

Blue skies or no sky at all

We must save pure research - it could be key to Earth's future, says Kevin Fong

Leader: Leadership comes at a premium

Vice-chancellors' salaries have risen, but so have the demands of the job they do and the economic challenges they faceFor once, academics can start to feel justly rewarded. The new pay framework has...

From where I sit - Erasmus opens Spanish vistas

There was a time when Erasmus Mundus was just a dream for the many Spanish students who whiled away their Sunday afternoons imagining what it would be like to study abroad.We must not forget that the...

John Golby, 1935-2009

John Golby, a leading historian of popular culture, has died.He was born on 16 July 1935 and brought up in Wembley, London, where his father was catering manager at the football stadium. After two...

University of Oxford - New media to hike state intake

The proportion of the University of Oxford's British undergraduates who studied at state schools rose to 55.4 per cent in 2008, up 2 per cent compared with the previous year. Now the university is...

RAE scales tipped to unbalance humanities 1

There were 83 submissions to the history unit of assessment in the 2008 research assessment exercise, and the panel found some evidence of international quality in every one.We are deeply...

RAE scales tipped to unbalance humanities 2

Paul Whiteley argues that Hefce ignored the results of the RAE in allocating funding for 2009-10 (Letters, 12 March). He cites a lack of correlation between the average RAE score and the change in...