I rather like that he's resorted to self publishing. I did not expect this to happen so quickly. I thought the fall would happen later, after a more dramatic rise. www.thenational.scot/news/2595986...

Madness

"It's just devastating. It sounds dramatic, but it's life-changing." "It's like a grieving process." 💔 No-one who hasn't been through something like this can really understand that grief.

Could some airsafety wonks weigh in on when the US's capacity degrades so much that it's below international standards?

Pretty much everyone I know is now avoiding the US, even as a stopover point to change planes…

Email etiquette, a timeline 2015: Scrupulously edit all emails, FULL punctuation 2017: Don't use too many exclamation marks! People will think you are a small girl! 2021: Occasionally leave out full-stops as a power move 2026: One typo per email to show an AI didn't write it

15 years ago, the UK government said that the horticulture industry should voluntarily phase out peat in gardening products, & that if it didn't, legislation would be introduced so as to end peat use in retail compost for amateur gardeners by 2020... In 2022 came "an intention to ban by 2024"... ☹️

Yes his rhetoric was alarmist, and turned out not to be true. But it was also racist? The population bomb was about gross Other people not controlling their animal fertility. All paths of birth rates talk lead to one place.

ANALYSIS: Badenoch and Farage might not want to admit it, but Conservative and Reform plans to scrap net zero whilst boosting the North Sea would actually make the UK even more reliant on gas imports 🤔 www.carbonbrief.org/...

You can either have the VCs agitating to end the REF so that they can decrease the proportion of research time in staff contracts or the ones reifying REF-ability as the only marker of a genuine academic. Tying pension access to REF status is a new low: www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffie...

2023 - one in four UK universities was reported to be operating a food bank for their students. Paper exploring the geographies of food poverty in UK HE out now in Area ⬇️ @rgs.org #OpenAccess

As well as being an appallingly unfair travesty of a decision, this isn’t going to look good in their REF submission either… #UKHE https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffield-hallam-restricts-tps-access-ref-academics-only

'Elsevier made £1.04 billion in profit in 2025, according to its parent company’s latest annual report, up 7 per cent on 2024.' 1/2

Did you know? Psoriatic arthritis #PsA affects men and women equally, but women experience a higher disease burden and are more frequently affected by polyarthritis. #GiveToGain #IWD2026 #Women 🫂👣🙋🏼‍♀️🏄🏼‍♀️​ AutoPiX is committed to inclusivity and addresses gender disparities in arthritis research and care.

Reading the @wonkhe.bsky.social article on student complaints this morning reminded me of this research we did at Plymouth uni. Still surprised by how little consistent analysis there is of student complaints. pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/cgi/viewcont....

We are proud to have joined the Health Research Authority, the NIHR, and other organisations in a pledge to improve public involvement in research. Learn more: https://www.arthritis-uk.org/news/2026/january/arthritis-uk-joins-public-involvement-pledge/ hralatest.bsky.social nihr.bsky.social

Reform councillor Graham Eardley has been suspended for behaving so aggressively towards a female volunteer that security had to escort him out. That’s at least 63 Reform councillors gone in ten months – nearly one in ten!

Just filled in a fee claim form for examining a PhD, UK university. I reckon it pays £4 and hour. I'd have made more on a paper round.

Well done to the majority of UK universities. It's about time government(s) and public bodies did the same. The majority of UK academic institutions now no longer post on X - LSE Impact share.google/Uo7ZscsQl4tS...

'the survey of more than 12,071 academics from 17 universities across nine countries found some 50 per cent agreed that roles focused on university teaching were “career-limiting” at their institution, while one in five (20 per cent) disagreed.' 1/2

I know this helps no one, but I grew up in the Tory shires, live in London and work in a university. I’m married with children and a mortgage and am mildly left wing. I would have thought that, these days, either the Tories or Labour might be attempting to get my vote. They are not and it’s weird.

Celebrating having had my fifth publication of 2026 out this week! Think it’s a record..

Labour MP Clive Lewis doesn’t hold back on the Gorton and Denton result in this interview with ITV

Yes, this>>

So rather than accepting that Starmer’s Labour Party have alienated their core voters, he decides to attack the Green Party. Talk about failing to read the room…

Yet again we in Higher Ed get everything bad from being private institutions, and everything bad from being seen as part of the public sector. We can be sued and sued again for actions which we didn't cause, which hit *us*. And yet ppl think we are backed by govt. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Turns out (says @jburnmurdoch.ft.com) it's not so much an oversupply of graduates in the UK (the same would be true of other similar countries but it's not) as an undersupply of the kind of jobs that a better-performing, more productive economy would supply.

FDA Chief Makary just said that most drugs should be sold over the counter and not require a prescription, unless it’s “unsafe, you need laboratory tests to monitor…or if it could be used for some nefarious purpose or it's addictive”. Bacteria celebrate as antibiotic resistance enters the chat.

“It’s a UK winter endurance medal” From the new Private Eye, out now.

This>>

Number of academic staff in UK higher education falls for the first time | HESA

"They're only popular because they're on every TV programme" complaint from right wingers. Media appearances per MP: LibDems: 624 Reform: 70,732 bebroadcast.co.uk/politics-who...

Universities face: *Teachers pension scheme cost increases *National Insurance rises *International student levy *Soaring library costs *Brutally high energy charges *Potential 'free speech' fines *Covid class action There's nowhere to turn really.

Yup. This hurts. We worked ourselves to the bone during Covid to keep the show on the road. I ran virtual fieldtrips & recorded endless bite-size lectures, with a 2-year old balanced on my lap while the nursery was closed for 6 months. Our students were MAGNIFICENTLY patient and gracious 🙏

This is really not what the sector needs right now…

What the actual..?

Love Larry…

Interesting way to visualise and explore the developing BlueSky community(ies?). Also shows (roughly left vs right end ish?) perhaps different types of community - professional, social vs political/news orientated? We're down in the bottom left, "UK HE Commons" people!

Sunday morning started with an argument about Johns Hopkins university and ended here: https://studyinternational.com/news/universities-weirdest-names/ Any suggestions for weirdest Uni names in #UKHE ? (I think Bishop Grosseteste changed their name or they would win for sure!)

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... #UKHE

🚨BREAKING: Steve Bannon said Tuesday that the federal government is planning to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to patrol polling stations during this year’s midterm elections. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Mergers and closures: UK universities, 2026

Excellent article but stark reminder that for all the perceptions of universities as ivory towers for elites, they are actually vital hubs in towns n cities supporting local businesses and providing key services as well as education….

"I'd love to play their calls to Rachel Reeves." Do callers Elliot and Kieran illustrate the implicit unfairness of the student loan system? @benkentish.bsky.social thinks so.

My experience is that this model results in old, white men getting all the research time while young women and scholars of colour end up being pushed into the teaching-heavy roles.

'We likely require fewer academics with research in their remit, but those that do need greater time allocated, and must be subject to a strategic research management regime'. I remain very sceptical/negative about the medium- and long-turn impacts of separating research and teaching. 1/2

Education is a public good. The cost should be met from general, progressive taxation, not dumped on the shoulders of these and future generations www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

What does sustainability education look like when economic survival, inequality, and decolonisation shape the classroom? New paper on ESD in South African business & economics education. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...