I dropped out of high school, gained a huge amount of often difficult life experience, then went to community college, and now I'm a professor in a prestigious university. There HAS TO BE A PLACE for non-traditional students. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Once more louder for those at the back: Black Mirror was a warning, not an instruction manual.

The choice is stark. Reform are the party of foreign wars and high bills. The Greens want de-escalation and energy security through renewables. Solar and wind prices don't fluctuate when rogue US presidents launch illegal bombing campaigns.

Sixty years ago, Jennie Lee's vision created The Open University 🎓 Welcoming all backgrounds, millions have started life-changing journeys. #OUfamily #TheOpenUniversity #OU60 💙

The Dawlish - Teignmouth railway line feels like the absolute front line of climate adaptation in Britain (a test we are not passing so far). And yet somehow, somehow, this article manages to go in-depth on the problems with the line without mentioning the climate once. The sea is literally higher!

Continuing @britishacademy.bsky.social - supported work into evidence landscape for seawalls in Indonesia, with a visit to Balai Teknik Pantai, a huge test facility for prototyping sea defences for all Indonesia. Thank you for hosting us so well, and for answering all my STS-alike questions 😅

We've been in Jakarta continuing @britishacademy.bsky.social -funded work into evidence-driven policy for seawalls in Indonesia. Visited some very challenging sites on the Jakarta coast, and had the opportunity to meet the Ministry of Higher Education, Science & Technology to discuss our work.

Helpful thread here on UKRI + strategy. Vital in any cross-disciplinary calls that arts, humanities + social sciences have a central and transformative role, and hopefully aren't seen as 'service sciences' stuck on at the end of the pipe to assess public opinion or 'convince' the public about tech.

Really grim to see this, but sadly it seems to be the direction of travel that's been on the cards for a few years now: curiosity-driven research funding for the elites, policy support- and industrial collaboration projects for the rest of us. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

A pleasure to be back in Tiree to progress the Ecological Citizens Network+-funded project on coastal change Tiree CDT & myself are leading. Grateful to everyone who came to the drop-in session (was talking non-stop for 2.5 hours!) and shared their thoughts on our plans for the project and beyond.

Lots of folks getting radicalized by the snow across much of the country right now. What gets plowed, when it gets plowed, and how often it gets plowed reveals a lot about your city's priorities and who it values.

Peer review science relies, more than we care to admit, on what @zey.bsky.social calls "load bearing frictions" that make it difficult to fake good science, and on trust that most ppl also value science itself & won't cheat just for personal gain. This creates the wrong environment for that to hold.

A reward structure that favours productivity over quality will always incentivise the use of tools that make it easier to generate papers. Who cares if anyone actually reads them?

Writing - and the thinking that comes with it - is one of the parts of my job I enjoy the most. If you asked me to make a list of parts of my job that I wanted to outsource to AI, the writing up of research would probably be bottom of the list by a very long way. It's a giant NOPE from me.

Notwithstanding the fact this would have been a legitimately scary experience for those involved, it is heartening to see Scottish people in the replies and quotes at the rate of one person per hour pointing out this is basically the episode of Still Game with Robbie Coltrane.

Interesting from @beyond-coal.jp about apparent lack of meaningful engagement on possible CCS project off Chiba. Remember too this is near part of Japan that was due to host a major offshore wind project that was shelved. Residents will have legitimate concerns about infrastructure + process.

In December, 2025, the METI and Chiba Prefecture hosted the “Kujukuri Offshore CCS Policy Seminar.” Without any explanation about the Metropolitan Area CCS Project, what exactly was this “seminar” for? beyond-coal.jp/en/news/ccs-... #beyondcoal #脱石炭

Interdisciplinary researchers when discussions about the REF come up.

A hill I am prepared to die on is that the Terminator films were sent as a warning about the dangers of de-funding humanities and social science research, and failing to embed ethics and responsible innovation within STEM-driven research, development and deployment proggrammes.

Grim data point from #JLeague Director of Sustainability Takayuki Tsuji's recent appearance on FootBrain: JEF United Chiba's soccer school had to cancel classes 65 times last summer due to extreme weather, including excessive heat.

New paper on just transition, policy knowledge + offshore wind in Nagasaki, Japan. I argue that whilst sharing best practice is valuable, it risks undermining just transitions elsewhere if we don't ask who benefits from this knowledge being shared and adopted: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Since school bus discourse is going on: I remember one day everyone who travelled on a specific bus got pulled out of class and marched to the hall, because someone threw a yoghurt out the window from the top deck and it hit a horse, and they needed to find out who did it.

It did not rain for the first time in nearly a fortnight today, so I took the day off at very short notice and cycled from Kilmartin to Tayvallich and back over the Crinan Canal. This turned out to be a very good idea.

Big shout out to whichever school or department on the OU campus was having the music round of their Christmas quiz with the window open as I walked past yesterday with my coffee - you eliminated me from #Whamageddon 😒 Other than that, you're all fantastic folk to work with! 🙂

New paper on temperate coastal forests, the values they bring to people, and how environmental management can support these forests in a changing climate. Enabled by @royalsociety.org International Exchanges grant w/@openuniversity.bsky.social + Klaipeda University. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I recently appeared on @footpolpodcast.bsky.social to discuss football, industry, place identity and a just transition - with a healthy dose of examples including Iwaki FC, Airdrie keeper John Martin, and the offshore wind supply chain permeating Raith Rovers: www.buzzsprout.com/2253650/epis...

Science of the Total Environment delisted. Any time a story like this breaks, I have a great deal of sympathy for other authors who have published their research in the journal in good faith, and for the reviewers and editors who have done their job properly. english.elpais.com/science-tech...

This is going to sound a bit salty, but - if you claim an author has not read widely enough, and then provide a list of 'key texts' written exclusively by white men at prestigious Western universities to make your point, then I would argue YOU have also not read widely enough.

And feat. on football, ideology, and politics: @liberopodcast.bsky.social w/ @jackpittbrooke.bsky.social, @brewin.bsky.social & @rorysmith.bsky.social; @migueldelaney.bsky.social for @the-independent.com; @footpolpodcast.bsky.social w/ @guyburton.net & @ljmabon.bsky.social...

I remember when stuff like this used to end the careers of people at all points along the political spectrum. Sadly, the news cycle will move on, and within a week he'll be back grabbing airtime, pint and cigarette in hand, as if nothing ever happened.

Very geographically-specific safety information on KNB Toyama this week - stay away from farm ditches when drunk. Good advice.

I will have retired by the time the West Highland Line is decarbonised. Class. www.scotsman.com/news/transpo...

Another great @ouscotland.bsky.social Mock COP, this time in Dumfries! Really enjoyed talking to high school pupils from all over Dumfries and Galloway about what happens at international climate change negotiations, and very impressed with how engaged and knowledgeable the students were!

Brilliant to see our @openuniversity.bsky.social Environmental Management: Pathways to Sustainability module reach fruition. The result of several years of research, writing, filming - and lots and lots of Teams meetings! Books are just one small - but very tangible - part of the OU experience #T330

My wife Naoko Mabon is working in partnership with a number of artists and arts practitioners to develop a new curatorial initiative by and for Zambia. Please consider supporting and sharing if you can: whydonate.com/fundraising/...

Terrific day at @ouscotland.bsky.social @howdec.bsky.social Mock COP in Inverness today. Talked to a group of students from all over the Highlands about what will happen at #COP30 - as well as the merits and drawbacks of the COP process, and what they can do as citizens. Feeling very energised!

Through our @openuniversity.bsky.social partnership with the BBC, I've been working with The One Show on the future of fisheries in the UK. Wonderful to see Hans Unkles' fully-electrified boat, which fishes out of Tayvallich just down the road from me, featured: connect.open.ac.uk/the-one-show/

An excellent paper by Anna Lena Bercht on navigating scepticism towards qualitative research in quantitative- or positivist-oriented fields. Good advice on how to advocate for one's methodological approach. Could have done with citing this earlier this week 😅 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Yes! This is also why I get so irate in online meetings when a session runs over and the chair says something like "let's just take a very quick three-minute comfort break". Some people - for a whole variety of reasons - need longer.

Keeping to time is an accessibility issue! People need breaks between sessions in conferences for all sorts of accessibility reasons - whether for cognitive load, to take medication, needing bathroom breaks, check blood sugar or anything else! Making an effort to keep to time is inclusive.

How can urban nature support fair and effective climate action? British Academy-funded research by @ljmabon.bsky.social worked with communities in Glasgow’s Pollok and Govan, to explore who has access to land, who shapes decisions, and who benefits from greener spaces. Read more 👇 bit.ly/3Lky8H8

⚽ Football, Climate Change, and Identity 🌍 How the game’s industrial past—from coal and steel to oil—is shaping its sustainable future. Leslie Mabon discusses football’s role in the global energy transition. 🎧 Listen here → www.buzzsprout.com/2253650/epis... #Football #ClimateChange #Sustainability

Our latest @footpolpodcast.bsky.social episode is out! I spoke to @ljmabon.bsky.social about his work on football clubs' links to the energy sector, both old and new as well as what the future could be. It was a fascinating conversation that ranged from Scotland to Germany to Japan. Have a listen!

Very interesting documentary about population decline and lifeline rural railways in Hiroshima Prefecture. The irony of a train with a 'Rail is Baton' livery running on a line where the operator is pushing to shrink services due to lack of profitabilty. www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3WH...

FIFA were crowing about how Club World Cup was the most "merit-based" competition in the world. The World Cup? Not so much when it comes to Asia. Qatar and Saudi given home advantage for two mini group playoffs. Now Qatar maximise this by playing crunch UAE game in tiny stadium to limit away fans

This is hardly surprising when the operators of many social media platforms have filled their sites with so much advertising, clickbait and junk that you hardly see any of the content you signed up to see. In a desire to generate revenue, they've rendered their platforms unattractive and unusable.

The Ferret’s article gives a sobering look at the lived experiences of communities like Brechin, which are still grappling with the aftermath of Storm Babet and inputs from Carol Raeburn from the Scottish Flood Forum & @uofglasgow.bsky.social's Prof Larissa Naylor. theferret.scot/communities-...

A study published in Nature stated that the global carbon storage capacity is 10 times less than the amount fossil fuel companies claim can be processed by CCS. beyond-coal.jp/en/news/ccs-... #beyondcoal #脱石炭

A very full week in Aceh as part of @britishacademy.bsky.social supported study into evidence + policy for seawalls in Indonesia, building on @raeng.org.uk research. Great to see students of our partner Universitas Syiah Kuala learning how to check the characteristics and performance of seawalls.

📢We're hiring!📢 We have a permanent Lecturer in Earth Sciences position available in @OU_EEE @OpenUniversity £47,389 to £56,535 Closing Date: 20 October 2025* We are a friendly, research intensive school with supportive colleagues and great labs. jobs.open.ac.uk/job/Lecturer...