This week on Wonkhe: Cutting student immigration won't win votes and won't improve the economy. James Coe urges the government to learn the right lessons from May's local elections and he thinks universities can help.

Trump’s attack on the film industry is a sign of xenophobic contempt | Jesse Hassenger

This is an excellent crowdfunding project by my friend and long term collaborator John Ledger. His work is highly considered and empathetic. To make it happen he needs collective support! www.indiegogo.com/projects/str...

Great to participate in the Midlands Conference in Critical Thought so good to meet up snd collaborate with Experimental Space Collective and Q_plus_I mcct.margins.org.uk

📆What policy interventions will the Industrial Strategy need to take to meet the different needs of places around the country? Six months on from the Industrial Strategy Green Paper, join us to discuss the external factors shaping the strategy in 2025👇 buff.ly/HgSFb1V

Gary Lineker’s critics have got it wrong. It’s reasonable to talk about more than sport | Max Rushden

Ingenious protest about the ongoing decimation of HE teaching and research funding in Madrid. Speaks to the public good that universities bring! ¡Solidaridad con mis camarades!

UK charities warn of record high child poverty if two-child benefit cap not scrapped. £3.6bn would lift 350,000 children out of poverty, reduce poverty for another 700,000. Govts that bail out & subsidise corporations can eradicate poverty. Ditch the Tory policy. Tax the rich. Save the future.

Looking forward to getting stuck into this over the Easter break! We need a new political imaginary more than ever! Hoping Leela Gandhi’s politics of friendship will help focus my thoughts for some new trajectories that I am working on.

We have started work on our allotment! Feels really good to dig the land and start to grow/nurture things. This is about regenerative practice and quiet activism.

The Center for Art and Advocacy, a nonprofit supporting artists affected by incarceration, entered its new home in Brooklyn with an inaugural exhibition of visual artworks, written projects, and films by its Right of Return fellows.

“Tolerance dies when it’s performative” - Nothing but thieves

A headline Alexander Fleming would have been proud of! @nature.com #AMR #IDSky #ClinMicro www.nature.com/articles/d41...

UK law denies the full minimum wage rate to workers below the age of 21. They pay full price for housing, food, shoes, clothes, transport, medicines and other essentials. Output of their labour is not sold at lower price. Legalised age discrimination, exploitation of young workers.

Shân Edwards is the founder and director of the Scottish charity Outdoor Spaces, helping to forge new ways for artists to make work using affordable spaces. She thinks this model forms a vital component of the wider arts ecology.

"I don’t believe in healthcare, labor, and human rights because I’m a Marxist… I believe it because I was a waitress." We need real people to govern us, not billionaires. 💙💯 @aoc.bsky.social @sanders.senate.gov #HumanRights

As we reach the end of another week, I wanted to briefly reflect on two highly interesting events that I attended this week. Collaboration and connection seems to be in the ether!

Plastic and climate change are interfering with how plants make food. It will blow back on us.

A government-backed initiative to regenerate high streets through community engagement and cultural events provided an economic boost of nearly a quarter of a billion pounds, a study has found.

A new arts venue has opened in a converted storage depot in Bradford city centre.

What is the role of art in a community, and who really benefits from cultural placemaking? @rob-eagle.bsky.social reflects on their own experiences of creating a four-week art installation with and for their local community in the market town of Shipley. www.culturalvalue.org.uk/art-communit...

Some great moments this week. A brilliant online discussion led by Sophie Hope on sharing power with some fascinating discussion on #Friendship. Then a deep dive into #Midjourney #AI experimental workshop by Martine Neang ‘Home, Nowhere and Everywhere’.

When a book just hits right for your #research and your world view! Highly recommend Matt Hern and Am Johal’s book on the potential of friendship for thinking about a future that is, currently, very unthinkable!

Today, we share news about the future of the Centre for Cultural Value and the funders who will be supporting our work as we take a deliberate and strategic pause to reflect, innovate and prioritise our long-term sustainability. Read more: www.culturalvalue.org.uk/what-happens...

Now I am become life, builder of worlds Sluice is pleased to announce the inaugural Sluice Film, an itinerant film festival for artist films Applications are now open – link in bio or via sluice.info Theme: World-Building Where: Seyðisfjörður When: 23 – 25 May Partners: @lungaschool + @herdubio

Trump can’t fulfil his promise to fix the economy, so he’s blaming workers instead

Trump’s diplomatic how-to guide boasts new chapters on the arts of bullying, harassment, gaslighting and, of course, the deal.

One of my students did a workshop last week that used AI to vision the day of third culture kids and it was not only one of the best examples of using AI but a really powerful means to discuss racism and anti-racism. Extraordinary!

Zelenskyy knows what it is to fight for something bigger than yourself. Trump does not.

Sharing new(ish) article by Dr Victoria Durrer UCD and me www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... PLEASE NOTE If you don't have institutional log in first 50 downloads free but please leave for those who need them www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IUERY... Thanks and feedback welcome

Accessible writing isn't about losing creativity. It's about connection. Learn how you can craft content that scanners love and readers appreciate. Practical tips to make your words work harder, reach wider, and inspire everyone. Get practical guidance: https://buff.ly/3EPOAMx

WTF 🤦🏻‍♂️ www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

"The top 10 companies now account for 37.3% of the S&P 500 – the highest concentration in history. 26 stocks now account for half of the value of the entire index. Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft account of 13% of the value of the S&P on their own." Read now: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Interesting article. Really like the idea of ‘listening lunches’.

In "Rhetorics of Value," Corinne A. Kratz explores how exhibition design creates and conveys values that have the potential to touch, educate, and engage visitors. Read the intro for free on our website now! #ArtHistory #MuseumStudies https://buff.ly/4b45MtH

There’s something about the tiny image of death as a sickle-wielding skeleton astride a rat shitting out a yellow plume over Naples that perfectly captures the way a pandemic can lay waste to a place.

Incredibly useful new POST note from @ukparliament.parliament.uk on "Participation, diversity and inclusion in cultural and creative industries" post.parliament.uk/participatio...

@1000plateaus.bsky.social 's lecture on repatriation was such a high point in the module - it was great to have someone who has first-hand experience of these processes and a nuanced understanding of the power relations that shape them!

America’s allies are preparing to have to fend for themselves against not just their traditional foes, but also a predatory Washington.

Athens resists as investors swoop on the city’s ‘neighbourhood of the gods’

AND new @creativepec.bsky.social report dropped today too, with ind with analysis of the employer skills survey and detailed policy recommendations too pec.ac.uk/state_of_the...

NEW on Wonkhe: Randall Whittaker and Stephen Farrier argue for a better model for dramatic arts education – one that acknowledges the competing cost and time pressures on students https://bit.ly/3WZOs3g

Really insightful think piece on by @aliceborchi.bsky.social and Carlo Alberto Petruzzi on the contradictions between urban planning policy, cultural heritage and intensification of tourism.

"Capitalism functions because it can promise the average person that tomorrow will be better than today. Climate breakdown threatens to upend this bargain." Subscribe to read my piece on the global food crisis in the latest issue of Tribune tribunemag.co.uk/2025/01/the-...

Speaking at an event in Glasgow this week, John Swinney blasted the UK’s “disastrous” decision to leave the European Union, but suggested a new migration route specifically for students who choose to study in Scotland. #AcademicSky #InternationalStudents #GraduateVisa

An #authoritarian regime sows fear by using law enforcement to immobilise certain segments of society. This tactic strengthens its social control and draws in more people with the false allure of power. It has alarming results: more societal divisions & the survival of autocratic rule. #AcademicSky

THREAD An Ode to Yorkshire They call it God's own Country. Among the stereotypes of England, it ranks up there with Shakespeare, Dickens, Tea & Biscuits, top hats and a very particular brand of dentistry. Why Yorkshire? Isn't this account about Attention Scores and Memes? Couple of reasons. 1/31

The baton passes to an unsung but brilliant chemist in the form of May Sybil Leslie, born in 1887 in Woodlesford, West Yorkshire. She worked under both Ernest Rutherford and the mighty Marie Curie and unsurprisingly delivered major contributions to radioactivity. altmetric.com/detail... 13/31

With a climate change denier as US president, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s politics-as-glossy-spectacle could not be more on point.