Underrated just how much the US and Israel have been desecrating the very idea of diplomatic engagement by doing these obvious bait and switches. This is the third time now that negotiations were used as cover to prepare for a war already decided. The lesson is to never speak to the US.

Al Jazeera’s reporting at least 53 students have been killed.

Netanyahu Calls Iran Strikes Necessary To Prevent War He Just Started

The same war crimes as 20 years ago but without even the effort to fabricate a fake rationale for it now. Blowing up negotiations towards recreating a treaty that he himself pulled us out of 10 years ago. Second time as farce, I guess

'pre-emptive'?

Breaking news: The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, according to American and Israeli officials, as large explosions resounded in Tehran.

biggest solidarity to the Department ot Languages and Intercultural Studies (LINCS) at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh): heriotwatt.web.ucu.org.uk/2026/02/04/d... please sign their petition and send them any support they need, this is part of a UK-wide attack on languages education!

The richest man owns X. The second and third richest men control Google. The fourth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fifth richest man owns The Washington Post. And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros. See the problem here?

This is why in higher education you should not let your curriculum be driven by 'demand.' You need give students the precious opportunity to discover the things they don't already know they will be excited about.

The migration doom loop at work: does anyone in government seriously think that a strategy designed to keep out skilled workers and students makes either economic or political sense? ://www.ft.com/content/7408ad00-e4eb-41c7-8849-36061bc0eac1

New AI tool promising to attend lectures and complete assignments for students abruptly taken down amid concerns about cheating and data protection https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/strange-case-einstein-ai-spotlights-chatbot-concerns

Gorton and Denton by-election result: GRN: 40.7% (+27.5) REF: 28.7% (+14.7) LAB: 25.4% (-25.3) CON: 1.9% (-6.0) LDEM: 1.8% (-2.1) Green GAIN from Labour.

Daniel Kehlmann: „Ich lebe zur Zeit in New York und treffe fast täglich jüdische intellektuelle, die über diese Kriegsverbrechen entsetzt sind, die sich tief enttäuscht und verletzt fühlen deshalb, auch in ihrer eigenen tiefen Sympathie zu diesem Land.“ taz.de/Daniel-Kehlm...

The left is not "missing out" on AI. It's winning the argument. Americans worry about AI and dislike tech CEOs. They're mobilizing against data centers. They support regulation, even refusal. Calls for the left to embrace AI are an effort to change the terms of the debate in Silicon Valley's favor.

The Financial Times lists the 400 best employers -- including many universities like Dundee It’s a bit like praising staff satisfaction at Lehman Brothers in 2007 The statistical evidence of @data.ft.com is examined here It's incoherent & flawed 21percent.org?p=3293

Academics and students are more likely to face “repression” for their pro-Palestinian views than any other group in the UK, says European Legal Support Center www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academi... via @julietterowsell.bsky.social

St. John’s university has stopped recognizing the campus’s two faculty unions and is considering terminating about 20 academic programs. Here’s what you need to know. https://chroni.cl/3OAPEJ6

A number of academic journals have joined BlueSky in recent months, so I am updating my lists. First: #business and #management journals. Take a look and please let me know what I've missed. You can find the current list here: bsky.app/profile/did:... #Thread of all lists... #academicsky

Yep.

It’s worse than it looks too. Cuts to admin staff have massively increased admin workload across the board and they are considering including PGR supervision as research time = taking it off the workload. Meanwhile university valued research = desperately chasing funding but no buyout after success.

These are “low enrollment” majors but the classes are regularly at capacity. They changed the funding structure a few years ago here, switching the allocation from course enrollments to majors then blamed these departments for a structural, top-down change. This is entirely a political choice.

timeline cleanse.

Nottingham cuts ‘threaten status as research-intensive university’. Move to reduce academics’ protected research time to 25 per cent brings union warning. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

'If OfS is aware that a provider has internally classified institutional survival as high risk, and recruitment continues without that risk being brought clearly into the foreground at the point of offer, the regime starts to look less like protection...and more like a protection racket.'

Well, this happens when you close down your language departments.

Universities reportedly 'lack the resources to undertake research' into which tests are most effective. Pull your socks up universities: research is fundamental to what you do, and this is not rocket science.

„the worst kind of censorship is the censorship we never know has happened“: www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

‘The burden of academic labour’ otherwise known as learning. I am a liberal, but I want these pricks jailed forever.

Think again.

Breaking News: The Justice Department did not release key records in the Epstein files about a woman who made an unverified accusation against Donald Trump. In 2019, the woman said she had been sexually assaulted by Trump and Jeffrey Epstein decades earlier, when she was a minor.

In an unprecedented move, one reflective of the deeply unprecedented times at our university, UoN branches of three different unions (@UCU.org.uk, @unisonorg.uk, and Unite) have all successfully passed motions of no confidence in the Vice Chancellor and the entire executive board.

FT exclusive: Tens of thousands of internal emails and documents released by the US Department of Justice as part of the Epstein files paint for the first time a vivid picture of how Deutsche Bank rolled out the red carpet for the serial sexual abuser ft.trib.al/4obT91p

"Since 2019, the government has been pursuing a plan to develop 400 world-class scientific journals as affordable alternatives to ones based in Western countries; by 2023 the country had about 178 English-language open-access journals, nearly half of which charged no APC..."

"The ideal academic is now officially defined ... as being capable of working without time limits and without primary care responsibilities. The new capitalist academy imposes expectations of performativity that only a care-less worker can fully satisfy“. (Lynch, 2010) doi.org/10.1177/1474...

'The University and College Union (UCU), Unison and Unite said the vote by its members followed "years of shocking financial decisions and governance failures".'

I’m not at a Russell Group university but the pattern is the same; fewer professional services and academic staff; lower pay and wise conditions, but more and more top earners on ever-higher salaries. It’s just pillage.

And if you think this is only the case at RGs, well…

Job losses at UK research-intensive universities double in two years. Exclusive: Scale of redundancies branded a “disaster”. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

when people talk about AI used in moderation of social media posts, you must remember there is always the human-in-the-loop, often a woman, often in the Global South, always dehumanised and forgotten 1/n www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Republicans want to clamp down on colleges’ DEI efforts, saying it's discriminatory, illegal, and divisive. Here’s where legislators have introduced bills to restrict DEI offices or diversity statements. https://chroni.cl/40qMrhA

Good to see journalists covering the links between University of Buckingham’s Centre for Heterodox Science and race science networks. It ought to be pretty shocking to see a university openly affiliate with pseudoscience peddlers such as Aporia

Great to see Germany's largest research society support research assessment reform: less garbage bibliometrics like impact factor and h-index, less emphasis on over-production of papers no one wants to read, more expert assessment of quality and rewards for teamwork.

Shocking news. Obviously one doesn't know the ins and outs, but it's hard to comprehend how such a large and weathy university as UCL finds itself unable to support a cutting-edge humanities research institute. Solidarity with everyone affected. www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...

"Impact cannot be measured only by rankings and citations; it must also include influence on the quality of democratic life." #HigherEd

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One of the worst things about AI, for me, is that it takes away from people the sheer joy of writing. Schools don’t often make this point, but writing should be fun. Putting words together, finding ways to express yourself, the pure pleasure of a well-crafted sentence. 1/5

Having an extremely negative a reaction to this awful, joyless position. As if university leadership discovered socialist realism & thought 'that Stalin chap was onto something, let's do that, but without the creativity'. Are we not, after all, all merely machines?

Gute Nachricht: mit der Trump-Software Palantir Daten für die Sicherheitsbehörden des Bundes auswerten – das war der Plan von Innenminister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU). Nun hat sich Justizministerin Stefanie Hubig (SPD) durchgesetzt: Das Überwachungsprogramm kommt nicht. campact.org/20260223-bl

FYI, Academia.edu has changed its terms of service to give an irrevocable worldwide license for anything uploaded to its site to be used for generative AI. I do not consent to this and have pulled all my papers.

In the end, as the professoriate collapses, we will be speaking to those precious few who really want to learn and think and reason, who are told every day by our vacuous corporate overlords that the life of the mind is for chumps. The self-destructive stupidity that AI celebrates hurts us all.