Absolutely intellectually spoiled these past 2 days! At ‘A New Odyssey for Public Engagement’ in London, leading thinkers in science, diplomacy & public engagement from 4 continents came together to explore how the ODESSI framework (doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) can guide global dialogues on science 🌍✨

Huge thanks to Shaofeng Hu (UNESCO) & @francoisefrancois.bsky.social for inspiring keynotes, and to our brilliant speakers & discussants for their transdisciplinary insights 🙏 @itswiggins.bsky.social @annettemarkham.bsky.social @annetteboaz.bsky.social @davidludwig.bsky.social @gsej.bsky.social

Morning walk

Some imaginative sentencing here by the French…

A fascinating interview where it appears I once did the same job as John Sawers (General Secretary of the University of Nottingham Students’ Union…)

Putting one shoe in a safe just strikes me as a great way of losing one shoe per trip

This post and the replies making me feel marginally better about the time our solicitors simply *forgot* to pay my stamp duty to HMRC

I hope @heritage.bsky.social knows how many people are having to physically throw their phones across a room to stop them posting this brilliant article to their school WhatsApp and then exiting the group with a metaphorical flounce 😃

If I had a nickel for every time this month I’d climbed a hill called High Raise… …I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s fun that it happened twice

Unexpected Saturday: cat needed emergency eye surgery so I’m now reading the @financialtimes.com in Booths in Penrith while the cat goes under the knife and my EV charges for the journey back to York. Not saying it’s the *most* middle class weekend ever, but it feels close

Maybe the third or fourth time I’ve seen this sign this year, but tell me again how climate change isn’t a thing in the here and now…

What I love about these “one like / one opinion” threads is how they read a lot like an expanded version of Savage Garden’s Affirmation.

Deeply troubled by this take. But delighted to have an excuse to rewatch both.

Story tonight about our joint open letter to The Times We’re calling for the guidance that is preventing civil servants from participating in public and stakeholder events to be withdrawn www.thetimes.com/article/2e4f...

Looking forward to @duncanrobinson.bsky.social’s next column on what a rise of hosepipe snitches says about modern Britian

Dune 3 or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Harkonnen

the system is deeply flawed, deeply unfair, and internally contradictory, but at its best the marriage of a pact to outlaw aggression, a New Deal-style arrangement for global poverty alleviation and individual freedom, and avenues to underwrite post-colonial sovereignty had a lot to recommend it

So Kremlinology for the fate of a sector which employs half a million or so people. Love that.

Fascinating conference here today. Also enjoyed the Backstreet Boys esque seating arrangement for our panel.

God I love this city so bloody much

Former official / work with lots of them regularly. This just feels patently unworkable. To say no Q&A sessions *at all* is just bonkers, so many vital technical engagements with key sectors work that way and ministers are never going to be involved in that kind of event.

“We hold diplomacy to much higher standards than bombing” Good thread this and that line in particular is spot on

Just read the very good lunch with the FT interview with Emily Bender on AI hype….. …. and then saw this 😬

Hey Wembley Stadium… hottest day of the year and using the length of the water queues as a *sales pitch* on the tannoy for a 4 bottles of water for £10 offer is pretty shameless

UK seems to have won around 30% of the ERC Advanced Grants in humanities and social sciences - great result. Good to be in Horizon again erc.europa.eu/news-events/...

As the kids would say: we are _so_ back

Counterpoint: this is a map ChatGPT just made me…

Post of the day.

DECC > DezNez Still got this mug from the first time Ed Miliband was running the department 😄

Concerned about the current state of attacks on knowledge, our role in providing access to & preserving authentic knowledge, and what would be the role of AI? Join us at the inaugural Knowledge Futures Symposium on 27th June, 9am-4pm (BST), Online/In Person conferences.leeds.ac.uk/knowledgefut...

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Waves of nostalgia here! Also way down the main stage billing was A, who I saw last year in Manchester and who were still fantastic 😃

I'd missed this when it was first published! A fascinating blog and a very interesting and thoughtful critique of our recent Science Diplomacy report. Agree with lots of this (particularly that we traded optimism for realism...)

It’s excellent that they’ve worked out mechanics of this. This was a manifesto commitment that wasn’t easy to deliver on and will have involved a lot of Treasury-wrangling. Next step is for the Spending Review to back this up with ambitious budget envelopes for R&D 🤞🏻

I too cannot English well, or even at all, until I’ve had my first cup of tea in the morning

A great lunch with the FT (as they almost always are) but I have been radicalised before it’s even midday by this sentence…

Got asked to write something on Multi Academy Trusts and Universities for @resprofnews.bsky.social - the tl;dr? Maybe (maybe!) it might work, but not if it’s driven by finding cost saving…

White Sox currently on a six game losing streak against the Padres… just sayin

If I had a nickel for every foreign head of state my team had supported since I started… …I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s great it’s happened twice

Terminator 1: Judgment Morning

Knew it. It was always a scam to keep the grammar industrial complex in business

Six figure salaries as “the norm” is a wild thing to just throw out there and which is petty easily interrogated by sector data… (got to be a fun adventure in tableau for @dkernohan.bsky.social on this one…)

Can get on board with declaring these a matter of National Security and thus tariff-able…

Depressing - and as this article notes, it’s not just the scale of the cuts but also that they’re disproportionately big compared to the overall average cur (23% of non defence spend). Science both being hit and hit harder than other areas.

Super news - and it is also the case that UK researchers have won £2bn of grants through the Horizon Guarantee, delivered by UKRI, which kept the lights on through the negotiations www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Just saw Thunderbolts* which was great and fun and back to old school marvel. But was struck by there being 6 (six!) trailers and not one of them was an original bit of IP. (Which I think @stephenkb.bsky.social has written about before)

What Jill said 👇🏻. V welcome signal from govt, but without visa reform we’re trying to attract the best talent with one (maybe even both) hands tied behind our back