Some really (and qualifiedly) good news from Cardiff UCU @cardiffucu.bsky.social : No redundancies next year, no downgrading of professional services staff. And all without the need for disruptive industrial action, which nobody at all wants. nation.cymru/news/cardiff...

Today's the day! This is looking to be a very well attended session! Exciting!

Excited to host #BES2025 Thematic Session next week! The future of quantitative learning and literacy in ecology. 16 Dec 16:00-18:00 Edinburgh EICC @fiebergjohn.bsky.social @nhcooper123.bsky.social @fergusjchadwick.bsky.social @talom.bsky.social @chrissuthy.bsky.social @britishecologicalsociety.org

eight years as a statistical consultant and ecologists still manage to collect weird data that I'm not immediately sure what to do with (it's fun though!)

I'm excited to share that this Wednesday (10th Sept at 12:00 BST) I'll be presenting this year's first National Centre for Statistical Ecology (NCSE) invited seminar: "How should we train the next generation of statistical ecologists?" #ecology #rstats

~4hrs of work planned for the journey this morning with @transportforwales.bsky.social only to find, yet again, that the WiFi won't connect. Very disappointing. Appears to be a consistent issue on trains on the Holyhead line...

Very wet and early start this morning to travel to Liverpool for CETL-MSOR 2025!

The RoSE conference is now live! A marathon 13 hr day of talks all about statistics education - what more could you want? It's not too late to join - register at this link: forms.gle/ebM2kPyYAhbv.... #RoSE2025Conf #StatsEd #EduSky #statistics

Do your students suffer from statistics anxiety? Don't miss our free #StatsEd conference on July 31st, and learn more about who struggles with statistics and potential solutions! Register to attend here: bit.ly/roseconferen... #EduSky #statistics #teaching #mathanxiety

On the move again, this time to the Year 2 Coastal Ecology field course in Dale, Pembrokeshire.

Thoroughly enjoyed my day return to Glasgow University for @ukcots.bsky.social #UKCOTS25. Another city with stunning architecture.

Nearly there #UKCOTS2025! Looking forward to meeting everyone at the pre-conference social on Monday. Just need to make sure I make the registration desk for 8am on Tuesday...

As both an academic staff member at Cardiff University and an active seafarer (volunteer lifeboat coxswain), this is devastating news.

Good news, researchers and educators in #StatsEd! The RoSE 2025 e-conference registration has just opened up! Sign up for our free international conference happening July 31st here: bit.ly/roseconferen...

Interested in external training courses on biological data analysis (and more!)? Follow @prstats.bsky.social! I've taught on their courses and sent students to them. I'd highly recommend! I attended my first spatial analysis course with them back in 2016. Website: www.prstats.org

Online Course - Live and Online Full course details and registration: www.prstats.org/course/onlin... #SpeciesDistributionModelling #BayesianStatistics #EcologicalModelling #RStats #QuantitativeEcology #SpatialEcology #EnvironmentalDataScience #Biostatistics #EcologyTraining #StatisticalModelling

Live & Online Sep 22nd–26th Instructor: Dr. Neftalí Sillero Key concepts, data preparation, model calibration and validation. Registration: www.prstats.org/course/speci... #SpeciesDistribution #Ecology #RStats #SpatialAnalysis #ENM #SDM #EcologicalModelling #EnvironmentalScience #RProgramming

Very pleased to share the news that I'm now a Lifeboat Coxswain at @SevernRescue. This comes after 3 years of training with SARA Newport, and ~5 years of prior service as Crew with @TheMumblesRNLI @RNLI.

Six weeks ago today I and 1806 other academics @cardiffuni were told our jobs were at risk of redundancy. Six weeks on, and the University has failed to give us information promised in the consultation document which is crucial to the submission of critiques by Friday. nation.cymru/news/cardiff...

For the urgent attention of university vice-chancellors.

Its frustrating since there are a lot of statistical misunderstandings found in even the most prestigious medical journals, so they become enshrined as "correct" but contradict the expert statistician's understanding. statsepi.substack.com/p/how-bad-st...

"Education Is Not A Product. The Students Are Not Customers. The Professors Are Not Tools. The University Is Not A Factory."

I just a BBC Radio Wales interview for Cardiff UCU. Cardiff Uni needs to work in true social partnership with the Union, and draw on its millions in available ££ to fund a more gradual recovery which doesn’t destroy 400+ jobs & irreparably harm the University/Wales. ✊👇 youtu.be/tqjaFuFdESM?...

Why academia is sleepwalking into self-destruction. My editorial @brain1878.bsky.social If you agree with the sentiments please repost. It's important for all our sakes to stop the madness academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are we supposed to be celebrating the news that after Cardiff University gives up on training nurses, the Welsh Government scales up its recruitment of nurses from other countries that *can* be bothered to train nurses on our behalf? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Dystopian mismanagement. "There is no trust left. Even before the hammer fell, a survey found that only 31% of staff said they trusted the University Executive Board to be honest in their communications. People are also terrified."

Also shocking is Cardiff Uni’s VC plunging into partnership with Kazakhstan - a regime with an appalling human rights record This is what the neoliberalisation of the HE sector results in: amoral institutions, led by sociopaths, no longer capable of fulfilling their civil society role

What’s equally shocking to me is Cardiff Uni’s Vice Chancellor eager to plunge into partnership with an authoritarian regime with an appalling human rights record. This is what the neoliberalisation of the HE sector results in: amoral institutions incapable of fulfilling their civil society role

Key to the UK higher education crisis is that any whiff of financial concern energizes a Board of Trustees to shift from friendly advisors to aggressively interventionist. Every intervention is to impose the managerialism from their own sectors. It always fails, because universities are different.

the arrogance and haste reminds me of when Cardiff was created through a forced merger (I was a student activist there at the time). But UC Cardiff was broke then. Now it has capital enough to build a new campus in Kazakhstan - yet is slashing courses in Wales.

Weekend reading in UK universities

This is what happens when you turn our academic institutions into businesses. Their aims, metrics by which they measure themselves, become distorted, corrupted even. To think that not so long ago, Universities (& other HE) only focus was to build national knowledge and capability.

As I said before: one of the biggest root causes of the decline of UKHE has been the progressive professionalisation of a managerial class of academics, who do damages in one institution for five years or so and then simply move to another institution, with zero accountability to their colleagues./1

Chilling read… Solidarity to all the colleagues at Cardiff University. “Some colleagues were told that offering to teach in Kazakhstan might save their jobs. Apparently the university will decimate itself in Cardiff and rebuild itself in Astana”.

Spending my Friday night analysing Cardiff University’s EDI data in relation to which categories of staff have been placed “at risk of redundancy”, because the HR department seems to have forgotten to do so. #LivingTheDream #BasicDueDilligence #RStats #11pm #UnpaidOvertime

All too familiar journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

This sounds extraordinarily familiar, including the Friday afternoon emails of PDFs and the woeful online mental health services for staff.

Academia is full of over paid, under skilled Chancellors who wouldn't last five minutes in industry. All that power (and money) goes to their heads. To whom are they accountable? The entire system is irrevocably broken and it is future generations that will suffer.

Two Weeks In The Death Spiral Of Cardiff University, by an anonymous academic. This is truly shocking read. The Cardiff executive board should hang their heads in shame. voice.cymru/two-weeks-in...

The VC of Cardiff was the Provost at VUW immediately prior. Did significant damage here, looks like that has intensified in her new job. Just appalling.

Charles Darwin was a British naturalist and biologist best known for developing the theory of evolution through natural selection. His groundbreaking work, "On the Origin of Species", transformed our understanding of life on Earth. #OnThisDay, his 216th Birthday we are celebrating #DarwinDay

Probably no-one except me uses my R tutorials in their teaching, but if you do, I'm re-writing them over the next 6-9 months. My goal is to streamline them based on 5 years of using them in class, but if you have (polite) requests/suggestsions let me have them. www.discovr.rocks/discovr/

On the move again, this time to Wrexham for an Expert Forum with the Learned Society of Wales.

20 down, 580 to go... Planting trees with funding from Welsh Gov small grants scheme for farmers, as part of their National #Forest for #Wales project.

Had a lot of fun this morning teaching Sea Survival skills at Lisvane and Llanishen Reservoir. Huge thanks to Dwr Cymru for supporting their local lifeboat station to run this essential training.

January has been a hell of a year

I will not post much on this topic, but I'm the Head of Ancient History and Religion at Cardiff University. Our staff and students are nothing short of amazing. Those who know me will know that I'm doing all I can.

We’re failing our inheritance. #Cardiff #Wales

In case you feel inclined to ask your friendly local UK academic how they are. This has been our past fortnight... qmucu.org/qmul-transfo... 😵‍💫

🧵everyday resistance, creative coping 5/: Special Offer: 7% Off All Academics.