Chief exec of OfS 'said the OfS believes there are 24 institutions at risk of exiting the market in the next 12 months, seven of which are large providers with more than 3,000 students. There are another 25 or so institutions of various sizes at risk over a two- to three-year period, she added.'

And the cherry on top is that the sign is back, too

Scotland’s First Minister addresses the nation

Aye, and now we're going to win it! youtu.be/opsudWaeNqk?...

Finnur Dellsén got a nice pic of me on my standard Q&A slide, so now I have a stock reply to any time anyone disagrees with me.

If you want a sneak peek at my forthcoming book, Temperance Lives: Life Assurance, Drink and Medicine in Britain, 1840-1918, you can read part of the introduction and check out the contents and indexes with this widget bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/690c7... @bloomsburyhist.bsky.social

Thought lost when it closed in 2017, the Jeremy Bentham pub on University Street has risen from the ashes

Professor Philip Schofield has written an appreciation of the late Professor William Twining's scholarship, as well as his invaluable contribution to Bentham studies and the work of the Bentham Project. All here send their condolences to William's family and friends. www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/profess...

Don’t miss UCL Laws' Quain Lectures in Jurisprudence with Professor Seana Shiffrin @law.ucla.edu – a rare opportunity to hear one of the world’s leading legal and moral philosophers live in London. 📅 20–24 October | 🏛️ UCL Laws 🎟️ Free to attend – book now: buff.ly/pi9UWE4

Started at UCL Laws 15 years ago today. Who knows where the time goes (and increasingly goes)...

Spent many (many!) hours pulling legal explanations and apologies from lawyers who were caught using AI that hallucinated in which they explained to a judge why they used AI. The explanations are astonishing and extremely good: www.404media.co/18-lawyers-c...

"For... interesting holidays". Something about the spookily lit trees in the foreground makes this feel like the kind of poster you'd catch sight of on a mildewed wall in the early minutes of an MR James adaptation. (SMG: collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co23...)

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Ignore the haters, London is the 🐐

We need more in-depth reporting on UK university finances like this. Research , research funding and their relation to teaching and teaching funding could do with a similar level of detail. Here's a sharing link for 3 non-subscribers: on.ft.com/3ImSMWa

Anyone who frequented the Jeremy Bentham pub (d. 2016) on University Street may recognise Bentham House's newest art installation

Broadcaster John Stapleton dies aged 79

there are often big panics around terms and condition changes that go viral, but this one seems to have distinguished itself by clickwrap contract permission to *take academics’ literal voices and use them to market the platform?*

That's a Labour government minister berating university students and staff by saying that 'too often people go to university to "explore research and knowledge"'. I'm very glad of our students who study history to explore research and knowledge.

Want to be clear that the predictable violence against the police wasn't the only problem with yesterday's march It's that 100,000 angry racists gathered in London for the biggest racist march in 50 years, and anyone not white had to steer clear The govt can't see that because they are inadequate.

Cannot believe that I missed the massive Bentham bear at this week's UCL Laws graduation. Torn between thinking it's cute versus it being nightmare fuel

Major university merger announced. The start of a wave?

I considered writing a long carefully constructed argument laying out the harms and limitations of AI, but instead I wrote about being a hater. Only humans can be haters.

Diagnosed with diabetes two years ago today and still (usually) taking it in his stride

Reasons I couldn’t have gone to university now include… This is a social mobility - and social justice - issue.

'Updating their work on the amount of money students need to get by, the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) and Loughborough University researchers have estimated that first-year students in halls of residence need £418 per week to cover their living costs – including £158 on rent.' 1/3

I've seen this on Bluesky and had to try it myself. The image below was the response to the prompt: "Show me a diagram of the US presidents since Herbert Hoover, with their names and years in office under their photos" Bravo, OpenAI, bravo.

Beyond rejects the norms of spelling

The University of Warwick has paid a lot of money, I'm guessing, for their internet banner ads on the Guardian and elsewhere. But they can't spell "curiosity". This isn't a US-UK variant. They just, genuinely, have a massive spelling error in their banner ads.

Furthest I've been: N: Lerwick 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 E: Wellington 🇳🇿 S: Port Arthur, Tas 🇦🇺 W: Philadelphia 🇺🇸

Exhibit M - And a very warm welcome to philosophical methodology

Exhibit F - please accept their invitation to the management

One like, one Presses universitaires de France book cover from the 1990s

At a time when UK HEIs are almost universally in crisis, with a diminishing number of jobs and overworked employees in those jobs that remain, I'm sure everyone really appreciates the rules of the REF changing every five minutes.

A ‘4* plus’ REF rating, you say?

ACADEMIC READING ALREADY COMES WITH A SUMMARY IT IS CALLED THE ABSTRACT

Goodbye to the history department at Lancaster University, where the @socialhistsoc.bsky.social was founded 49 years ago. From tomorrow we are part of a School of Global Affairs. Next year, who knows what will be - please sign our petition against mass redundancies chng.it/PZfTFDjNcr

'Not proven' rather than 'cleared'... (cc. @jameschalmers.bsky.social )

Warwick hired “celebrity chef Aldo Zilli to create a “sardine and prawn” dish to celebrate the 700th anniversary of Venice”, plus more Ajay Teli trips, talks - as if future students care about a CMO! This isn’t appealing to students—it’s maladministration www.timeshighereducation.com/news/warwick...

now google each of those six universities and “redundancies”

Delighted to see a new special issue of @jich.bsky.social on petitions and petitioning in colonial/post-colonial contexts out. Edited by myself and Miranda Johnson (Otago). Includes articles on South Asia, West Africa, the Pacific, North America. www.tandfonline.com/toc/fich20/5...

The western coast of Scotland is a most strange place — it is composed of rocks, Mountains, mountainous and rocky Islands intersected by lochs — you can go but a short distance anywhere from salt water in the highlands. John Keats (letter to 26 July 1818)

Self-inflicted embarrassment for the University of Warwick — first it rebrands hyper-generically, then someone totally unhinged decides the *front page of the uni website* should say ‘Learn more about our Brand’.

'Rebecca Harrison, a former lecturer at The Open University, said that the extent of the deterioration of job security in universities was “alarming”, adding that institutions had not been transparent about the extent of the cuts occurring in the sector.' 1/3

Scheduled for publication in 1 December, just in time to be rammed into Christmas stockings the world over, is the next volume of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham - 'Essays on Logic, Ethics, and Universal Grammar', ed. P. schofield uclpress.co.uk/book/essays-...

We're hiring at @laws.ucl.ac.uk: full rank search in corporate and financial law, from lecturer (assistant prof) to associate and full prof. Multiple posts. www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

UCL Laws is delighted to announce that our flagship volume, 𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘓𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘴, is to be published by @uclpress.bsky.social from 2026! 📚 We're excited to collaborate with UCL's award-winning #openaccess publishing house on sharing important legal scholarship. tinyurl.com/mt5abn3w

Last call for next week's conference on Bentham's panopticon penitentiary scheme and his semi-autobiographical account of its failure - takes place at Bentham House on 23 & 24 July. Registration closes 20 July www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/...

WeTransfer just changed their TOS giving themselves permission to train AI on any content you transfer and produce derivative works based on content you transfer that they are allowed to monetize and you are not allowed payment for. Stop using WeTransfer.

It's quite warm today in London