Regressive policies aimed at discouraging international students from choosing the UK have led to a funding crisis for universities, and devastating job losses are now in prospect. Our world-class institutions should not be losing world-class staff like this. Govt must welcome students again.

Quite a lot of defending universities in their true sense (critical & innovative research & teaching) seems to hinge on convincing society that not everything can be reduced to profit. Which makes it all the more vital to preserve these institutions as a counterweight www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

This is an unforgivably stupid situation. It is an astonishing own goal to try and drive student numbers down to move an immigration number that in turn is totally ignored by the anti-immigrant head bangers.

Very good on why the uk is in its current mess. (Like Wren-Lewis I think George Osborne is causally responsible for brexit - also Nick Clegg, therefore.)

2,700 in limbo for months, with more than 600 expected to lose their jobs. Having been at risk of redundancy last year, I can’t imagine the impact of so many feeling so insecure and devalued. Cruel and destructive. Solidarity to all.

this post was a great articulation of why we teach, and especially why we teach subjects that students might not go on to "use" (a highly suspicious word). It's also why students should take classes in a variety of fields, to learn new ways of thinking, not necessarily to learn new information

Great post, the majority of which will be incomprehensible to non-linguists, with a beautiful brilliant final paragraph about the point of universities (I think)

Yet more evidence that the post-2012 funding model for universities has been a complete and utter disaster, piling resources into poor quality provision, allowing the top institutions to cannibalise those just below then pulling the rug from under the whole system once its failings became obvious

Free speech is being demanded of universities. I think there’s a misunderstanding of education at the heart of these concerns, and focus on academic freedom would be more helpful. Blog post: #highereducation matthewbarnard.phd/posts/2026-0...

#caturday #catsofbluesky

Bloody hell. Researchers invented a disease, published two fake papers to see if LLM’s would ingest them and kick them up as fact — and then it broke containment and all the major AI’s bought in. Information pollution. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I very rarely do petitions, but please sign this one. Reverse the visa brake on Study Visas for citizens of Myanmar. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

The US military has 22 sites in the UK. Every day long range US bombers are taking off here to drop bombs on Iran. This is a rogue state carrying out war crimes, and threatening more. The UK Government must grow a spine - and stop our bases being used for this war.

A devastating read. Some of the personal stories behind the Conservative and Labour government's haphazard pivots between encouraging universities to attract international students and making Britain a less appealing place for them. www.theguardian.com/education/ng...

Another war crime by Israel and the USA. An important place for free, independent philosophy of science in Iran destroyed by criminal bombing. #philsci

Quiet night in.

America not being a signatory to a number of treaties does not mean that international law does not exist. The US is conducting clear war crimes, and boasting about it. They should be treated as a pariah state. They definitely shouldn't be getting a Royal visit.

This critique is accurate but misses the main point - as so many accounts of politics do: the ideological context. These consultants are a symptom of the problem, not the cause. They are only so powerful because neoliberal ideology has captured our universities. 1/2

The vital importance of immigrants to a democracy is not just as sources of cheap labor, population replenishment, or as conveyors of culture, capital, & skills (‘good immigrants’), but because immigrants fight for–and model for everyone–the right to have rights. Thank you, Wong Kim Ark. 6/6

Shouldn't universities the world over be condemning US/Israeli attacks on a university in Iran, or will they generally be silent like they were on Gaza? #IranWar #AcademicChatter

The language in this X post is horrendous. Other than the obvious cruel nature of such rhetoric, student visa ‘crackdown’ is an act of self-destruction. The UK higher education sector is suffering because of this mindless mimicking of Reform.

I wrote about the findings from the inquiry about the impact of the pandemic on the NHS, and the mistakes of the first year. I hope it makes you angry - it should make us all angry. open.substack.com/pub/christin...

Double-take detail in this interview with Edith Heard, head of the Crick Her French husband decided against getting a spouse visa because of the UK's "intrusive" immigration rules If that's happening with one of the UK's most senior scientists, how many others are being put off completely?

Good HE is really simple: quality time spent with subject experts who know and care about their students. My university and many others are deliberately abandoning this truth in favour of financial and organisational efficiency.

i do really enjoy that on the absolutely most granular level nobody knows how teaching and learning actually happens. you just expose your mind to the material several times, ideally from several different angles, and eventually a miracle occurs.

Who knows whether this about the war in the Middle East or UK higher education policy?

NEW BLOGPOST: Keir Starmer and David Lammy are taking an extraordinarily dangerous gamble with our individual liberty For any MP unsure of how to vote on the government’s proposals to restrict trial by jury.

Denmark has *far* worse outcomes - economic, social and integration - than the UK. Just a fantasyland for those who want an excuse for their own xenophobia and/or are incapable of doing the hard work of confronting the UK's real problems. www.thetimes.com/world/europe...

Rich alludes here to the wisdom of the judges at the Nuremburg trial: “To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Excellent article but stark reminder that for all the perceptions of universities as ivory towers for elites, they are actually vital hubs in towns n cities supporting local businesses and providing key services as well as education….

“Much of the commentary reads as if improving high streets is not a good in itself, a measure important in enhancing people’s lives, but is primarily a means of undermining the Reform vote or staunching Labour’s decline.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

Cutting staff at a neighbouring Uni is bad for the whole coastal South East. Aside from London, what industries or large employers are there? Visit a seaside town in the winter? How is this 'levelling up'? 14,000 jobs in HE lost last year. Where is the government support? #AcademicSky

Wise words from Howard Zinn on the anniversary of his passing...

No system beats First Past the Post for creating scenarios in which people inadvertently help their opponents. It's ideal if you want to strongly disincentivise talented, morally motivated people from going into politics (something Britain has successfully done for centuries).

Excellent article “The danger is not merely that bad ideas occasionally slip through. It is that the system gradually loses the capacity to recognise what a good idea even looks like.”

I just thought everyone should see this

In any other context, requiring a high-productivity sector to offshore the production of its highest value-added exports would be seen as the economic illiteracy it so obviously is... www.ft.com/content/a23c...

Knut Hamsun, a Norwegian writer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. In 1943, he sent Joseph Goebbels (Hitler's propaganda minister) his Nobel Prize medal as a gift.

This ought to be a huge national news story. But the quiet dismantling of a key sector barely registers outside HE. Maybe someone will care when the local economies that Unis sustain start to go bust too. Important story from @patrickjack.bsky.social & @timeshighered.bsky.social

@nature.com doesn't mind publishing "thoughts some dude had in the bathtub" as long as they're on language, apparently.

This craven cowardice is not only morally repugnant, but also completely at odds with the Royal Society’s own code of conduct. By failing to uphold the code, Sir Paul Nurse looks like he’s himself also breaching it - both are bringing the Society into disrepute. royalsociety.org/-/media/abou...

Tell me we should trust AI to give us the facts. Tell me it's a future we can put our faith in. Come at me. I'm right here, waiting.

“Between 1898 and 1994, Washington effectively acted to change governments in Latin America at least 41 times, a tally that includes neither many unsuccessful efforts at regime change nor the invasions, filibustering, and gunboat diplomacy that took place the previous century.“ Greg Grandin:

rome statute of the international criminal court, article 8bis: crime of aggression

The outrageous sanctioning of EU lawmakers and citizens in order to pressure democratically-elected European governments to change their laws shows just how intent the US government is on controlling Europeans' lives. We must go into 2026 with eyes open.

#philsky Funded postdoctoral positions (FCT) at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Porto – Call for expressions of interest:

If there was an academia wrapped it would say: ‘you read these articles, those abstracts, half of this book, a third of that one, maybe a chapter from this…’