In the next days, we'll see Labour, Reform and the whole lot trying to decide whether the Greens are sectarian Islamists undermining Britain or reckless hippies who are attempting to force-feed the PM's son crack cocaine.

Think there might be some truth in this matrix... (creator: unknown)

This photo was taken in 1911 using glass plate technology by Herbert Ponting who was part of Scott's Antarctic expedition, The composition and detail are exquisite with the band of white snow/ice creating a perfect frame around the two people and the ship in the distance Iconic imo

Loving this. "Antirender" engine converts architects presentation drawings into the likely reality of the designs :) antirender.com

Harvard just opened an investigation into Larry Summers's ties to Epstein. That's just PR cover for Harvard. They've known this entire time. Epstein literally had an office at Harvard for years.

Last Sunday. #WeAreTheUniversity #UCU #UK #HigherEducation #AcademicChatter #AcademicSky

👏 "There are over four million kids in child poverty in the UK and there are four and a half million people who can't get a dentist appointment." "We spend 90% of the political capital and discourse and media focus discussing 37,000 people."

Happy Republic Day of Turkey ! Without the foundation of the Republic, there would not be academics from Turkey who made significant contributions to the world literature. #AcademicChatter #AcademicSky #HigherEducation

Just in case anyone is listening, please note that UK universities cannot operate successfully on the basis of continuous reduction of academic staff and academic staff pay. No amount of staff wellness sessions will change this.

Diversity doesn’t lower quality. Gatekeeping does. When the same voices dominate academia, we don’t get excellence—we get elitism. 🪜 🎓 📜 🍎 ♀️ 👩🏾‍🔬 👩🏼‍🔬 👩🏾‍🎓 #PhDSky #Blackademia #AcademicChatter #AcademicSky #MeToo #HigherEd #PhDChat #TimesUpHigherEd

Imagine doing it in a foreign language, in a different country away from where you were born and grew up with limited funding, difficult bureaucracy e.g. visa and in isolation. #AcademicSky #AcademicChatter #UK #HigherEducation.

The impact of PhD studies on mental health - A longitudinal population study PhDs can be and some would likely argue, should be hard. But surely not *this* hard? #AcademicSky www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Wow...

How can some bus companies thrive while other are making cuts? Bringing bus companies into public ownership would mean your ticket fare would go back into the service, instead of lining private pockets. People, over profit. It works in Edinburgh, and it could work in Dundee.

Kirk’s ‘memorial’ getting a live coverage on The Guardian is a great example of how the right gets automatically framed as the default political movement to be ‘understood’ while the victims of that same movement never will never get the same amount of coverage

#AcademicSky #AcademicChatter #UK #HigherEducation

Speak up and you risk retaliation University culture has decayed so far that retaliation is default HR opens “investigations” with no evidence Whistleblowers are sidelined, "troublemakers" victimised or dismissed It's a system that punishes truth Change is overdue -- & coming

We know academia runs on insular, tightly knit circles. That makes speaking out harder & retaliation more common. Survivors are silenced, pushed out, or followed from one institution to the next.

#Turkey 94 #Greece 68 at EuroBasket semifinal. Seriously? What? Wow... Never been more proud of the national basketball team. What an amazing achievement! #Eurobasket2025

The famous tagline from the film, Alien: "In space, no one can hear you scream." In UK academia, it is the same. #UK #HigherEducation #AcademicSky #AcademicChatter

How to tell lies about 'illegal migrants', a 12 year-old girl and Dundee: all amplified by the British right-wing media and Elon Musk. #PrivateEye

Never change, Scotland

academia is a v. strange mix of “we expect you to behave like an employee” (forms, webinars, insanely bad admin software, etc) but also “go fund your entire research operation yourself including paper towels for the sink in the lunchroom we don’t have the budget for that”. #academicsky

I was asked by the editor of The Geographer, the @royalscotgeosoc.bsky.social magazine, to comment on the discussion around imposing domestic student fees in Scotland. This is an online accessible version of my piece. ddubdrahcir.wordpress.com/2025/09/03/f... #academicsky #studentfees #highered

But Americans still believe that they have lived in a "democratic" country when in reality their country is run by the corporate oligarchic plutocracy in a corrupt political and justice systems that mainly exist to punish the poor and allow the rich to do whatever they want... That's despotism...!

Besiktas have confirmed they have terminated the contract of head coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Solskjaer’s exit comes after the Turskish side were eliminated from the Conference League following Thursday’s defeat to Lausanne.

The University of Dundee has announced it will defer the 1.4% national pay rise for staff in higher education. With inflation above 3% this means hard working staff at the University will be getting at least a 3% real terms pay cut this year.

HE members we are calling on you to vote! 🗳️ UCEA's offer of 1.4% not only fails to stop the decline in salaries, it’s yet another real-terms pay cut. Haven't received your e-ballot? You have until 12 noon TOMORROW to request a replacement: yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/ucu-he-re...

Colour me shocked: a Guardian UKHE piece which isn't awful. The current system only "works" because staff are underpaid and overworked, and students exploited. How mass redundancies and £300 more per UK student are going to solve this conundrum is anyone's guess. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A lack of career progression within UK universities is “demoralising” staff and threatening to push people out of the sector, it has been warned, as institutions respond to the financial crisis by freezing promotions and concentrating hiring on lower-level positions #academicsky #edusky

It should have never been in place but we live in an economic system that doesn't care about human life. Universities reflect this.

This week at fractals.coop we’re launching our new service: Games for research, engagement, and impact. Want to turn your research into an engaging and impactful experience? We bring games design, play and immersion. You bring the research. fractals.coop/blog/games-f...

Apparently, everyone in my department is on Grade 8 but me. I'm still on Grade 7. What? WHAT?? #AcademicSky #AcademicChatter #UK #HigherEducation

“Flexible schedule” in academia means you are free to work whenever you feel guilty.

clearing my schedule to read this one “this paper examines the practices of wage theft that often surround academic promotions, and specifically, the common requirement that someone must already be working at the level for which they are hoping to be promoted.”

Best news of the recent times.

You have to guess that things are even worse at the University of Dundee than they look from the outside if an experienced interim CFO comes in to what they knew was a bad situation and nopes out after just over a week.

Good summary article on the decline of #Turkey. theprint.in/opinion/secu...

How can you use AI in a way that would make you superior over AI? Creatives who can find answers to this question will survive, I think. #Art #Design #Creativity #AcademicSky

49 Cubes in Rotation (L⁙w Res)

Good article, weak conclusion. doi.org/10.1093/brai... #UK #HigherEducation #AcademicSky

Understaffing in critical sectors such as education and health should be classed as a type of crime. #HigherEducation #Health #UK #NHS #AcademicSky

I’d flip it and say that any VC must start their tenure with a one-year stint doing seminars and personal tutor work in the department with the worst staff student ratio

My proposal: Being the VC should be like jury duty. A rotating post where every 6 months any member of staff can be selected. Set level of pay bench marked at a decent academic salary, no expenses, but occasionally you get a free sandwich.

Research shows that supporting teachers & improving the staff / student ratio can reduce violence and bullying and increase staff safety.

It’d be interesting to see how good RG universities really are when/if (I doubt it) they have to cope with a similar student/staff ratio to that of other, less privileged universities. 🤔

Add BAME to that. Add people who are not from privileged backgrounds to that.

Yesterday, we lost a great mayor in Turkey: Ferdi Zeyrek, the metropolitan mayor of #Manisa. Rest in peace. #Turkey #FerdiZeyrek

Updated my "AI, LLMs, and bullshit" mini-lecture post in my dataviz class with a new section on vibe coding datavizs25.classes.andrewheiss.com/resource/ai-...