Interesting piece on the university structures relating to (?causing?) student loneliness. 10min read.

At the individual level, obtaining a degree is consistently associated with improved life chances for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, in all OECD countries. This is particularly true in the UK, where universities play a highly important role in driving social mobility.

I was teaching in Engineering this morning, and saw this sign about the invention of the goal net by the @evertonfc.com fan the building is named after.

We are advertising for two PhD studentships in organometallic chemistry! Come and work with us @imperialchemistry.bsky.social from October 2026: Advert 2) www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

This is excellent. Describes graduate salaries in the context of employers failing to invest in productivity growth. 10min read. theconversation.com/university-s...

Prepping for teaching magnetism next week, and discovering in an idle google that the word “quench” comes from an old English word for “extinguish”.

Europe's MSCA postdoctoral fellowships are now attracting many researchers who would have gone to the US. So the payline has dropped below 10% (~1,600 fellowships to 17k applicants). Super tough situation. One more reason to double the next Horizon budget, as proposed by the EU Commission.

It's been one year since my blog on the closure of Hull, which kind of blew up. A thread with some reflections on what's happened since then. 1/ www.michaeloneill.org/blog-1/2024/...

Something I have found interesting over the last few years is how first year students are so keen to draw Hess cycles in ways which reflect the energies of each system. Sheer horror in the workshop when I draw cycles like this.

Honest millennial question: what was academia like before emails?

It's been one year since my blog on the closure of Hull, which kind of blew up. A thread with some reflections on what's happened since then. 1/ www.michaeloneill.org/blog-1/2024/...

Sound UP 👍

On Thursday Sofia Olendraru from PERIODically presented at the Variety in Chemistry/Physics Higher Education Conference 2025! Sofia presented her poster titled ‘Towards Period Dignity: Increasing and Improving Accessible Provision of Free Period Products’. ❤️🩸🧪 #ViCEPHEC2025

Shoutout to whoever was like the news sucks, let’s spice it up by doing a jewel heist at the Louvre

Remember the Year of the MOOC from a decade ago? The one where tech bros predicted the end of all but 3-4 universities because who needs campuses when everyone can just take MOOCs and learn everything? Hits a little different now after pandemic pedagogy, huh? The tech hype cycle is a helluva drug.

Doing cell volume/atomic radii problems in a tutorial today and thinking about how we are still using Pythagoras' work thousands of years after he died.

Teaching scientific writing like

🧪🧪 Nature: More than 30% of this century’s science Nobel prizewinners immigrated: see their journeys -- The most common destination for eventual Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and medicine since 2000 is the United States www.nature.com/articles/d41...

How do chemistry and menstruation connect? Oxford University students explored this through PERIODically, a podcast tackling stigma, sparking discussion and earning the team the 2024 Horizon Prize for Education. Watch the video: youtu.be/3QnO_8FKVIQ #ChemSky #RSCPrizes

The Mehta Group is recruiting a PhD student in Inorganic Synthesis and Catalysis. www.chem.ox.ac.uk/sitefiles/me... We are also taking on students through the iMAT CDT program! www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g... If you are interested, apply!

Dreamt that Tesco started offering a 2-pill pack of paracetamol in the Meal Deal (as the snack). I honestly think it would be a commercial success, thinking about the profit margins and the shelf space.

Really sensible asks from the IOP here. Short-term: (1) funding for physics labs; (2) an "early warning" system to identify at-risk Departments; (3) reduce pressures on international recruitment. Long-term: (4) reform HE funding so that the full cost of teaching Physics can be met.

From @maxdietz.bsky.social and Simon Aldridge’s group, an example of a main-group tin-carbonyl complex (@science.org). Above 0 degrees Celsius, this CO complex rearranges to form a tin carbene complex. 🔗 CSD Entry ELAMIR: dx.doi.org/10.5517/ccdc... #FeaturedStructureFriday #CompChemSky

Solidarity with @leicesterucu.bsky.social colleagues - on strike to protect their institution, their colleagues, and their students

Things have got bad in UK HE when a department like Leicester Chemistry is facing these measures. Solidarity to all the staff picketing today.

Thinking today of Leicester, a Chemistry department with a long-standing reputation for superb teaching. It is a complete scandal that HE funding is forcing fantastic academics into situations like this.

I have never once in my entire life got a double bond equivalent calculation correct first time.

Please enjoy today, 25/9/2025, the last square date until 2116 (5^2/3^2/45^2).

"I started working on the SFHEA probably around 2 years ago, I did a fair amount of writing, before concluding I couldn’t understand the format and I needed to put it aside." Extremely relatable. janesecker.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...

FT piece on the decline of Chemistry (from January). www.ft.com/content/563f...

Really sensible asks from the IOP here. Short-term: (1) funding for physics labs; (2) an "early warning" system to identify at-risk Departments; (3) reduce pressures on international recruitment. Long-term: (4) reform HE funding so that the full cost of teaching Physics can be met.

**new blog post** reflections on applying for teaching jobs in 23-24 www.michaeloneill.org/blog-1/2025/9/18/applying-for-teaching-jobs

Liverpool’s lab induction activity is making soap, so here is my 2025 soap.

Today, after decades of campaigning by the families of the 97 people unlawfully killed at the Hillsborough Football Disaster, the government will introduce the Hillsborough Law to Parliament. The families have campaigned tirelessly to ensure future families don’t face the same injustice.

FT piece on the decline of Chemistry (from January). www.ft.com/content/563f...

Underground Railway, Liverpool, 1894, by Charles Trevor Prescott, 1872-1947 (Walker Gallery). #NorthernArt

Wade's Rules introductions by textbook: Weller et al: consider these MOs Housecroft & Sharpe: consider these structures Greenwood & Earnshaw: ok so this is how you number the positions on a substituted conjunto-borane

Threats to chemistry are of significant knock-on effects for skills, innovation and regional growth and risks for the Industrial Strategy. See more in our data pack here: www.rsc.org/policy-and-c... Watch this space 👀 — we’ll be sharing more on chemistry and #HigherEducation next week. [2/2]

**New blog post** I am once again tilting at the 300 lab hours windmill, unfortunately. www.michaeloneill.org/blog-1/2025/9/3/why-300h-of-labs-needs-to-shrink

**New blog post** I am once again tilting at the 300 lab hours windmill, unfortunately. www.michaeloneill.org/blog-1/2025/9/3/why-300h-of-labs-needs-to-shrink

Possibly an ignorant question, but is there a timetabling software which provides Outlook invites to block out your teaching in your calendar? It feels like a technical feature which people would pay for, but I've never seen it.

Happy Putting those Aspirations for Completing Tasks Back On Ice For Another Year Day to all who celebrate. 🙌

I was on the registration desk for most of the conference, and a scary number of people said that this was likely to be their last ViCEPHEC. Shrinking departments, closing departments, and removal of conference/travel funds all mentioned multiple times. A brilliant community in a terrible shadow.

Sometimes when you blog something about your own experience you get Emails. Topics around working conditions are without fail the ones which draw the saddest messages. If there is someone in your department on a short fixed-term contract, I urge you to befriend them. Take them for coffee **today**.

**New blog post** A reflection on how moving city made me less productive this year. www.michaeloneill.org/blog-1/2025/8/18/the-academic-productivity-cost-of-moving

If I were an E(III) hydride of Group 15 , I would simply have bond angles of 109.5 degrees. But that's just me I guess.

I get the physical papers on results day, and this year I think the thing which strikes me most forcefully is which universities are buying advertising space saying they have spaces in clearing.

Had a lychee today and it was nice.

For those arriving for satellite activities, #ViCEPHEC25 is just two weeks away. If you haven't already, this is another great opportunity to follow the conference starter pack. Get in touch if you'd like to be added to this - it is a work in progress. go.bsky.app/FffPieC