Managers should admit the funding model doesn't work and join in advocating for change, not push the pain and risk onto our most vulnerable students and change universities beyond recognition. Or making institutions beholden to agents, taking the future hostage. www.ft.com/content/3f49...

UK Universities desperately need support from our government. Education should be free for everyone. Education is not a business. Education is key for a strong economy. Education is important for everyone's life and well-being. #Solidarity with @uonucu.bsky.social

“£230bn saving” 🙄 If you issue your own currency, you don’t “fund” the NHS by shrinking the population - you need the real capacity. Migrants add tax, fill critical roles, and face limited benefits access. The constraint isn’t a debt figure; it’s having enough nurses, carers, teachers and builders.

Excellent piece on basic income for the arts by Mick Gallen. One of the most talented and hardest working artists I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. Amazing to read what the scheme did for him. www.thejournal.ie/readme/opini...

Really helpful post here about the upcoming ballot which you'll have seen an email about on Monday. #WeAreTheUniversity - vote yes to: ▶️protect jobs and prevent cuts ▶️defend the agreements that support our work ▶️demand a pay uplift.

It's welcome week and I'm on strike (again) over the University of Edinburgh's refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies. UoE has no deficit, but cuts of £90 million are already underway, damaging teaching, research, and the future of education at our university.

New preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We used molecular dynamics simulations and solid-state NMR (@fmp-berlin.de) to look at calcium binding to the pore domain of the calcium-gated K+ channel MthK. @wojciechkopec.bsky.social @compbiophys.bsky.social

9 in 10 students are struggling to afford rent and food… Yet former universities minister Jo Johnson says it’s “perverse” to complain about tuition fee rises 😱 Read our report: tr.ee/wAdLcJ

Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH Director, thinks that if science isn’t popular it should be abandoned. “No matter how elegant the science, a platform that lacks credibility among the people it seeks to protect cannot fulfill its public health mission”. He is unfit for his job in every imaginable way.

Very few people seem to understand university finances and, distressingly, this includes many academics and most policymakers. This is an attempt to condense the key points you need to know. open.substack.com/pub/profseri...

Good read: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The British university mess is so clearly what happens when the incentives of the people administering and consulting on the system bear no relation to those of anyone actually working in it

PhD studentship in London with 880 GBP monthly stipend. Dear Lord Almighty

now google each of those six universities and “redundancies”

Or better still: remove the perverse incentive that makes universities throw all their money into marketing to try to grab a couple of student fees from other universities, and put in place some student number redistribution and planning. Then those fees could go to teaching & research, not Mammoth.

Government and society can’t insist on the financial independence of universities and then complain in shock when strategic courses or departments are shuttered because they hurt the finances and no more public funding is forthcoming.

I still can’t believe that all NIH grants to my colleagues at Harvard and Harvard Medical School have been nullified. And that, as a nation, we’re somehow okay with this illegal, arbitrary, and petty act. Just think of the consequences: scientists, students, and patients will all suffer.

Big employability has convinced a generation of decision makers/students that there’s a series of bitesize specific #lifehacks inherent in degree level study that they’ve added. But it’s always been about the journey of gaining competence/mastery of a subject and the things you develop along the way

Interestingly *Research-led-teaching* seems to be precisely the thing that senior managers are targeting. Whether that’s by cutting programmes and making staff redundant, two-tier lectureships and teaching-only staff, or hollowed out, generic, team-taught modules.

'“The primary challenge...is one of financial sustainability, compounded by a decade of declining public funding for our teaching and research, not one of widespread failures in governance.' (James Miller, Universities Scotland). 2ndary challenge: focus HE on what HEIs are actually for. (Me). 3/3

Almost 2 years in the UK as a lecturer in chemistry. One of the biggest differences - students mindset. At 20-21 they keep talking about employability, careers, salaries and debt. Huuuuge difference compared to Europe were students seem more laid back and seem to explore different things in life

Deficit of £31.2 m is claimed by Vice Chancellor of Cardiff University as need for cuts But there's ample money to pay Shakespeare Martineau for legal services No cash for courses, but plenty for corporate lawyers Educational priorities, Cardiff-style www.theguardian.com/law/2025/jun...

I’ve never heard people taking **so much** about “career” (in so many different contexts) before I moved to the UK (I assume it’s similar in the US)

The government response to this petition is infuriating. “Maternity and other types of Parental Pay are intended to provide a measure of financial security to support parents whilst they are away from the workplace; they are not a replacement of earnings” except they literally are??? Please sign:

Immigrant’s life in the UK (18 months) >go to the bank >”you have to build your credit score!!” >”uff okay… how?” >”get out credit card!” >”okay…” >”your applications has been rejected bc you dont have credit score” ????

Is asking grant applicants to supply an “independent” referee they've never worked with fair? IMHO it penalises early-career scientists & smaller labs while rewarding the well-connected.

Opinion: “Perhaps what moved me most in Kyiv was meeting Ukrainian students, who spoke passionately about their dreams – not of escape, but of contribution. They want to become the engineers, doctors, teachers and leaders who will rebuild their nation.” ✍️ Charles Cormack #highered #EduSky

Philip Augar, who lead on the review of post-18 education and funding neatly summing up the failures of governance in #UKHE. Note how he links the problems directly to the lifting of the student number caps and the thoughtless scramble that inspired. #SaveHE

STABLE FUNDING. The experiment of having the country's higher education and research reliant on the volatility of student fees, AND removing any predictability by removing the student number distribution clearly doesn't work.

scientists: we’re underfunded and overworked organizations: here’s a webinar how to improve your sleep for real

The UK's paternity leave is the worst in Europe. It frustrates dads, burdens mums, and impoverishes us all. The fight for better parental leave is not just a demand for common decency, but for common sense. observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

UK HE be like: here is the marking scheme for the paper length (2500 +/-10% words). Consider these 5 marking criteria and calculate the weighted average. Note that for the first class the student would need to go above and beyond

MscL channel opens up asymmetrically! Check out our latest story, spearheaded by my brilliant postdoc Olga pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Scientists from @mpi-nat.bsky.social & @qmul.ac.uk cracked the code on ion channel currents with atomic-level accuracy. As Dr @wojciechkopec.bsky.social says, this "opens up entirely new avenues for studying physiology and developing therapeutics."

Fully recommended, please DM me if you have any questions about the Department and the environment here

Are you a chemist with 3-8 years of post-PhD research experience and want to join the amazing Chemistry Dept @qmul.ac.uk ? If yes, please have a look at our call for expressions of interest in the Royal Society University Research Fellowship scheme. #ChemSky www.seresearch.qmul.ac.uk/ccr/news/498...

The symbolic politics of bashing migrants to appease bigoted voters has real costs. Also, whenever anybody in power uses the phrase "a privilege not a right" you can be sure they're doing something abusive

🎉Congratulations to all authors to their new K+ #channel force field #paper published in 👉 @pnas.org @reinierdevries.bsky.social @wojciechkopec.bsky.social @mpi-nat.bsky.social #FF #MD #compbiophys Read what's new here: www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....

Slow inactivation of the fast sodium channel will be the topic of our next worldwide sodium channel seminar by Shimon Marom Tuesday May 27th on "Adaptive, slow sodium channel inactivation: impacts on neuronal excitability". www.sodiumchannelseminars.org for link and infos. 🧠 🎓

So many important things are discussed at conferences. When international travel is dangerous & science is under threat & research funding is being slashed & we know how bad flying is for the climate & we have technology to make it happen, the fact that all conferences aren't hybrid is wild. 🧪

Lol, so true

Victory for FE staff in Northern Ireland. After months of tireless campaigning UCU and NASUWT members in further education have won an 8.5% pay increase. While the fight for full pay parity with school teachers continues, today we celebrate a step forward. Solidarity works. ✊

Success in academia often has more to do with luck, patronage and the job market than “hard work”. Good academics acknowledge this. I worked hard, but I was in the right place at the right time on occasion. Historians far more talented than I have fallen between the cracks.

Our K+ channel force field paper is now online on PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10.... It has been a great time working with @reinierdevries.bsky.social @wojciechkopec.bsky.social , Bert de Groot here at @mpi-nat.bsky.social @compbiophys.bsky.social

Very happy that this story found its home at @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

'University R&D activity drives £40 billion in the form of productivity gains for the private sector. Separate analysis shows that a 1% increase in investment in research leads to a 0.70% increase in economic growth.' @universitiesuk.bsky.social letter www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/news/...