Here are the stories that have been making waves while we have been away
Once again, the 8am Playbook is getting ready to wake from its month-long slumber as lecturers and students make their way back to campus for the next academic year. Playbook will return in earnest from 9 September.
Our Sunday Reading column returns on 8 September, with the first Ivory Tower of the year hitting your inboxes on 13 September. No shortage of material for that one, as the Labour party starts to grapple with the realities of government.
Meanwhile, in keeping with recent years, there has been no real let-up on the news agenda during the summer months, with our expert team of journalists beavering away during our Playbook publication beak.
We know the idea that academics disappear during August to do some serious beach-based reading is a myth. However, if you have been securing some well-earned downtime, here are some of the big stories that have hit the web pages of Research Professional News in the meantime.
Notes on UKRI
A freedom of information request made by Research Professional News, uncovering notes from internal webinars, has revealed the issues of concern to staff at UK Research and Innovation, the umbrella organisation for research funding.
Our most-read article of the summer reported that UKRI employees raised concerns about bullying, overwork and burnout to senior management.
Also popular on our pages was the news that some UKRI staff have called for a portrait of King Charles, displayed at the organisation’s headquarters in Swindon, to be removed given the monarch’s “anti-science” views.
In other UKRI news, the Labour government’s decision to reopen the recruitment process to find its next chief executive has been seen as signalling a change of policy direction. Meanwhile, academics criticised the Royal Society as a “boys club” in response to reports it is considering re-electing its former president Paul Nurse to head the institution.
REForms
A number of REF changes were announced over the summer. For a start, there will be no open access mandate for longform submissions to the 2029 Research Excellence Framework, it has been confirmed. The news prompted relief in some quarters.
A second change to proposals means that information about responsibility for research, research independence and unit of assessment will be gathered at a contract rather than person level.
The changes led one expert to posit that the REF organising team is “grappling with the realities” of delivering the next iteration of the UK research assessment programme.
Results day 2024
The number of UK 18-year-olds accepted to higher education courses increased by 6 per cent, the admissions body Ucas announced on the day A-level students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their results.
However, there is evidence that the most selective universities’ are “hoovering up” students, leading to fears over the impact for less selective institutions.
Best of the rest
Here are some of the other stories that have proved popular with readers over the last month.
After education technology body Jisc announced that it had quit Elon Musk’s social network X (formerly Twitter), we asked whether universities might also consider leaving the platform over moral concerns about its operations.
UK higher education’s “onrushing insolvency” is not just a funding issue but a result of inherent flaws in the way the system is designed, according to a Higher Education Policy Institute report calling for an end to the “world-class university model”.
The outgoing Edge Hill University vice-chancellor—the longest-serving university leader in the UK—has urged the government to allow English universities small tuition fee rises or inflation-linked increases, to end what he sees as chronic financial uncertainty making planning impossible for universities.
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