Academic life

Right-wing intellectuals who fetishise ‘facts’ frustrate rather than further intellectual debate, says Ryan Coogan

Data unclear on whether older scholars are keeping younger researchers out of jobs

The Migration Advisory Committee review showed little interest in understanding international students or how the UK labour market works, says Stanley Ipkiss

Gender bias in the academy is all too real, but we should be just as wary of confirmation bias, says Terri Apter 

Canadian study finds that short-term contracts are ‘discouraging and demoralising’

Written articles may usually be the most appropriate scholarly medium, but why are the alternatives so undervalued, asks Paul Craddock

Sexual harassment of female lecturers by their students is one of the less discussed aspects of the interplay between gender and power in academia. Kate Cantrell tells her story

Independent research institutes are hailed as hothouses for cutting-edge science, but they seem to be falling out of fashion. Rachael Pells asks if concentrating research in universities is a better strategy

Error on Wikipedia page meant St Petersburg statue used likeness of Thomas Thomson instead of French architect

‘Dominant discourse of the censor’ must not trump free expression on campus, UWA head says

Discussions with students about how marijuana can affect studies and health and talks about its place on campus are needed before the drug becomes legal in Canada, say Alexandra Burnett, Rodney A. Clifton and Gabor Csepregi

Matthew Reisz meets Andrea Pető, recent recipient of the Madame de Staël prize, a scholar at Hungary’s Central European University whose feminist probing into the dark corners of Hungary’s past is provoking strong reactions in the ‘illiberal democracy’

Cutting partner labs out of awarded grant budgets is a common but destructive phenomenon in modern academia, says Anne Carpenter

He may once have disdained older scholars, but, having reached seniority in a managerialist age, John Brinnamoor now values their ability to say what others can’t

Senior management has its perks but it also comes with a host of new practical, philosophical, psychological and even physical challenges. Here, seven people who have lived through that fiery baptism tell their tales

Ad hoc approaches inadequate to deal with a widespread issue, campaigners say

Precarity is a significant feature of the academy worldwide, creating a feeling of ‘academic apartheid’ as it grows. Ellie Bothwell explores its impact

Lincoln Allison was inspired to teach by academics who loved what they did and communicated this to students. But has all passion for teaching been eliminated by creeping assessment and instrumentalism?

Scotland’s first black professor talks about life as an immigrant, his experiences of racism and why ‘better science makes better’

Vice-chancellor says university is committed to improving staff well-being

José Ibarra said he could not afford to repair his shoes on his professor’s salary

Australian sector adopts ‘united viewpoint’ against unequal relationships

Partisan social media posts typically get more attention, but dispassionate analyses are what academics are valued for, says Stuart Brown 

Pakistani lecturers and students tend to be similar in age, which makes romances inevitable. Universities must do more to raise awareness of the potential fallout of such relationships, say Abur Rehman Cheema and Mehvish Riaz

University of El Salvador rector Roger Arias calls on parliamentary groups to reconsider privatisation of water services

Neoliberalism is many academics’ bête noire, but it is also a litmus test of their democratic sensibilities, says Steve Fuller

With about one-third of Earth’s 7 billion inhabitants on a social network, it is an inevitable part of scholars’ lives. While many academics find Twitter and Facebook useful means of disseminating their research, Sara Custer finds that the addictive seeking of ‘likes’ has its perils

Scholars at greater risk of stress-related illness than police, medics and local authority staff, research suggests

Undead professor deployed as critique of managerialism and teaching evaluation at a UK conference

When the alt-right made highly dubious claims about historical Irish slavery, Natalie Zacek realised that a rebuttal from an expert would make no difference

Abandoning her hyperactive approach to lecturing opened the way to creativity, introspection and compassion for Patricia Owen-Smith 

In the wake of Malcolm Anderson’s death, universities need to wake up to the need to take better care of their senior lecturers, says Andrew Oswald

Open prejudice against his sexuality has seen the career of one academic slowly wither

Do you feel you’re just winging it, waiting for the day when your incompetence is exposed? Six academics show that you’re far from alone

Janet Todd’s memoir considers the humiliations of illness and admits to ‘some embarrassment at not being dead’

Researchers criticise focus on aftercare for stressed staff members and urge leaders to tackle workload pressures head-on

Determination to make your own way is key to success in academia, but scholars’ research, teaching and even their lives can be transformed by a chance encounter or event

Former director of fair access tops list alongside Sheffield Hallam vice-chancellor Chris Husbands

A home-grown alternative to the research assessment exercise would better reflect local practice and sit better with the special administrative region’s new political reality, says Michael O’Sullivan

As exam marking season gets under way, seven academics offer their advice on assessing your students

A university career can be lonely, anxious and narrow. But those who learn from their regrets can avoid unnecessary stress, says Michael Marinetto

Focusing on values and priorities while learning from failures is the key to maintaining scholarly well-being, say Alexander Clark and Bailey Sousa

The new UK home secretary must reinstate workers’ right to participate in industrial action regardless of national origin, says Shreya Atrey

For insight into the ‘pervasive dislocation’ of people’s lives today, the sociologist Jeff Ferrell rode the rails across the US. He tells Matthew Reisz about life on the road and the limits of mainstream research

The former gay porn star turned academic on what lecturers can learn from the adult entertainment industry

If his late-night photos of the senior common room Christmas party made it into wider circulation, John Brinnamoor would be a dead man

Business academic Diane Holt recalls her experience aboard a ‘floating university’

Crackdown leaves professors needing to pay back almost €250,000 each on average

Criticism of ‘obsolete’ passages by Gallic political leaders has led to a ban on new students learning French

Employers make final offer for 2018-19

Humanities subjects set to be hardest hit by restructure

Investigation discovers that three-quarters of advertised posts are filled by an internal candidate

Move comes in response to government initiative on gender equality

The Booker prizewinning author talks about novelists and academic historians’ ‘complementary trades’, ‘less subtle’ scholars and studying for a lifetime

The university lecture should be seen as a special form of human encounter, argue Amanda Fulford and Áine Mahon

Efforts to reclaim imperial history from so-called ‘politically correct’ professors have little to do with genuine academic debate, argue James McDougall and Kim Wagner

From MI5 recruiting, to students spying on each other and intelligence agencies funding research, Matthew Reisz explores the long and often uneasy relationship between espionage and the academy

The UK's first-ever Twitter-only teaching and learning conference shows academic symposia with international reach can be organised on a shoestring, say Natalie Lafferty and Pat Lockley

The framing of the Peter Horrocks row misses the bigger issue underlying the conflict and the opportunity to sketch out a vibrant future for this important national institution, say Mark Brandon, Joe Smith and Martin Weller

The good, the bad and the offbeat: the academy through the lens of the world’s media