Hetan Shah
@HetanShah
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CEO @BritishAcademy_ Chair @OurWorldinData Board NAO; Visiting Prof KCL; Advisory: @Resfoundation @BennettInst @UCLPolicyLab Fellow @BirkbeckUoL Posts my own
London
Joined March 2010
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Pinned Tweet
A bit of personal news. I'm honoured to have been appointed by
@UKParliament
to join the Board of the National Audit Office
@NAOorguk
. I'm pleased to support this independent institution that holds government to account and works to improve public services
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Tell your fave Indian wedding caterer they only need to send half their usual team
How do you cater for a wedding with 600 guests? 📻
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I’m not that shockable these days but seriously
@ukhomeoffice
?
This international student was held in a detention centre for TEN DAYS after his uni confirmed he had a place & had paid his fees?
He’s missed his enrolment & has to fly home out of pocket
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Come for the joke about the Royal Wedding. Stay for discussions on improving data infrastructure for the public good.
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Hey Twitter. At the end of February I’ll be starting as CEO of
@BritishAcademy_
. I’d welcome views/advice/thoughts on what the BA should be doing to strengthen the humanities & social sciences and their impact on society. Please share this tweet so I can get input.
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At last some coverage of the major cyber attack at
@britishlibrary
& the impact this has had on researchers. It is a critical piece of national infrastructure. Worrying if they will have to spend 40% of their reserves on rebuilding their digital services
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Our
@BritishAcademy_
Small Grants scheme has opened. We are doing a 3 year trial of partial randomised assessment, because we receive so many good applications. Awards will be allocated randomly between those applications that meet our quality threshold
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Delighted to say we have awarded our most significant prize - the
@BritishAcademy_
President’s Medal - to
@DavidOlusoga
for his outstanding contribution to the humanities and social sciences
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After eight great years
@RoyalStatSoc
I’m excited to say I’m moving on to become chief executive of
@BritishAcademy_
where I plan to bring social science & humanities research to the big issues of the day
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We’ve opened the call for
@BritishAcademy_
Visiting Fellowships 2025!
As part of our commitment to international engagement we will give up to £40k for academics to spend 3-6 months to be based at a UK higher education or other research institution
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We've opened the call for our
@BritishAcademy_
small grants scheme offering £10k. We receive so many good applications so awards will be allocated randomly between those applications that meet our quality threshold.
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‘Epidemics are social as well as biological phenomena.’ My
@nature
piece on the importance of social science and humanities in tackling our big global challenges
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It’s the 200th anniversary Florence Nightingale’s birth. She was the first woman to be a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society - here’s her application form which I took a photo of when I worked there. We can see her data driven approach today in how we respond to Covid-19
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We’ve published a new topic page on
@OurWorldInData
on the overlooked but important issue of crop yields
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We are offering International Fellowships to enable early career researchers from around the world to come to the UK for two years to undertake original research in the humanities or social sciences. Please spread the word!
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Handily my
@royalsociety
paper holding algorithms to account has just gone open access. I think my argument that we need to look beyond narrow transparency to wider political issues & focus on public interest seems vindicated by the current exams mess
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If true this is bad. The value of education is more than what you earn/what job you immediately go on to do. Students can be motivated by intellectual curiosity, the ambition to make a difference, and passion for a subject.
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‘Blind faith in data science without an understanding of what data are missing, or how algorithms can exacerbate existing biases, can lead to policy failure’ My
@nature
piece on why the insights of the humanities & social sciences are imperative
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I’m not sure how big the Venn diagram is of those who liked my catering joke and those who’ll be interested in my thoughts on how to use data for the common good, but anyway here is a piece I wrote
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Today we
@BritishAcademy_
have published a review of the long term societal impacts of the pandemic. We conclude they will cast a long shadow, and that government focus on tackling the social impacts as much as the health ones. Please share!
#CovidDecade
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For those unfamiliar with the language of regulators, 'surprised and disappointed' is turning the dial to 11
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Big news! We
@BritishAcademy_
are partnering with
@CARA1933
and UK Academies to create a programme of 2 year funded fellowships for researchers at risk from Ukraine, with financial support to cover salary, research expenses & living costs as well as visas
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Just seen the original nomination form for Florence Nightingale to join
@RoyalStatSoc
as our first female fellow.
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It is
#AdaLovelaceDay
- her mum educated her in maths so she’d avoid the ‘poetic’ ways of her father Byron
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Very sad that Hon Fellow of
@BritishAcademy_
Sir David Cox has died. He was a towering figure in the field of statistics. I remember getting him to do one of the
@RoyalStatSoc
180th anniversary lectures in 2014 when he was 90 and still on fine form
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We've opened the call for our
@BritishAcademy_
@LeverhulmeTrust
small grants scheme offering £10k. We receive so many good applications so awards will be allocated randomly between those applications that meet our quality threshold. Spread the word!
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Our
@BritishAcademy_
Director of Policy
@mollymjones
has a letter in the Times today dispelling myths about the employability of graduates from the arts and humanities
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We
@BritishAcademy_
with many other partners are today launching the word
#SHAPE
as a new collective identity for ‘social science, humanities & arts for people & the economy’.
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2020 is the bicentenary of Florence Nightingale. Well known for nursing, but less well known as a statistician and the first female Fellow of
@RoyalStatSoc
- here is her nomination form to join the RSS. We will be celebrating her achievements throughout the year
#Florence200
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It’s the big one! We’ve opened the call for
@BritishAcademy_
Global Professorships. We offer up to £900k over 4 years to attract internationally established scholars to work in the UK to engage in cutting edge humanities & social science research
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Extraordinary fact tucked away in
@TheEconomist
- 95% of FDI in Britain was in financial services
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Could this new Barbie of Sarah Gilbert inspire a generation of young scientists to become more interested in dolls?
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Rare front page story tomorrow in the Sunday Times on what is happening in the prison system - well done
@shanti_das
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‘AI in government is like teenage sex: everyone is talking about it but no one is really doing it. That will continue unless we can solve some old data problems.’
My piece in
@FT
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Sad to hear of the death of
@RoyalStatSoc
fellow Doug Altman. A giant in medical statistics who particularly gave voice through
@bmj_latest
for better quality medical research. Here’s a piece reflecting on his important 1994 editorial
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Very sad to hear of the death of
@BritishAcademy_
Fellow Sir John Hills. A true giant of social policy and committed to helping the worst off in society. He was one of the members of the Pensions Commission, Director of
@CASE_LSE
and a lovely man. 2020 has been a terrible year.
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We are looking for a new
@BritishAcademy_
Director of Research (£80k). Amazing job, brilliant colleagues, Grade 1 listed office, supporting a huge variety of humanities & social science research nationally and internationally. Please spread the word!
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Until 200 years ago nearly half of children died but in one of humanity’s big achievements that has now dropped to around 4%. Inspiring look at the long run data here on
@OurWorldInData
by
@MaxCRoser
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We've opened the call for
@BritishAcademy_
International Fellowships. We will fund early career researchers to come to the UK for 3 years to conduct high quality research in the humanities and social sciences. Please share widely!
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Results from the long-awaited US trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine are out and confirm that the shot is both safe and highly effective.
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Please stop using the term ‘BAME people’. It’s just weird robot language. Try ‘people from ethnic minority backgrounds’?
Top surgeon joins drive to encourage BAME people to have Covid vaccine
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‘It is important to remember that innovation is not just about waving our hands at high-tech sectors & using the phrase “machine learning” a lot.’ My
@FT
piece on the need for an innovation strategy that is broad in discipline & remembers social innovation
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In the run up to the election we’ve released our
@BritishAcademy_
Manifesto today. We call for a sustainable HE funding model and the need to use insights from humanities & social sciences to address society’s biggest challenges
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Thrilled to have been appointed Chair of
@OurWorldInData
. Its a hugely important public resource of long run datasets on issues such as poverty and climate change. Look forward to working with
@MaxCRoser
@EOrtizOspina
@_HannahRitchie
and the fabulous team
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Thinking of applying for Horizon Europe funding? Delighted to say we are offering £10k grants to help you develop your application and partnerships. This scheme is open to all disciplines. Can be used towards costs of child or parent care. Spread the word!
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Arts, humanities and social science graduates resilient to economic downturns - our new
@BritishAcademy_
report today on the employability of these subjects
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Congratulations to the wonderful
@FullFact
for being awarded the prestigious
@BritishAcademy_
President’s Medal for their work in combating misinformation. (Also it’s the first time we’ve been moved to award the medal to an organisation not an individual)
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Big news this morning from
@BritishAcademy_
as we announce our new President will be the extraordinary Julia Black. She is Strategic Director for Innovation
@LSEnews
, Board member of
@UKRI_News
, member of the Prime Minister's Council for Science & Tech
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1 in 5 of people living on household incomes under £25k never use the internet – rising to nearly a third of disabled people & nearly half of those aged 65+. We’ve published a new
@BritishAcademy_
review of digital exclusion to consider how to tackle this
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Really pleased to announce that
@wellcometrust
is giving
@BritishAcademy_
£4m to support researchers in humanities & social sciences to bring insights to the health & wellbeing challenges we face as a society - great that they can take this holistic view
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Very pleased to say we’ve awarded £2.3m
@BritishAcademy_
@LeverhulmeTrust
small research grants. This is the first time we have done so using a partial randomisation methodology where we choose randomly between applications that meet our quality threshold
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Use our personal data for the common good - my thoughts in
@nature
on what needs to happen after the recent Cambridge Analytica / Facebook techlash
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Very excited to say I've just been appointed to the Board of the fabulous
@OurWorldInData
which provides long range data on big challenges like poverty and climate change. Hugely looking forward to working with
@MaxCRoser
@EOrtizOspina
and colleagues
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I’m starting a new job tomorrow. It’s been eight and a half years since I did that. Any tips for my first few days and weeks?
Hey Twitter. At the end of February I’ll be starting as CEO of
@BritishAcademy_
. I’d welcome views/advice/thoughts on what the BA should be doing to strengthen the humanities & social sciences and their impact on society. Please share this tweet so I can get input.
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Really excited about this:
@UKRI_News
&
@BritishAcademy_
seek a team to establish an equality, diversity & inclusion caucus to provide high quality research evidence on EDI to inform the research & innovation system. £4.5m over 3 years. Spread the word!
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We are looking for a new
@BritishAcademy_
Director of Research (£80k). Amazing job, brilliant colleagues, Grade 1 listed office, supporting a huge variety of humanities & social science research nationally and internationally. Please spread the word!
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Amazing opportunity! £150k for researchers to go embed themselves for a year in an organisation overseas. Wide range of eligible themes from tech to health to sustainability.
Please spread the word about
@BritishAcademy_
ODA Global Innovation Fellowships
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We've opened the call for
@BritishAcademy_
Global Professorships which provide up to £900k for mid-career to senior scholars within the social sciences and humanities for the opportunity to work in the UK for four years. Spread the word!
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We’ve opened the call for
@BritishAcademy_
Postdoctoral Fellowships - early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences can apply for 3 years funding. Please share
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Tucked away in the innocuous sounding Central Government Supply Estimates 22/23 is this note on p300 that the
@hmtreasury
has just clawed back £1.6bn from the new
@SciTechgovuk
’s budget for science and research - specifically the fee for joining the Horizon Europe programme
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1/11 Today we
@RoyalStatSoc
launch our
#DataManifesto
to help politicians and policymakers understand the data opportunities ahead
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‘Cyber-intelligence experts said the British Library’s service could remain down for more than a year’ ☹️
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‘There are more than 80 people who have sat on the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies — yet only a narrow range of social scientists, and a single person representing the humanities’ My piece in
@nature
on the range of expert advice we need
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We've opened the call for our
@BritishAcademy_
@LeverhulmeTrust
small research grants which give up to £10k to support primary research in the humanities and social sciences. Please spread the word, especially to early career researchers
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It’s more important than ever the UK maintains international research links. So I’m delighted we are offering Early Career Researchers up to £300k for international interdisciplinary collaboration. Please spread the word about this unique opportunity
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When English Lit provides more insight into AI than computer science
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Here’s our
@BritishAcademy_
response to the consultation on student number controls where we made clear it was a weak policy idea based on a narrow conception of the value of education
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Ada’s mum taught her mathematics to inoculate against the whimsical mind of her father Lord Byron. But Ada thought that too much maths was making her ‘deranged’. We’ve all been there!
#AdaLovelaceDay
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Theresa May wants to see your internet history, so we thought it was only fair to ask for hers
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‘The
@BritishAcademy_
study says that rather than being “low value”, [media and comms] courses play a vital role in the UK’s £108bn creative industries and have become increasingly relevant in a world grappling with new technologies’
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@BritishAcademy_
‘Viewing university through a purely economic lens underestimates its value not only to the people who go there but to society as a whole’
@pollymackenzie
strikes back against notions of low value degrees in
@HEPI_news
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We need an innovation strategy designed for our 80% services economy. It makes no sense that SHAPE (social science, humanities & arts) disciplines are specifically excluded from the R&D tax credit when business research is increasingly interdisciplinary
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@FullFact
@HeadUKCivServ
@SMC_London
@TomChivers
@UKStatsAuth
@RoyalStatSoc
@Ri_Science
Strong leader from
@thetimes
follows our joint letter to argue science voices should not be gagged by 'purdah rules' in pre-election period
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Hello! Do you know a talented humanities or social sciences scholar who would like £900k to work in the UK for four years to do curiosity-driven research? They can apply for one of our
@BritishAcademy_
Global Professorships. Spread the word!
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Talking of exit, today is my last day as Executive Director of
@RoyalStatSoc
after 8 years in post. It's been a blast. Statisticians and data scientists are wonderful people to work with. Some highlights from my time to follow. 1/N
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Recall that international students cross-subsidise university R&D (see chart below).
Little chance of achieving Govt’s aim to move from being a ‘science average-power’ to ‘science superpower’ if we don’t invest in R&D, and international students support that
Just did an early morning interview on
@LBC
with Andrew Castle where he (completely fairly) asked me to prove that universities lose money on educating home students. I promised to put the numbers on here. So here is the high-level TRAC data (source: )
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Really pleased to say that we've given the
@BritishAcademy_
President's Medal to... a podcast!
Congratulations to the Rest is History
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook
on the work you are doing to bring history and humanities to a wider audience
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If you are a humanities or social sciences researcher that might want to work with a think tank, cultural institution, business or the public sector for 6-12 months you might consider our
@BritishAcademy_
Innovation Fellowship (we provide up to £120k)
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Let’s hope that association to Horizon Europe can now proceed at pace. Researchers and scientists in the UK would be very happy - research is a collaborative endeavour and so we want to be part of this infrastructure that enables scientific and research partnership
BREAKING >> New UK-EU deal ‘good news for Horizon’, says von der Leyen: “Historic” agreement clears the path for association to EU science programmes, says European Commission president.
@sophie_inge
@vonderleyen
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Facebook claims it can reach 7.8m people age 18-24 in UK but census shows there are only 5.8m of them!
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‘In the midst of calamity, economics was always at loggerheads with the interests of public health.’
@BritishAcademy_
fellow
@simon_schama
on what history tells us about epidemics
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Amusing how
@FT
presents same story as people are ‘lagging in the return to the office’ for its more traditional newspaper readers but frames as UK ‘ahead in the shift to home working’ for its modern digital readers
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Statistical pitfalls of personalised medicine- fantastic from
@stephensenn
- ‘causality is hard to study and difficult to prove. We are in danger of forgetting at the level of the individual what we have learnt at the level of the population’
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Took the Christmas tree down and now a bit sad. No hiding the fact we are in plain old Tier 4 now, rather than in Xmas holiday eating-drinking-cheesing Tier 4.
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Florence Nightingale: first female fellow of the Royal Statistical Society
Why we should remember Florence Nightingale for her
#maths
more than her nursing.
@sciencemuseum
's new maths exhibition
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Minister seeks to undermine independent regulator of public statistics. Dangerous game.
Boris Johnson accuses Sir David Norgrove of a " wilful distortion" of the text of his Daily Telegraph article
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In order to improve research equity we’ve set up a new fund to help cover additional need costs for both applicants for
@BritishAcademy_
schemes as well as current grant holders. We haven’t set a limit on the grants. Spread the word!
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Our new
@BritishAcademy_
report shows how SHAPE (social science, humanities, arts) graduates are applying the skills obtained from studying subjects like English Lit, philosophy, geography, theology in the world of work
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We will be evaluating this to see what effect it has. In particular my hope is that it will help diversify not just who we fund but also that we might fund more ideas that go against the grain of current thinking.
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Waiting for the Zoom lawyer cat eating beans on Weetabix in a parish council on Valentines Day twitter mash up which will be a fitting portrait of the hysteria we all feel deeply welled up inside of us right now
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International students are a success story for the UK and changes to the Graduate Visa Route could have a significant impact on UK universities financial sustainability. Our
@BritishAcademy_
letter to the Migration Advisory Ctte
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Putting all these smart pieces about growth in one place
@s8mb
on boosters & doomsters
@Tom_Westgarth15
&
@andrewjb_
’s manifesto for growth
@Gilesyb
’s pessimism including the core para below
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