Times Higher Education
@timeshighered
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Global HE news, data, insights and events. Home of @THEWorldUniRank, @THEeventsglobal, best practice at THE Campus, and @THEuniadvice for students.
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Joined March 2009
Dozens of Turkish university rectors have no international research record but tweet prolifically in support of the Ankara government, scholars have warned, raising further concerns about academic independence as the country has moved towards autocracy.
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More than two-thirds of scholars in Hong Kong believe that the level of academic freedom in the territory has declined over the past year, according to a study
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And the winner of University of the Year 2018 is…@Uni_of_Essex, which has taken inspiration from its ‘radical’ history to wipe out the gender pay gap, decasualise its workforce and introduce staff contracts for graduate teaching assistants. Congratulations! #THEAwards.
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Hong Kong scholars perceive declining academic freedom: researchers say funding bodies and university management have most influence over state of scholarly autonomy
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More than two-thirds of scholars in Hong Kong believe that the level of academic freedom in the territory has declined over the past year, according to a study
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Hong Kong scholars perceive declining academic freedom: researchers say funding bodies and university management have most influence over state of scholarly autonomy
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The lamest generation: I can’t teach millennials – they refuse to take any responsibility for their learning, says an assistant professor .
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Finally, University of the Year: it’s @UofGlasgow, for its sector-leading efforts to tackle modern-day race-based inequalities by addressing uncomfortable truths in its past. Huge congratulations! 👏 #THEAwards
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Appointment of former ruling party political candidate has triggered days of protests from staff and students at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul.
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Hong Kong scholars perceive declining academic freedom: researchers say funding bodies and university management have most influence over state of scholarly autonomy
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And the winner of Times Higher Education’s University of the Year award 2017 is @TrentUni! Nottingham Trent is the University of the Year! Huge cheers here. Many congratulations! 🍾 #THEawards
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Statesman and founder of one of India's best known institutions @KIITUniversity @achyuta_samanta joins us at the India Universities Forum in two weeks along with leaders in higher education from the region and beyond. Hear him speak: #THEindia
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Female professors earn less on average than their male counterparts because they focus on underappreciated “academic citizen” roles that do not lead to promotion or pay rises, a recent study suggests.
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The University of Oxford has come under mounting pressure to cut its ties with Zimbabwe’s finance minister, a former academic at the institution who retains a position as visiting professor.
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New polling suggests that 55% of students thought that Labour wanted the UK to remain in the EU and 58% thought this was Jeremy Corbyn’s position.
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A PhD student whose research funding was withdrawn after she was diagnosed with cancer has launched a campaign to guarantee postgraduates the right to sick leave.
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Two open letters signed by mainland Chinese professors should be seen as the academy’s boldest challenge to the government since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, according to experts in the US and the UK.
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Two years after becoming a full-time “science integrity detective”, @MicrobiomDigest has now discovered more than 4,000 cases of shoddy research.
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Elite Chinese institution puts limits on joining foreign webinars: online restrictions, which mirror rules for in-person events, raise academic freedom concerns.
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Hong Kong faces a brain drain of students and graduates who are expected to take advantage of “lifeboat” immigration schemes offered by the UK, Canada and Australia, it has been warned.
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Open letters “Chinese academy’s strongest challenge” to Xi: professors ride a wave of “public anger” over coronavirus outbreak in airing anti-government views.
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China influence scandal rocks Berlin university – contract reveals the Free University of Berlin is bound by Chinese law, which critics fear gives Beijing influence over teaching content
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Research detective Elisabeth Bik wins standing up for science prize: @MicrobiomDigest claims #MaddoxPrize for exposing image and data manipulation in published scientific papers. @benwupton reports @senseaboutsci @Nature.
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“Women academics of all ranks tend to do a disproportionate amount of service that will not lead to promotion”.
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“Too many academics have spent most, if not all, their professional lives within universities”.Should scholars be required to undertake secondments as part of their jobs?.
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The #THEAwardsAsia Leadership and Management Team of the Year is @KIITUniversity, which stood out for its readiness to react to the unknown, and its engagement to serve society, including developing free Covid hospitals, distributing masks and sanitiser, and community education🎉
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Finally, we can reveal the University of the Year. it’s @UniStrathclyde and their second win of the night! The judges were impressed with Strathclyde’s community impact, sustainable campus development and widening access initiatives, among many other achievements #THEAwards
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“Academia is no Hollywood, but it is also infected by a hidden epidemic of sexual misconduct. There is at least one sexual predator in every department I’ve studied in, or taught in, over 30 years”.
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Management team of @KIITUniversity takes top accolade in year of record submissions for #THEAwardsAsia.
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@Volceltaire Millennials have a wide age range. Demographers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the early 2000s as ending birth years for millennials.
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Privacy fears as China keeps tracking student locations: daily check-ins launched during the #Covid outbreak appear to be increasingly normalised.
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Location-tracking apps that were adopted by many Chinese universities at the height of the country’s Covid-19 outbreak are still being used daily several months later, raising fears that their use has become normalised. @jliujourno reports.
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“If I came in and smiled, I cut ribbons, they took pictures, it would have been fine – they would have loved me” – @FabAcademic.
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French PhD students are now paid less than the minimum wage for teaching, according to the country’s Confederation of Young Researchers, which has accused universities of treating them like Uber drivers.
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Transformative leaders show their human side, says @FabAcademic. Social media is key to how she engages with the @UCT_news community and the #past3amsquad. Watch the full interview #THELeadership
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China influence scandal rocks Berlin university – contract reveals the Free University of Berlin is bound by Chinese law, which critics fear gives Beijing influence over teaching content
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Australia’s former education minister secretly vetoed 11 humanities research projects, overturning recommendations made by the Australian Research Council, in an intervention at odds with the government's push for free expression.
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The majority of university staff feel that they are overworked and underpaid, and that their careers have a detrimental impact on their relationships with their friends, families and partners.
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Location-tracking apps that were adopted by many Chinese universities at the height of the country’s Covid-19 outbreak are still being used daily several months later, raising fears that their use has become normalised. @jliujourno reports.
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What's the worst piece of peer review you’ve ever received? Six academics share theirs.
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Why does the university environment seem to make so many scholars and students so unhappy and feel so unwell? #UniMentalHealthDay.
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“37% of academics reported a mental health disorder, while more than 40% of postgraduate students reported depression symptoms, emotional or stress-related problems or high levels of stress”.
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“I’ve found it quite a hostile environment – some have claimed my position is bigoted and I should be sacked”.
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Both Beijing and Hong Kong must adjust their approaches and sensibilities to restore confidence and trust in HK universities, argues @John08297472.
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Finally, the big prize: University of the Year goes to @NorthumbriaUni! #THEAwards judges praised its long-term strategy, the success with which it’s been pursued, and its role in changing lives and supporting its region. Huge congratulations! 🍾
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French professor free to harass hydroxychloroquine critics online: Eric Chabriere’s attacks against critics of the drug are seen as a sign of the social-media-induced radicalisation that has occurred during the pandemic.
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“Students still think contact hours are what they need, but this gives us evidence that students’ skill development is greater when they spend more time in independent study”.
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“No amount of counselling will make you resilient enough to be able to mark 418 exams in 20 days without experiencing immense suffering.”.
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Research earlier this year found that university staff worked an estimated 40 million unpaid hours in 2015-16.
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We begin a night celebrating HE excellence by presenting the 2021 Outstanding Achievement award to Dame Sarah Gilbert @Oxford_NDPH @UniofOxford, whose expertise led the way in delivering the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19. We’re all indebted to your work 👏 #THEAwards
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How should Western universities combat caste discrimination? Caste-focused policies spark disagreement on ‘difficult to pin down’ problem.
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Recent figures show that more than half of PhD students experience symptoms of psychological distress and one in three is at risk of having or developing a psychiatric disorder.
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Management team of @KIITUniversity takes top accolade in year of record submissions for #THEAwardsAsia.
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‘I recently asked Chinese students in Durham the reason for their choice of university. I was expecting them to cite league table position, but that didn’t get a mention. “Harry Potter,” they replied in unison.’.
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“Universities have slipped into a world where staff, their pay and pensions and their working conditions are seen as a drain on resources – in fact, staff are the beating heart of universities” .
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UK higher education institutions may be too reliant on Chinese students, warns universities minister @CSkidmoreUK.
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All seven of the UK’s research councils have signed up to a declaration that calls for the academic community to stop using journal impact factors as a proxy for the quality of scholarship.
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MOST-READ on @timeshighered this week:. 1. Researchers are wounded in academia’s gender wars.
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UK higher education institutions are under increasing pressure to scrap their use of nine-month contracts after @durham_uni said it would employ all teaching fellows for a minimum of 12 months from the coming academic year.
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"Many – perhaps most – of the academics I know love their jobs so much, that they would probably do them for free. It’s easy enough to prove: we already do.".
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“We are open to the possibility that we have not considered every possible angle”: Universities UK.
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Finally, #THEAwards University of the Year. @cardiffmet claims the honour for its calm and consistent work to sustain its community throughout the pandemic without abandoning goals it had already set itself: to restore financial health and improve research & teaching quality 🎉
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"Universities must help students develop the resilience and character needed to live with and benefit from being challenged," says Michael Barber
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Crackdown on campus activities in Hong Kong intensifies at same time that institutions are benefiting from significant increases in funding. @JoyceLauNews reports.
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“A number of the doctoral students said that they felt that their research was always hanging over them and giving them a guilty conscience. that ‘never being totally free’ was difficult” #PhDchat.
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“Academics are expected to meet consistently high standards across several areas of work…and often have excessively high self-expectations that are hard to maintain”.
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“[Lecturers] are not the source of information – the information is out there. Their job is to help students assimilate and figure out what does it mean [and] how do we use it”.
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“Some of the best lecturers I have had were not research active but had exceptional pedagogical expertise” – we canvassed academics’ views on research-led teaching.
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Academics who are happiest have a head of department who is a distinguished researcher.
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Crackdown on campus activities in Hong Kong intensifies at same time that institutions are benefiting from significant increases in funding. @JoyceLauNews reports.
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The majority of UK social scientists believe that academic freedom is under threat and are in favour of universities refusing funding from foreign organisations with a poor human rights record, according to a study.
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Survey reveals French public has lost confidence in scientists during the coronavirus pandemic
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A call by the Chinese government for citizens to report to a new hotline anyone who “misrepresents” the country’s history could place further restrictions on university teaching, especially online, professors have warned. @JoyceLauNews reports.
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“Universities could do more to mentor staff from working-class backgrounds. They could do more to understand how economic pressures shape our careers. They could take classist bullying seriously. They could develop class-based diversity policies.”.
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About half of all academics in UK universities have suffered depression, anxiety or other types of mental health problems related to stress – one of the highest rates of any sector, according to @Profgailk.
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A US study found that students using pen and paper outperformed those who relied on laptops to take notes in class.
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40 million hours spent on activities including public presentations, participation in science events, charity and social enterprise work – or 24,493 full-time jobs.
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Opinion: Universities must be able to debate sex versus gender identity. Campuses are places where ideas are proposed and improved. It shouldn’t be so hard to discuss an issue with far-reaching implications, say 20 academics. Read more:
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Academics are pushing journal publishers to take more drastic action in the wake of increasing scrutiny over the global science community’s response to China’s persecution of minority Muslims.
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@bournemouthuni @EdinburghNapier Finally, University of the Year 2024: @UlsterUni claims the top #THEAwards prize. Judges were impressed with Ulster’s progress in research, particularly in medical technology and quantum computing, in teaching, student experience & graduate outcomes, as well as helping fostering
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About half of all academics in UK universities have suffered depression, anxiety or other types of mental health problems related to stress – one of the highest rates of any sector, according to @Profgailk.
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“Our research indicates that, although listening to students’ feedback is important, large-scale data analyses consistently indicate that student happiness is unrelated to actual learning behaviour and academic performance.” @OpenUniversity’s Bart Rienties
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“The most important freedom of speech issue facing universities today relates to self-censorship around China”, @JoJohnsonUK tells THE #UKAcademicSalon .
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Female academics are much more likely to feel obliged to award authorship credit to other researchers even if they did not make a significant contribution to the paper, a new study reveals.
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IB students say it is unfair to award some students their grades through exams, while others will be awarded through teacher assessment.
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Academics who are happiest at work have a head of department who is a distinguished researcher, a recent study has shown. How can such people be encouraged into management?.
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Schools are so focused on exams that many students have no understanding of the study skills needed at university.
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A @QUBelfast professor of human rights law has had to take measures to protect his own safety due to threats he has received on social media.
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Crackdown on campus activities in Hong Kong intensifies at same time that institutions are benefiting from significant increases in funding. @JoyceLauNews reports.
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UK universities that have not called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war must explain how that is consistent with their foundational democratic values, says SOAS v-c Adam Habib.
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The research found that students who used laptops, typically in “laptop required” or “laptop optional” classes, scored between 0.27 and 0.38 grade points lower on a four-point grade point average scale than those who took notes using pen and paper.
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Don't be mean to people - it might end up in the acknowledgements. Some of the best:
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Young academics at Western universities are increasingly writing “safe” and “conservative” papers because of the pressure to get published, according to a scholar who has described the “intense boredom” he feels when reading the titles of journal articles.
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