“Those working in universities regularly come up against the question whether it is possible to balance teaching and research so that both are valued and neither undermines the other …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 27 December]
“This week Baroness Susan Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford reportedly announced that computer games could cause dementia in children. This would be very concerning scientific information. But this comes from the opening of a new wing of an expensive boarding school, not an academic conference …” (more)
[Ben Goldacre, Guardian, 21 October]
“Research remains male-dominated and the equality guidelines proposed for the REF don’t go far enough. The cards have long been stacked against women in the academy. Despite the academic achievements of women and repeated claims of the ‘feminisation’ of our universities, just 19% of professors are female and women are far less likely to be deemed ‘research active’ …” (more)
[Carole Leathwood, Times Higher Education, 20 October]
“One of the points about science funding I’ve tried to make over the years (we have been blogging a long time, haven’t we?) is that the overheads and indirect costs associated with federal grants drive a lot of university decisions – there’s a lot of money there. But this funding also has significant macroeconomic effects, especially in research-heavy states like Massachusetts …” (more)
[Mike the Mad Biologist, 15 August]
“As I have mentioned frequently in this blog, this is an age of insecurity in higher education. Faculty are unsure of where the academy is going and are unsettled by today’s odd mixture of public hostility and public indifference; funding is becoming scarcer while its sources are becoming less clear by the day …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 18 July]
“The Republic of Ireland has had a bad run of late. Castigated as one of the ‘Pigs’ (along with Portugal, Greece and Spain), the tell-tale signs of an overheated economy have long since left the Dublin skyline. Our construction bubble has burst. From where I sit (in a newly completed building!), it is apparent that other more enduring foundations were laid in the past decade, foundations that can support growth – and upon which Ireland may yet rebuild …” (more)
[David G Lloyd, Times Higher Education, 26 May]
“A few months ago, while waiting for a reception to begin, I was chatting to a young man who was registered as a PhD student in one of our universities and who was telling me with great energy and enthusiasm about his research topic. Or at least I think that is what he was doing, because to be honest, his English was not really fluent …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 6 May]
“Science will remain a core element of enterprise and research policy under the new Irish administration, according to the minister for enterprise. It will take on a more commercial edge however and will also have a stronger jobs element …” (more)
[Dick Ahlstrom, The Great Beyond, 6 April]
“Academics will study the ‘big society’ as a priority, following a deal with the government to secure funding from cuts. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) will spend a ‘significant’ amount of its funding on the prime minister’s vision for the country, after a government ‘clarification’ of the Haldane principle – a convention that for 90 years has protected the right of academics to decide where research funds should be spent …” (more)
[Daniel Boffey, Observer, 27 March]
“Securing external funding for research is a tough enterprise. Another layer of bureaucracy is the last thing we need …” (more)
[Louise Holden, Irish Times, 25 March]
“For ten years, through the 1990s, I worked as a professor of law in the University of Hull in Northern England. Every so often I would be present at the kind of conversation where people mused on missed opportunities …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 2 March]
“The Fianna Fail party, in power in Ireland since 1997, had supported science well enough over the last decade or so to allow the small country to dramatically raise its international profile. This year it even scraped into the top twenty science-producing countries in terms of citations per research paper. Irish scientists now have to worry about whether this progress will be maintained under Fine Gael …” (more)
[Alison Abbott, The Great Beyond, 28 February]
“I came across George Orwell’s 1946 essay Why I write. Some of his reasons for writing resonate with some of my reasons for doing research. I wasn’t expecting that …” (more)
[simondobson.org, 23 February]
“The trend towards a global division of labour and specialisation is not bypassing the R&D departments of multinational firms according to a new report by Deutsche Bank Research. Leading technology groups are increasingly considering emerging markets such as China and India as R&D locations in addition to industrial nations …” (more)
[Finfacts Ireland, 8 February]
“Lion-roaring competitions used to be private affairs, organised entirely by lions, without spectators. That changed in the early 1990s …” (more)
[Marc Abrahams, Guardian, 31 January]
“The United States’ educational and research pre-eminence is being undermined, and some of the chief underminers are universities themselves, according to articles this week in Science and Nature magazines …” (more)
[Paul Basken, Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 January]
“The answer to the question is ‘no’, by the way, but there is no shortage of people who will claim otherwise. There appears to be a particular tendency for Irish economists (or at least some of them) to play down the economic impact of research …” (more)
[Ferdinand on Prondzynski, University Blog, 5 January]
“Since the late 1990s Ireland has pumped billions into science and research, and completely transformed the landscape for science in Ireland – for the better. This money was spent on supporting research talent and building facilities for them to work in. That’s all good, but the strategy for moving Irish science onto the next level is flawed on many levels. The Government would do well to take a look at a highly successful model – Israel …” (more)
[Science Spinning, 4 January]
“@brianmlucey @vonprond Make everything about cash and metrics and the university is finished, except as a commercial research house.” (tweet)
[Norman Wyse, Twitter, 28 December]
“… The research performance of business scholars on the island of Ireland is evaluated based on their number of publication, number of citations, h-index and the same divided by the numbers of years since the first publication …” (more)
[Richard Toll, Irish Economy, 21 December]
