I have added new content to the Video page of this site, mostly the work that I have done for Press TV, an online TV channel. The most recent programme looks at the potential applications of robots and other smart technologies for use in the care of older people. Earlier programmes focus on trust, moral… Read More »
Now that the definitive rules have been published for the 2021 research excellence framework, we can settle down to consider which actions will best favour the institutions that we belong to or advise. Winners develop strategies: losers complain about “gaming”… …The great humorist Stephen Potter defined gamesmanship as the “art of winning games without actually… Read More »
Universities UK has recently published a report from its Open Access Coordination Group, which aims to build on previous findings, and to examine trends over the period since the major funders of research in the UK established new policies to promote open access. The research was delivered by a partnership involving Research Consulting, the University of… Read More »
Another attempt to correct the usage of this description of the organizational culture of child protection work has just been published in the British Journal of Social Work by Martin Kettle and Sharon Jackson. The authors extend the analysis by a wider consideration of the role of optimism in everyday professional life. “As an idea,… Read More »
This post is co-authored with Rob Johnson, Research Consulting The United Kingdom has been in the vanguard of attempts to drive the scientific and scholarly communities to adopt an Open Access model of publishing, where the output from academic research will be freely available to readers rather than requiring some form of payment. However, the… Read More »
Both major political parties have recently declared themselves in favour of changing the law on consent to organ donation in England… Transplant surgeons and patient advocacy groups have been lobbying for this change for more than thirty years, as a solution to the acknowledged problem of a shortage of suitable organs. It looks like an… Read More »
Universities, as organizations, need both academics and administrators. However, there has been a failure to achieve the necessary institutional and cultural adjustments to modern conditions…The most important income flows for UK universities are teaching, research and consulting, generated by the academics. Everything else is an overhead. Academics are like the partners in a professional firm.… Read More »
It seems that markets are good for higher education in England… But none of this applies to academics. They must be prevented at all costs from moving to further their careers, to get salaries that reflect their value or to escape dysfunctional managements… The REF rules must be structured in such a way as to… Read More »
In a galaxy not so far from here some UK sociology departments will be spending the summer considering injunctions from their university managements to internationalize their curricula….Why, then, should a student travel to the UK, or remain in the UK, to study sociology?…These are challenging times for the material base of UK sociology. If we… Read More »
…Fire safety cannot be left to engineers alone. It must start from questions about who is going to be living in this building and how are they going to use it. What will it take to minimize the risks of fire starting in the course of interactions between these occupants and this building? If the… Read More »