World in brief - 22 May 2014
FinlandEastern neighbours study Finnish institutional autonomyA training seminar was held recently at the University of Helsinki as part of a European Union initiative to assist reform and capacity-...

FinlandEastern neighbours study Finnish institutional autonomyA training seminar was held recently at the University of Helsinki as part of a European Union initiative to assist reform and capacity-...

Royal SocietyWolfson Research Merit AwardsAwards are worth ÂŁ10,000-ÂŁ30,000 a year, which is a salary enhancementAward winner: Graham HargraveInstitution: Loughborough UniversityEnergy efficiency...

An “inspirational” head of the largest provider of healthcare education in Wales has died

We speak to the president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the highest-ranking woman in Pope Francis’ papacy

Weekly transmissions from the blogosphere

Exam howlersTime to share student blundersWith the exam season well and truly under way – and luckily no longer affected by the threat of a marking boycott – Times Higher Education is launching this...

“Frankly, it’s common theft.”That was the reaction of our Head of Economics, Murray Bund, to the news that Edinburgh Napier University will have dogs sitting in when conducting interviews for its...

Good to see that The Poppletonian (15 May) is following up the finding that mice are more scared of male than female researchers.For a control experiment, maybe the Austrian Eurovision winner...
One way to avoid “cavalier attitudes” in vivas is to stop having vivas altogether. What purpose does the viva serve after a PhD has been examined by an internal and two external examiners, which in...
Universities, it seems, urgently need to recruit more graduates to join their “philanthropy workforce” (“Sector must recruit more fundraisers or risk lowering the promotional bar”, News, 1 May)....
You report that cancer survival rates and expenditure on cancer research in the UK are both rising (“Survival rates up. Funding up. Hopes up”, Research Intelligence, 8 May), but fail to mention that...
You have to love the twisted logic of Australia’s conservative government, which remains blindly wedded to the failed idea of marketising higher education (“Tuition fee caps removed in Australian...
To pledge greater transparency about animal experimentation is not enough; the general public need to know the facts (“Animal testing agreement aims at more transparency”, News, www....
The recall from Canada and Australia of students on Brazil’s flagship study-abroad scheme, Science Without Borders, is a very sad story (“Flying back to Rio: dismay as Brazilian scholars sent home”,...