A first-class ticket to a whole world of big ideas
The role of chancellor suits Bill Bryson's curiosity and popularising instinct. Melanie Newman writes
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Select Committee Inquiry - 85% failure rate was 'appropriate', but marks were raised
Claims that academic standards are slipping have been submitted to an inquiry on higher education by the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Select Committee. Among them are tales of...
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Select Committee Inquiry - 'Compensated passes' and easier work are the reality, says lecturer
An economics lecturer has told MPs that her university is guilty of dumbing down its course content and pass marks, with the average graduate having to achieve far less to obtain a degree today than...
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Select Committee Inquiry - Third-class efforts won firsts, examiner claims
An external examiner has claimed that at one university, first-class marks were routinely given to students for work that merited only third-class degrees or even failures.Richard Royle, senior...
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Select Committee Inquiry - Can't think, won't think: students damned by scholars
"Key concepts and intellectual ideas that students readily understood 10-15 years ago ... they struggle to understand today," Peter Dorey, reader in British politics at Cardiff University, told the...
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Panel beaters: do RAE judges keep it all in the family?
Analysis spots collegial links between reviewers and top-ranked institutions. Zoe Corbyn writes
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We'll shift Britain's economic engine from the City to the science laboratories, Prime Minister says
Science is to be the key to the UK's economic recovery, the Prime Minister has said.In a lecture given at the University of Oxford last week, Gordon Brown said he would shift the economy from its...
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Bigger is better, up to a point: study probes secret of research success.
Institutions with 7,500 staff had best research assessment exercise scores, reports Zoe Corbyn
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AHRC to fund 6,000 new masters and PHD places
More than 6,000 new masters and PhD places in the arts and humanities will be created over the next five years.The Arts and Humanities Research Council has announced two new mechanisms for allocating...
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Institutions hear consumers when students speak
Universities think listening to their students is very important - but they put more emphasis on viewing students as "consumers" than on seeing them as "partners in a learning community", according...
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UEL v-c resigns after lengthy suspension
Martin Everett's seven-month limbo ends with his exit, but questions remain, writes Melanie Newman
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Sussex PhD student skips bail and heads abroad to continue work
SCIS founder faces fraud allegations in the UK and is wanted in Germany. Melanie Newman reports
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Denham booed over adult education budget cuts
John Denham, the Universities Secretary, was booed as he defended the Government's record on education at a volatile meeting with campaigners in Westminster last week.Responding to persistent...
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Flexible and purposeful
David Eastwood on the challenge of allocating funding to support excellent research and world-class teaching
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Students armed with sub-editing skills are given tools for life
If people who teach journalists will not uphold standards in the use of English, we cannot expect others to do so, says Tim Luckhurst