Promise of £220m for needy academia
Italy's government has bowed to pressure from the Rectors Conference, academics and researchers and has promised an extra €350 million to €450 million (£220 million to £284 million) for state...
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Political animal takes Russia to tusk
A new political party has been launched in Russia that aims to enlist millions of academics, scientists and students as its core supporters. Slon - the acronym for the Union of People for Education...
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US reaches out to black pupils
Only 40 per cent of African-Americans who graduate from US high schools go on to a university education. A renewed effort is under way to persuade young black Americans that not only can they afford...
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NZ finds merit in British funding model
New Zealand is drawing up a performance-based research funding mechanism for universities and other tertiary education institutions that draws extensively on the British research assessment exercise...
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Australians snub Asian studies
The study of Asian languages and culture in Australia is in a "crisis" exacerbated by the Bali bomb and the withdrawal of all Australian university students and staff based in Indonesia. A report by...
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In the news: Gill Evans
After a decade-long battle that has included three High Court cases, an independent inquiry and several aborted trips to the employment tribunal, Cambridge University lecturer Gill Evans has finally...
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Don's diary: Taking leave of Tokyo
Monday The last week of my time as visiting professor in the department of culture and representation at the University of Tokyo in Komaba. First autumn tints in the sky. My work here is largely done...
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Backed by Bentham
University College London has resurrected its spiritual father, the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, to campaign against the speed of its proposed merger with Imperial College, London. Bentham, who died...
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Star-crossed physicists
Proof that Nobel laureates read The Diary arrived this week in the form of an email from Anthony Hewish, who won the 1974 prize for physics for the discovery of pulsars. He wrote about a Diary item...
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70 years on PhD track
Seventy years after graduating from his first degree, a 92-year-old Australian has been awarded a PhD. Ron Fitch, who was South Australia state's railway commissioner, was presented with his...
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Crap birthday party
A Leeds University student has been treated to a surprise 21st birthday party at one the country's largest sewage works. Colin Pitts, a course tutor in environmental bio-geoscience, organised the...
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Major players grab jobs
A company in Thailand is using a 4,000-year-old Chinese board game to decide whether to employ applicants for graduate jobs. The convenience-store chain 7-11 is using Go - a strategy game - to...
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Beer storm brewing
The University of Bradford has defended its curriculum after being accused of offering a "course on beer drinking" in the House of Lords this week. Former Tory minister Lord Trefgarne said that...
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Speaking in tongues
C. P. Snow's "two cultures" concept has been most eloquently illustrated by BBC quizmaster Robert Robertson's attempt to pronounce the name of a group of chemical elements during this week's edition...
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Umist should abandon boycott 'witch-hunt'
The university should stop hounding Mona Baker and defend scholarly freedom, say Michael Cohen and Colwyn Williamson. Translation studies is a discipline that does not normally attract attention, but...