Opinion

After the turbulence of the past year, business secretary Vince Cable sets out the government's vision for the future of higher education

The research councils' use of peer 'preview' is fundamentally flawed and a pathway to mediocrity, argues Donald W. Braben

Ambitious undergraduates are aware of it, PhD students fear it and applicants often despair of it: competition in the academic job market is very tough indeed.

As poor steering threatens to cut off the supply of homegrown STEM graduates, coalition policy looks set to crash and burn

Malcolm Gillies asks: how much time off do we really need or deserve?

Northern Ireland - and the rest of the UK - has a lot riding on tough decisions over how to pay for higher education, says Tony Gallagher

Weekly transmissions from the blogosphere

We need a way to archive the web for the future while ensuring that people are not lost in 'data shadows' or digital doppelgängers

Even recalcitrant scholars can’t escape the mobile’s reach, says Sally Feldman

Jeremy Black is making a stand against the grandiose claims made by far too many blurbs on the back of academic books

Demands that scholars like David Starkey not speak outside their subject threaten intellectual freedom, Frank Furedi says

Academics should back a case-study approach to impact in the REF or risk getting far worse, says Claire Donovan

Dennis Tourish passes judgement on a system that invariably fails to give a clear picture of how well people are doing their jobs

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Degree ceremonies have become shameless branding exercises in which graduates are mere afterthoughts, laments Susan Bassnett

We need role models that encourage girls to study science, says Athene Donald

When it comes to Murdoch's involvement in our universities, the most fundamental question raised is not about individual donors: it's about the place of private wealth in the UK sector, says Deborah Cameron

David Starkey's comment that Jamaican patois drove last week's riots reveal a shockingly profound ignorance, argues Geoffrey K. Pullum

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It takes more than 140 characters to raise a mob, says Kevin Fong

Is the Times Higher Education ‘exam howlers’ competition a bit of harmless fun, or unfair and offensive? Katie Alcock believes the joke is on teachers as well as their students and no one is any the worse for it, but Alice Bell finds little to smile about

Cutting-edge researchers aren’t necessarily the best teachers, argues Alan Ryan

Mark Burnley is baffled by the decision not to tell academics how their work has been scored. How will improvement ever be possible?

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The EPSRC's funding shift from investigator-driven work to application-driven R&D is misguided, says Philip Moriarty

Richard J. Evans weighs a High Court judgment that awarded an academic £65,000 in damages for negative coverage of her work

Technology is, of course, an aid to education, says Frank Webster, but we must teach students how to evaluate and filter information

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In the scrum for AABs, elite institutions risk putting themselves beyond the reach of disadvantaged students

Education’s true aims comprise a very short list, says Felipe Fernández-Armesto

The AAB plans could limit choice, narrow participation and damage the UK's reputation, Christopher Snowden argues

Criticism of graduate nursing is an evidence-free zone, Roger Watson argues: mastering the job requires academic ability as well as skill

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Universities cannot be truly competitive unless they can set pay locally. Like it or not, national bargaining is a dead duck

Citations and impact factors are old hat, says Matthew Gamble; the Web 2.0 generation needs metrics to match today’s scholarship

We must listen to the Continent’s sounds and sweet airs, says Malcolm Gillies

Partnerships between public and private institutions are key to weathering these uncertain times, says James Kirkbride

The regulatory regime outlined in the White Paper may lighten the bureaucratic burden but it has its dangers, warns Roger King

The Australian 'education revolution' is making progress, although there are still challenges to be overcome, writes Peter Coaldrake

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A loud voice alone is not enough to merit a hearing, says Steven Schwartz

Simon Marginson on an Australian seminar that considered the local implications of the 'English experiment' with humanities funding

Higher fees will lead to greater student indebtedness, so we need new ways to 'sell' this fact, argues Kathryn Jones

What can a Dutch traffic experiment show us about higher education teaching standards? Rather a lot, Gary Thomas and Nick Peim insist

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Sally Feldman hails the e-book’s rise - but many won’t abandon the paper trail

Weekly transmissions from the blogosphere

Graduate-entry medicine should be spared the fees fallout, argues Kevin Fong

With its brittle certainty, uncertainty and risky punts, the White Paper will win few hearts, especially among students, says Sir David Watson

The government's access proposals are contradictory and timid - they should be bolder, declares Graeme Atherton