Educators accusing students of not working hard enough is simply a shirking of their responsibility to actually meet learners’ needs, says Katherine Gould
The accounting magic the UK government performs to handle outstanding student loans has once again been questioned, but the timing couldn’t be worse for universities, says Andy Westwood
Don’t believe the hype; Finnish universities face just as many problems with professional mismanagement and staff morale as those in other countries, says Gareth Rice
The entanglement of the university and tech worlds faces increased scrutiny following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Could joint positions in industry and academia offer a workable and ethically defensible way forward? David Matthews reports
What is it like to be a bat?; writing about yourself; when safety compromises freedom; a pioneer of the history of medicine; and rethinking the Garden of Eden
While Vieno Vehko empathises with millennials’ burden of tuition debt, she also finds it hard to respect a group that neither reads critically nor takes responsibility for its learning
In a world transformed, we need a radical new blueprint – for a flexible, less centralised network of scholars and students, says a former Berkeley chancellor
At a gathering of young scientists and Nobel prizewinners, David Matthews detects a whiff of mutiny in the air stirred by the pressures of a modern research career
A new perspective on Lenin suggests that the power shift to the Politburo originated not with Stalin but because it was often more expedient for ministers to go direct to the Politburo for a speedy decision rather than grappling with Sovnarkom bureaucracy
The geriatrician and television star on hitch-hiking to Paris, the secret of ageing well, and how an elderly man’s rectal prolapse helped him realise his vocation
Cat Zero, a novel by Jennifer Rohn, an infectious disease researcher, shines light on the backbiting and tensions of lab life as an unlikely team of scientists work to save the cats of Kent from a mysterious virus
The Oakland Promise, like a number of local schemes in the US, aims to be a ‘cradle to career’ programme moving more of the city’s children into higher education. John Morgan visits California to assess it
A home-grown alternative to the research assessment exercise would better reflect local practice and sit better with the special administrative region’s new political reality, says Michael O’Sullivan
Bold by nature, young institutions are tailor-made for ambitious projects such as the EU’s plan to create disruptive ‘super-networks’, says Anthony Forster
To what extent can universities drive economic development – or vice versa? Rachael Pells explores the ways in which higher education and economic success interact
As a Brit leading HKU, Peter Mathieson had no baggage. The University of Edinburgh’s new v-c tells Ellie Bothwell about academic freedom, internationalisation and being treated to taxi drivers’ views on students
With more data from more institutions, our 2018 Young University Rankings explore the growing higher education sector. Here we explain the methodology that underpins the tables
For insight into the ‘pervasive dislocation’ of people’s lives today, the sociologist Jeff Ferrell rode the rails across the US. He tells Matthew Reisz about life on the road and the limits of mainstream research
