From today's UK papers

FINANCIAL TIMES

A £100m investment fund is being raised with the aim of commercialising technology research from four English universities.

Chemists from the University of Nottingham believe they have found a range of environmentally friendly solvents that will help reduce industrial pollution.

Scientists at Imperial College, London, have produced a new material by rolling up magnetic films into "Swiss rolls" to improve the performance of magnetic resonance imaging systems.

THE INDEPENDENT

Susan Bassnett, pro vice-chancellor of Warwick University, writes that the Byzantine systems of monitoring teaching and research are driving researchers and lecturers away from UK universities.

Everyone encouraged Toby Street to go to university, but now, more than £10,000 in debt, he might have been better off getting a job.

Sussex University, the hip place to study in the 1960s, is poised for a comeback.

THE TIMES

Oxford University scientists say that attempts to bring long-extinct animals back to life, as in the film Jurassic Park, are almost certain to fail.

Many people who have heart bypass operations are never again as mentally sharp, a study from the Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina has shown.

MISCELLANY

The House of Commons education select committee will today release proposals to transform university admissions. ( Independent , Daily Mail , Daily Telegraph )

The University of Warwick plans to make ownership of a laptop computer compulsory for all new undergraduates by 2003. ( Guardian , Daily Mail ,  Daily Telegraph )