Academic life

Matthew Reisz meets Andrea Pető, recent recipient of the Madame de Staël prize, a scholar at Hungary’s Central European University whose feminist probing into the dark corners of Hungary’s past is provoking strong reactions in the ‘illiberal democracy’

Cutting partner labs out of awarded grant budgets is a common but destructive phenomenon in modern academia, says Anne Carpenter

He may once have disdained older scholars, but, having reached seniority in a managerialist age, John Brinnamoor now values their ability to say what others can’t

Senior management has its perks but it also comes with a host of new practical, philosophical, psychological and even physical challenges. Here, seven people who have lived through that fiery baptism tell their tales

Ad hoc approaches inadequate to deal with a widespread issue, campaigners say

Precarity is a significant feature of the academy worldwide, creating a feeling of ‘academic apartheid’ as it grows. Ellie Bothwell explores its impact

Lincoln Allison was inspired to teach by academics who loved what they did and communicated this to students. But has all passion for teaching been eliminated by creeping assessment and instrumentalism?

Scotland’s first black professor talks about life as an immigrant, his experiences of racism and why ‘better science makes better’

Vice-chancellor says university is committed to improving staff well-being

José Ibarra said he could not afford to repair his shoes on his professor’s salary

Australian sector adopts ‘united viewpoint’ against unequal relationships

Partisan social media posts typically get more attention, but dispassionate analyses are what academics are valued for, says Stuart Brown 

Pakistani lecturers and students tend to be similar in age, which makes romances inevitable. Universities must do more to raise awareness of the potential fallout of such relationships, say Abur Rehman Cheema and Mehvish Riaz

University of El Salvador rector Roger Arias calls on parliamentary groups to reconsider privatisation of water services

Neoliberalism is many academics’ bête noire, but it is also a litmus test of their democratic sensibilities, says Steve Fuller

With about one-third of Earth’s 7 billion inhabitants on a social network, it is an inevitable part of scholars’ lives. While many academics find Twitter and Facebook useful means of disseminating their research, Sara Custer finds that the addictive seeking of ‘likes’ has its perils

Scholars at greater risk of stress-related illness than police, medics and local authority staff, research suggests

Undead professor deployed as critique of managerialism and teaching evaluation at a UK conference

When the alt-right made highly dubious claims about historical Irish slavery, Natalie Zacek realised that a rebuttal from an expert would make no difference

Abandoning her hyperactive approach to lecturing opened the way to creativity, introspection and compassion for Patricia Owen-Smith 

In the wake of Malcolm Anderson’s death, universities need to wake up to the need to take better care of their senior lecturers, says Andrew Oswald

Open prejudice against his sexuality has seen the career of one academic slowly wither

Do you feel you’re just winging it, waiting for the day when your incompetence is exposed? Six academics show that you’re far from alone

Janet Todd’s memoir considers the humiliations of illness and admits to ‘some embarrassment at not being dead’

Researchers criticise focus on aftercare for stressed staff members and urge leaders to tackle workload pressures head-on

Determination to make your own way is key to success in academia, but scholars’ research, teaching and even their lives can be transformed by a chance encounter or event

Former director of fair access tops list alongside Sheffield Hallam vice-chancellor Chris Husbands

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

As exam marking season gets under way, seven academics offer their advice on assessing your students

A university career can be lonely, anxious and narrow. But those who learn from their regrets can avoid unnecessary stress, says Michael Marinetto

Focusing on values and priorities while learning from failures is the key to maintaining scholarly well-being, say Alexander Clark and Bailey Sousa

The new UK home secretary must reinstate workers’ right to participate in industrial action regardless of national origin, says Shreya Atrey

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

The former gay porn star turned academic on what lecturers can learn from the adult entertainment industry

If his late-night photos of the senior common room Christmas party made it into wider circulation, John Brinnamoor would be a dead man

Business academic Diane Holt recalls her experience aboard a ‘floating university’

Crackdown leaves professors needing to pay back almost €250,000 each on average

Criticism of ‘obsolete’ passages by Gallic political leaders has led to a ban on new students learning French

Employers make final offer for 2018-19

Humanities subjects set to be hardest hit by restructure

Investigation discovers that three-quarters of advertised posts are filled by an internal candidate

Move comes in response to government initiative on gender equality

The Booker prizewinning author talks about novelists and academic historians’ ‘complementary trades’, ‘less subtle’ scholars and studying for a lifetime

The university lecture should be seen as a special form of human encounter, argue Amanda Fulford and Áine Mahon

Efforts to reclaim imperial history from so-called ‘politically correct’ professors have little to do with genuine academic debate, argue James McDougall and Kim Wagner

From MI5 recruiting, to students spying on each other and intelligence agencies funding research, Matthew Reisz explores the long and often uneasy relationship between espionage and the academy

The UK's first-ever Twitter-only teaching and learning conference shows academic symposia with international reach can be organised on a shoestring, say Natalie Lafferty and Pat Lockley

The framing of the Peter Horrocks row misses the bigger issue underlying the conflict and the opportunity to sketch out a vibrant future for this important national institution, say Mark Brandon, Joe Smith and Martin Weller

The good, the bad and the offbeat: the academy through the lens of the world’s media

The protests against pensions reforms reflect not just self-interest but also anger about working conditions and a sense that universities are losing their way. Jack Grove explores how proposed changes to the USS strained and broke bonds of trust

Academic gatherings may be fun, but they do little to advance knowledge. To justify the public spending that supports them, such events must do more to provide benefits to those who don’t attend, argues Nicholas Rowe

Excessive red tape, not snowflake students, has rightly been highlighted as the real threat to freedom of speech on campus, says Peter Baran

Barrister Daniel Sokol explains some of the key mistakes made by those advising students on academic appeals

‘If we want to do more things for society, we can’t do it by working more than 60 or 70 hours a week,’ Rolf Tarrach tells annual conference

Constant emails from the likes of Academia.edu and ResearchGate keep Ron Iphofen in a state of anxiety over what he may be missing   

Women and their clothing are scrutinised more closely because men are seen as the norm in academia. Emma Rees considers the codes at play in what is supposedly a radical space

Two new studies indicate young and female researchers are at high risk

The mere mention of fairies in academic circles can bring derision. Yet the field is a rich one that has much to offer open-minded, multidisciplinary scholars, writes Simon Young

As the National Union of Students conference in Glasgow begins on 27 March, Nick Hillman ponders if the student voice is becoming too powerful in universities

Binghamton University, State University of New York academic’s response to fundraising dinner invitation for National Society of Black Engineers branded ‘deeply offensive’