Academic life

What brings joy? This week, as part of our week of articles on #HEhappiness, academics from five disciplines address this most difficult of questions

The necessity of regular publication curbs the freedom that can make scholarly work original and important, says Shahidha Bari

The Coventry chancellor talks about being inspired by protest, managing a rap artist and being a pioneer as a black woman in law

Move comes after country’s top anti-corruption chief turns attention to Italy’s universities

Chelsea Manning case brings calls in US to acknowledge attempts from right to silence campus free speech

The way in which academic departments are typically formed creates more barriers than benefits, says Zahir Irani

Book and exhibition by one of the UK’s most renowned photographers stem from unprecedented access to elite university

The bullying and subsequent suicide of a talented Ivy League scientist exposes ugly truths about the cruelty and dysfunction at the heart of academic science

Glasgow vice-chancellor Sir Anton Muscatelli defends ‘cost-efficient’ sector driving UK growth

Universities’ shabby treatment of casual academics flies in the face of their professed commitment to education and dignity, says Jedidiah Evans

Digital media democracy expert on tension between control and engagement, and need for less interesting research in his field

Eric Royal Lybeck says the Russell Group and UUK do not represent academics and calls for a comprehensive voice representing the professional interests of scholars

Less than 10 per cent of tweets on journal articles represent genuine engagement with content, finds study

The ex-footballer explains why his PhD means more than his Wales cap, and how his Cardiff Met team reached the verge of Europe

The radio show In Our Time is a sort of academic seminar on the airwaves. Its presenter tells Matthew Reisz about bringing scholars to the public, and the risks UK academia faces

A survey of 50 laureates is full of insight, warnings and the can-do attitudes powering ‘beautiful minds’

Seven top universities establish political monitoring units in response to state ‘rectification reports’

Penn and San Diego law academics’ opinion piece, arguing ‘all cultures are not equal’, brings calls for institutions to speak out

More work is needed to understand the mental health needs of researchers, say Susan Guthrie and Catie Lichten

Instagram posts aim to overcome perception that researchers are typically male and white

Singaporeans are starting to question the benefit of recruiting so much global research talent, say Pang Eng Fong and Linda Lim

It is time to consider how we can stop senior academics bullying their way on to research papers, says Trisha Greenhalgh

Brain-boosting drugs can help students and academics alike to unlock their potential, says Hemmel Amrania

Scholars divulge which treasured possession they would rescue from their office before heading for the emergency exit if a fire broke out on campus

Sword-fighting, drinking, history and camaraderie: struggling to recruit, ancient brotherhoods mull their image problem

Lack of job security, limited support from management and weight of work-related demands on time among risk factors

Southampton Solent University’s Tere Daly responds to the former political adviser’s article in today’s Daily Telegraph

The academic psychologist talks testosterone, gender and the joy of being paid to read and write

Kurdistan shows that post-conflict countries can build a thriving higher education sector by working with foreign partners, says Dlawer Ala’Aldeen

Spreading the word on social media about research can help academics get ahead, but is it too much of a distraction, asks Brooke Erin Duffy

Dame Sue Black’s pioneering work has taken her to war zones and the aftermath of natural disasters. She explains the scientific rigour required in the field

Universities used to be thought unsinkable, but the unthinkable – an institution going to the wall – is now a genuine, if yet remote, prospect

The Italian scholar discusses how Machiavelli might have appraised current politics, the benefits of birdwatching and discovering Stevie Wonder

Many an academic will be dragged to the cinema this summer by bored offspring determined to see the latest superhero film. But what kind of childhood heroes did scholars themselves have? Here, five reveal who and what inspired their career choices

Study finds that students who witness lecturers misbehaving are more likely to display incivility in lectures or seminars

Vitriol directed at Cambridge professor of Classics on Twitter is part of wider battle to politicise diversity, says Conrad Brunstrom

Expanding degree apprenticeships will strengthen universities’ important role in improving their local communities, says Dawn Morley

Academics able to link their expertise to world events can raise their personal and institutional profiles to previously unimaginable levels, says Russell Reader

At 1967’s Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation, radicals preached Black Power, existential psychiatry, free universities and more. Martin Levy reports on an event that was as much a happening as an academic conference

Academics who have become deputies for Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche! hope to tackle country’s problems with scientific method

Universities facing the challenges of developing a knowledge economy

There is no ‘hard divide between academics and administrators’, writes Charles Knight in response to criticisms of academic university staff

We talk internationalisation in the face of Brexit, as well as the “alien” concept of fun for academics, with the international relations professor

It is not Luddism to be cautious about destroying an academic publishing industry that has served us well, says Marilyn Deegan

Providing support for learners on low-cost ‘flat-pack degrees’ is key to expanding international higher education in Australia and worldwide, says Merlin Crossley

Bernard Leeman, anti-apartheid fighter and peripatetic champion of low-cost rural tertiary education, describes the circuitous route he took to Vanuatu

Newcastle fine art posts for duo who specialise in ‘places with dark and complex histories’

New report calls for Athena SWAN awards to be rolled out in India

As the pay of BBC on-air talent is revealed, one academic comes clean about his salary

London Economics shows how less well-off graduates will repay more than higher-earning peers

Scholars and senior sector figures reveal the books they’ll be reading over the summer break – for work or pleasure or both – in part two of our annual round-up of holiday reads

Minister also warns Labour plan to abolish fees would mean ‘Reservoir Dogs ending’ for universities 

We talk race, taking advice from Seamus Heaney and poetry’s vital place in society with the US’s next Poet Laureate

Early career academics can be left to sink or swim when navigating the choppy waters of learning scholarly writing. Helen Sword says a more formal, communal approach can help everyone, especially women

University attacked by 750 academics for forcing entire professoriate to reapply for jobs

Scholars are ignorant of many aspects of peer review, and part of the problem is that researching it is a bit like kicking the hornet’s nest, says Martin Eve

Former education minister speaks out on vice-chancellors’ pay, ‘summer holidays’ and academics’ workloads

We talk poverty, political correctness gone mad and the comfort of whisky with the outspoken historian