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Papermilling is a dubious research practice. It refers to situations in which research processes or findings are conducted in a way that is questionable, misleading or lacking integrity. This includes unethical practices, exploitation of students and postdocs, plagiarism, deliberate manipulation of data or superficial research that doesn’t contribute genuinely to the Read more…
Cuts, “voluntary severances” and redundancies dominate the UK higher education landscape. But not for all. The management bloat in UK universities continues to swell even as lecturers & researchers are made unemployed. The University of Nottingham has just advertised for a Chief People Officer. The salary is £140,000 to £153,000 per Read more…
Given the turmoil in Higher Education, the 21 Group is looking at the background and behaviour of some of our very well-rewarded Vice Chancellors. We started with Professor Colin Bailey, President and Principal of Queen Mary, University of London here. Next up is Professor Peter Bonfield, Vice Chancellor of the Read more…
Activity at universities falls into 3 broad categories – teaching, research & administration. They are not equivalent. Teaching & research are core activities. Everything else serves to support these primary goals. Some administrative work is obviously necessary. This includes student support, counselling services, IT services, the disability centre, librarians, research Read more…
We have described in an earlier blog posting the sad yet inspiring case of Magdalen Connolly The matter was extensively discussed in the Times Higher Educational Supplement by Wyn Evans and in the Daily Telegraph by Poppy Wood last year. Briefly, Magdalen Connolly introduced ground-breaking concepts related to a Judaeo-Arabic Read more…
Vice Chancellors, Pro-Vice Chancellors and Registrars make lots of money. Universities justify their huge salaries as needed to “attract top executive talent“. The median Vice Chancellor pay of the Russell Group for 2023-2024 is £400,000, as reported by the Times Higher Education Supplement. “The largest individual total remuneration went to Read more…
We know, we know … The last decade has been like watching a gang of rogues and grifters take over the UK universities and treat them like conquered vassal states to be used as spoils of war for any purpose that serves their personal whims. How can we pick the Read more…
We all worked for the lab at the university. It was a very successful lab. It was run on big grants obtained by our highly-cited PI. We made many important contributions to medical research for over 25 years. We had many influential publications in high impact journals. The lab was Read more…
It’s a hyper-competitive field! Like the most evil tech billionaire. Or the dumbest thing done by Donald Trump. When it comes to the destructive culture of modern universities, Oxbridge likes to be at the apex of the rankings. For example, Cambridge is at the top when it comes to Vice Read more…
One of the commonest queries to the 21 Group is about contested authorship. Politics around paper authorship is particularly an issue in STEM subjects where collaborations are the norm, less so in the humanities. Queries usually come from students & postdocs. This is a typical query: I’m seeking advice on Read more…