Author: Alex Usher

Discovery Slowing?

There has been a lot of chat over the past few days about a paper by three American scholars (Michael Park, Erin Leahey and Russell Funk) published in Nature about the declining rate of innovation in academic science (available here).  The paper is interesting, but the very loud whining that has stemmed from it (see here and here but it was way worse on science twitter, trust me) is mostly pretty nonsensical.  Let me break it down for you. The

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Because it’s 2023

Morning everyone and welcome back.  I want to alert everyone to a bit of a shift in the way the team here at HESA Towers is handling the blog.  As you know, we have been trialing a podcast these last few weeks (there’s a great one with Alma Maldonado-Maldonado of Mexico’s CINEVSTAV this Thursday).  Later this month, the podcast format will change a bit and become a regular weekly feature focusing specifically on global higher education.  The regular blog will

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Sayonara 2022

Morning all.  This is the final blog of 2022: service resumes January 9th.  When I do a send-off blog, it’s worth thinking about the year past and asking: what should we remember about this year and what do we expect from the year ahead? To my mind, there are really two big stories from 2022.  The first has to do with Laurentian University, which was still the scene of considerable intrigue as evidence gradually mounted that its then-President, Robert Haché,

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Book(s) of The Year, 2022

Morning everyone.  Y’all know the drill: every December I come along and tell you what I’ve read in the world of higher education, let you know the stars and dogs, as well as give out a “book of the year prize”.  Two reminders: first, that I did a summary of my (considerable) reading from the first half of the year back here, and not everything I read is something that came out this year, so “books of the year” aren’t

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One Podcast to Start Your Day-United Kingdom

On this episode of One Podcast to Start Your Day, we’re hopping overseas to chat with our friends from Wonkhe for a year-in-review on higher education in the United Kingdom. David Kernohan (Acting Editor), Jim Dickinson (Associate Editor), and Sunday Blake (Associate Editor) join us to talk about some of the UK’s most pressing issues in higher education. The full podcast can be found with a full transcript here, along with the past episodes of OPTSYD.  Thanks to our producers Tiffany MacLennan

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