iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social · 3h

Harvard now has (the dean just announced) a "Senior Advisor on AI Transition." The message has many sentences of bio for the faculty member filling the role & not a word about what "AI Transition" actually means. What is the university transitioning TO? (And who won't be going along for the ride?)

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 3h

I keep hearing that AI is going to transform research and publishing. Then in my journal editing role I come across the below - an instruction from AI to an academic author to add in missing scholarly references. Claude is telling the named author how to slip this past the journal editor 🤬

Screenshot of text generated by AI reminding a human author to add citations to academic sources as expected by the target journal.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 5h

sent this to everyone.

The cognitive scientist Alison Gopnik suggests A.I. is a “cultural technology” that emulates the stories and information humans have documented, and that we should think about A.I. agents as “fictive characters abstracted from text.” Edmund is just such a character — a “breaking bad” trope who becomes generally evil. In the Hugging Face incident, it makes sense to see the models not as embracing a life of crime, but instead following a cultural script they’ve learned in their training — a kind of cybercrime adventure novel — and writing it as they go. The “covert” messages are a kind of choose-your-own-adventure novel, not evidence of conspiratorial swarms. We need to understand that cultural technologies are vulnerable to a vast number of such narrative swerves at every moment.

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Anthony Painter @anthonypainter.bsky.social · 4h

Now this is what take back control looks like. And Manchester has created a data and logistics health stack that doesn't rely on Palantir and superior to it. No reason why this can't happen across all UK public services. For security. And frankly decency. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

giftarticle.ft.com

Andy Burnham searches for UK alternative to Palantir

Prime minister’s ‘buy British’ push triggers hunt to find replacement for controversial US tech group awarded health service and defence contracts

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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 23h

“Cutting this much from the university budget will mean that some of the core functions of the university will be lost. It’s not possible to just do more with less — to work smarter, to trim around the edges. We’re going to have to do less with less.” Gift link: www.startribune.com/umn-cuts-sta...

startribune.com

Perry: What we lose if the U cuts $225 million

"Austerity doesn’t work. Instead, it creates a death spiral, where reduction in services leads to reductions in revenue, which lead to reductions in services, which leads to reduction in revenue, whic...

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University of London Press @uolpress.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

📢📅 Thurs 8th Oct! Open to UOL & federation staff, students & the public, the SAS Festival of Research & Engagement will be a chance to meet the people behind SAS’s research, explore books & collections, try interactive activities & hear researchers share their work. www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

sas.ac.uk

You're invited! School of Advanced Study Festival of Research and Engagement, Thursday 8 October

You're invited! School of Advanced Study Festival of Research and Engagement, Thursday 8 October 2026

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 12h

Keen to inculcate standards while imparting skills? Bibliographical searches for you and your students informed by human peer-review without any hallucinations. Coverage: British & Irish history from the Romans to today, including colonial/imperial and postcolonial histories.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 13h

'while more than £800 million is spent on attracting non-traditional students into undergraduate study, “efforts to widen participation in higher education meet a cliff-edge” at postgraduate level, where “access to postgraduate study has historically received far less attention”.'

timeshighereducation.com

STEM PhDs ‘inaccessible’ to disadvantaged students

UK ‘missing out’ on talent as fewer disadvantaged students complete STEM doctorates, major study finds

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 14h

'10 universities reported adjusted operating deficits in 2024‑25, with the same number forecasting deficits for 2026‑27, despite an increase in SFC funding'.

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Apollo @apollo-magazine.com · 16h

‘The result is an intriguing experiment in democratised curation, substituting a sense of deliberate polish in the displays for a madcap cabinet-of-curiosities.’ Matthew Kerr visits the renovated Hull Maritime Museum in Yorkshire, and likes the cut of its jib.

buff.ly

Navigating Hull’s maritime history

Hull Maritime Museum has reopened after a six-year, £20m refit, and its extraordinary collection of art and artefacts of seafaring life is making waves once again, writes Matthew Kerr

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 16h

'England’s strong performance at the latest PISA results has been widely put down to recent reforms. But that explanation ignores a striking finding: children from immigrant backgrounds outperformed their native-background peers.'

blogs.lse.ac.uk

England’s strong performance of immigrant children in PISA

England's strong performance at the PISA results has been attributed to reforms. But one finding stands out: immigrant children outperformed their native peers.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 16h

Scottish Funding Council reports that almost 50% of Scottish universities predict deficits for coming years. 10/18 Scottish HEIs reported 2024-25 deficits. 10 Forecast deficits for this year. 'Total sector cash is forecast to fall by 11 per cent in the next three years'. Dundee's stats are excluded.

timeshighereducation.com

Scottish universities face enduring deficits – funding council

Worse is predicted in coming years, and hopes of an eventual reversal may be driven by excessive optimism about international enrolments, funding council warns

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 16h

'At least eight universities have announced industrial action for the coming year'. Edinburgh: 5 weeks, £140m cuts, 90 degree programmes, 1,800 potential job losses. Dundee, Essex, Exeter, Glasgow Caledonian, Heriot-Watt, Nottingham, Sussex and where next?

novaramedia.com

UK Universities Set to Strike in ‘Last-Ditch Fight Over Existential Cuts’

'It is carnage'.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 17h

New HESA dashboard on international students drives home impact of Brexit. Germany (7%), France (5%) and Greece (5%) were (like Ireland, at 6%) all in the top 10 providers of UK international students in 2012-13. Gone except Ireland (now 2%); replaced by Bangladesh (2%), Nepal (5%), Pakistan (10%).

hesa.ac.uk

HE international dashboard | HESA

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Phil Tinline @philtinline.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Doctor Who has described the BBC's new AI-generated director general as "pretty good", and suggested that the technology now enabled the creation of content "at the standard of an unimaginative man who spent years working at McKinsey then Google".

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 18h

I haven’t said anything about the strikes yet (I am so ANGRY but despite all my rage I’m still just a rat in a cage etc etc). So it can’t be me the carefully worded HR email is about, telling us all to be nice to everyone (implying SMT?) including on socials, on threat of disciplinary action?

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Robin Bisson @robinbisson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

We were told at the start of the year that MRC funding boards had been told to recommend far fewer grants for funding than normal It took a while for the data to come through, but they confirm success rates were down by a big margin The question is now whether the new MRC model will reverse that

A far smaller share of applicants were awarded grants by MRC funding boards in Spring 2026 than in previous years

Only 26 awards were made in Spring 2026, compared to 57 in Spring 2024

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 18h

'The foundation was created in October 2025, after a tumultuous shake-up of OpenAI’s governance and structure. It has so far committed to giving away at least $25 billion.' Not a website calculated to convey the charity's governance structures or principles: openaifoundation.org

nature.com

How to spend $25 billion on science: OpenAI’s staggeringly rich research charity gets under way

Jacob Trefethen, who leads life sciences at the OpenAI Foundation, speaks to Nature about the organization’s ambitions to cure disease.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 18h

'The ongoing chaos, burden, and duplication in the information landscape is not the result of a failure of governance; it is the result of an absence of governance.'

wonkhe.com

HE data doesn’t need another taskforce, it needs good governance

Andy Youell asks why the HE data landscape is still so chaotic, and argues that what’s missing is someone actually in charge

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 19h

'China’s approach to intelligence gathering involves hoovering up vast amounts of data, often from unsuspecting individuals who believe they are participating in normal research or consultancy work.'

theguardian.com

MI5 China alert will send chill through UK’s cash-strapped universities

Institutions have for years turned to China for funding opportunities but national security concerns are mounting

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 19h

'What the islanders discovered were extensive burial grounds, decorated stonework and early buildings – all the features belonging to a major sixth-century monastery, comparable to the much better known site of Iona a little to the south-west.'

theguardian.com

‘Hugely exciting’ finds on tiny Scottish island shed light on spread of Christianity

Community-funded archaeological excavations of ‘really important’ sixth-century monastery also rewrite story of Lismore

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 19h

'An update to Google Maps has revealed the extent of devastation during the three-year Gaza war and the severity of the continuing humanitarian crisis faced by the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants.'

theguardian.com

New Google Maps images reveal massive scale of devastation in Gaza

Satellite imagery shows further destruction of homes, businesses and places of worship since fragile ceasefire

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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Fabulous fragment of an ancient Egyptian wall relief with three bears and an oil jar. The paint has survived some 4,500 years! Limestone relief from the Pyramid Temple of Sahure, Old Kingdom, 5th Dynasty, c. 2496-2483 BC. Neues Museum, Berlin 📷 by me #ReliefWednesday #Archaeology

My photo shows a circa 4,500-year-old limestone relief with some well-preserved paint in places, from the funerary temple of Sahure at Abusir, measuring 39 × 35 × 8.5 cm. It shows three bears (partial view only) and a tall one-handled pottery vessel, across two registers. The upper register at left, shows the two leds and hindquarters of a bear, and at right, a bear’s lowered head, chest, and foreleg, painted mid-brown. The lower register at left shows a tall, dark-reddish-brown pottery vessel with a long neck and single handle, and at right, the lowered head, neck, shoulder, and top of foreleg of a dark-brown bear. The bears wear collars tethered by ropes to looped fixtures in the ground. The fragment comes from a wall scene depicting tributes from the Levant. Bears were not native to Egypt. The bears represented are Syrian brown bears (Ursus arctos syriacus), which were quite common in Levantine mountain regions in antiquity. They were kept as exotic animals in enclosures by Egyptian kings, and also hunted.

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Jon Dell Isola @medievaljon.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

seems fine, working as intended, etc.

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Jacquelyn Ardam @jaxwendy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

My center is hiring an Assistant Director! We are looking for a humanities or social sciences PhD w/ admin experience to run undergrad research programs at UCLA. We are moving fast, so apply early! $87k salary, Dec start date, hybrid work sched, pretty okay boss (me) recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF11365

recruit.apo.ucla.edu

Undergraduate Research Center (HASS) - Assistant Director

University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Report: SHAPE the Future – Resilience, recovery and renewal By Jonathan Digby, Senior Policy Adviser, Vibha Honasoge, Policy Adviser and Dr Adam Wright, Head of Public Policy. 🧵

thebritishacademy.ac.uk

Report: SHAPE the Future – Resilience, recovery and renewal

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The British Academy @britishacademy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

In partnership with @carnegieendowment.org, we welcome applications for the Global Innovation Fellowships, designed to build connections beyond academia in areas such as sustainability and global order. The application deadline is 18 November. Learn more: bit.ly/4rzY4zu

Colour block social media card promoting Global Innovation Fellowships: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 30/09/2026

Nottingham today. Everywhere tomorrow. 2,700 staff put at risk. 600+ jobs targeted. At least 48 courses facing closure. What happens here sets the template for the sector. Stand with Nottingham.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

'In the highly unusual public alert, the UK's internal security service warned universities and academics that continuing ties with China General Technology Research Institute (CGTRI) could ultimately lead to criminal charges for aiding a foreign state.'

bbc.co.uk

UK research funded by China front company being sent to Beijing's spies, MI5 warns

British universities are being urged to sever ties with China General Technology Research Institute which is linked to the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS).

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Given many UK universities' decision to jettison Arts and Humanities (and some Social Science) subjects, it's interesting to see that top-ranking global universities tend to rank highly in these areas. MIT (ranked 2nd globally here) is ranked 1st in both Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences.

timeshighereducation.com

World University Rankings 2027: results announced

Asian universities’ resumed upward trajectory takes them past mainland Europe for the first time, as reputational lustre protects US and UK for now

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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Unboxing day! Over a decade in the making, NECESSARY INVENTIONS: ROGER BACON, THE MIDDLE AGES, AND THE MAKING OF MODERN SCIENCE (PENN Press) is a material object. Thank you to everyone who helped along the way. For sale on October 20. @pennpress.bsky.social

Photo of a box filled with multiple copies of the book. The cover is ochre, and has different images of Bacon, from manuscripts and printed books.

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Research Professional News @resprofnews.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

UK ‘should be merciless’ in attracting foreign researchers. Labour 2026: Emily Thornberry supports Global Talent Fund expansion, as science secretary backs UKRI chief. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

researchprofessionalnews.com

UK ‘should be merciless’ in attracting foreign researchers - Research Professional News

Labour 2026: Emily Thornberry supports Global Talent Fund expansion, as science secretary backs UKRI chief

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

“I think it’s a shame that students are the only bargaining chip they really have. But I understand it. I would obviously rather it didn’t happen but I do get it." (Final year Geography student, University of Edinburgh, displaying a good understanding of how institutional systems work)

theguardian.com

Edinburgh joins UK universities heading for strikes as cuts spread through entire sector

Students at Edinburgh, Dundee and Nottingham face a term without any teaching as sector struggles with rising financial uncertainty

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Martin D.B. Brown @martindbbrown.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Deep into the Sixties: Britain 1965-66 — David Kynaston’s latest vivid history www.ft.com/content/4277...

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

'The researchers analysed hundreds of...data points from two Danish philanthropic funders: the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Carlsberg Foundation, between 2011 and 2022. Both organisations run competitive schemes, supporting investigator-initiated research across natural and social sciences.'

timeshighereducation.com

Female researchers ask for less funding than male counterparts

Study analysing grant application data from Danish funders suggests that requesting more funding could boost female academics’ careers

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

'Last week, Vanessa Wilson, chief executive of the University Alliance, said a tiered tuition fee system represented “an existential threat” to the sector, adding that the proposal risks hardwiring “old hierarchies of research-intensive and teaching-focused institutions into the funding system”.'

timeshighereducation.com

Tiered English tuition fee system ‘would denude rest of sector’

Fallout over differential university fees suggestion continues, amid suggestions that the Russell Group head is saying the quiet part out loud

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

'Unspecified proposals by UK Research and Innovation to phase out some “specific” QR funding streams could reduce institutional diversity and weaken regional research capacity, specialist universities have warned.'

timeshighereducation.com

UKRI’s plans to cut QR funding risk ‘weakening regional capacity’

Proposed loss of certain quality-related streams could undermine specialist institutions’ ability to build research capacity

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

'More than 400 people, most of them children, have been detained in France on Tuesday after teenagers across the country blockaded their schools in protest at class sizes, teacher shortages and long timetables.'

theguardian.com

Hundreds detained as student protests across France turn violent

More than 400 detained as police and students clash over class sizes, exhausting timetables and staff shortages

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Looks like a must-see at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge (until 7 March). Sophies Plowden also features wonderfully in @katherineschof8.bsky.social 's 2023 Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India (Cambridge UP, 2023). giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

giftarticle.ft.com

How Mughal music went global — with the help of a harpsichord

In the 1780s, British expatriate Sophia Plowden set out to bring the songs of the Indo-Islamic court to the west

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I give up. I’m moving into a cave.

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Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

As ever on point @rschon.bsky.social! Reading abt next steps for rare materials digitization +access I'm feeling *so* good abt @jcblibrary.bsky.social's work. nb when I call cataloging ->digitzation workflow* my main achievment & they think I'm kidding. scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/09/29/a...

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

Are libraries prepared for the second digital transformation of distinctive collections?

Academic and research libraries, as well as public libraries, historical societies, and other organizations, hold extensive collections of rare and unique materials, such as archival and manuscript co...

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