iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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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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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The BBC has long given up even pretending to be interested in who these people are, why they are coming or how they might feel, in favour of acting as a kind of shop window for the parties to display their wares of violence and cruelty

bbc.co.uk

Most migrant small boat arrivals in single day of 2026

A total of 781 migrants arrive on Wednesday, but the yearly total is below the same point in 2025.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The difference between the performance of immigrants in England and Western Europe is staggering. (20 pts equals a year of learning.) I looked at this in detail in the post - it can't be explained away by language or relative advantage of different immigrant communities. There is a policy factor.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

First the real extremists are the actual Nazis you fucking idiot. Secondly how is "radical right" more "Orwellian" than "far right"? That doesn't even make sense.

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

All day Piddington's womminfolk have been telling news how they will be terrified of "hundreds of young men nearby, free to come and go as they please." NOT ONE JOURNALIST has asked: "How did you cope when it was an army base? Who came and went then? Nuns?" Soon as you ask that, all becomes clear.

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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The fallacy that University leaders pushing AI are falling into is thinking that the point of undergraduate research is to find things out. It isn't. What students find out is typically already generally known. The point of undergraduate research is to learn how to find things out.

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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Tell me your university is about to go bust without etc.

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Lewis Wade 🗃️ @wadehistory.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

So... the higher education sector is so lacking in value that it doesn't deserve even basic government support in the face of an existential crisis, yet it also offers students such "significant financial and career benefits" that they *also* don't deserve any support

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Stephen McGann @stephenmcgann.uk · 11/09/2026

Yep. The path from "fed up with experts" to "I do my own research" to "SAVE US FROM SATAN'S TRAFFIC LIGHTS!" is reliably straight.

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

The BBC website hasn’t found space to report on Jenrick’s defence of assaults on a woman protestor by Reform members, but it has devoted an entire page to this puff for Reform’s attempts to appeal to women

bbc.co.uk

Reform UK hopes new group will attract more women to party

The party launches Women for Reform at its party conference this weekend, after criticism about its policies.

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Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

A vacuous, cowardly piece by the BBC here, which does little more than launder into the public domain the lies and excuses of Reform www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Nigel Farage tells BBC he 'wasn't listening' in foreign donor talks

The Reform leader also told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that his family are "begging" him to leave his job.

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Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera @pantibliss.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Everyone knows this guy is a prick, but imagine being English (and a Brexiteer) and buying a literal castle in Ireland and then telling local Irish people they can't visit their family graves. Imagines telling *any* Irish person they can't visit the family graves! My mother would feckin kill him

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Liz Webster 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺 @lizwebster.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

🧵 This 👉first test of Burnham’s promised EU reset. Next week, the EU bans Brazilian beef/chicken after 🇧🇷 failed to comply with rules restricting antibiotics, incl medicines critically important to human health. Britain has *not* followed, ministers seek “information and assurances” from Brazil

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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The nightmarish world of Britain's universities is detailed in the thread below. Its chaotic and if I'm honest pathetic state shows why this is not about money. More cash would just be pumping resource into a leaky bucket. The whole structure needs to change.

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Of course the ”happiness scholar” in my School signed this.

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Some of the richest people in the world want a racial caste system, and they want scholarly backing for that in the form of racist pseudoscience. And a lot of ostensibly non racist people quietly agree, and don’t like to see those who peddle that pseudoscience excluded from mainstream institutions.

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Mel Andrews @bayesianboy.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

If you are producing scholarship with AI and your work could plausibly be accessed in the EU, you are now legally compelled to disclose the nature and extent of your AI use. A tremendous win for scholarly integrity. www.lexacademic.com/blog/the-sta...

lexacademic.com

The Stamp of Shame: What Claude’s New Legal Watermark Means for your Research - Lex Academic®

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Being alumni from UK universities and wanting their kids and kids from their wider milieu to be able to study in the UK is the one area where quite a few EU policymakers have a truly personal stake in post-Brexit arrangements. That Whitehall and Universities UK were blind to this is telling.

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Thankfully Turnitin's planned change in terms to use all student content for AI development has been forced back. But the big Q remaining is: How did getting a degree from universities worldwide become conditional on students agreeing to the end user licence agreement of an *edtech company*?

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

There is a danger that by arguing the amount, we end up conceding the framing. Britain's welfare is ungenerous, the spend in total is mid-to-low table, and below past peaks. Benefits need reforming because they're unfit for purpose and trap, instead of enabling people. Not to make fantasy savings.

Chart of UK overall benefit spend, showing it lower than post-GFC or pandemic and largely in similar proportions, pensions being the largest chunk by far.

Charts showing the UK is mid-table of comparative OECD countris on total social expenditure and bottom third in terms of cash benefits.

Charts showing that the UK has the lowest welfare income replacement rate (ie. how far one's income drops if they lose their job) of any comparator OECD country, and third lowest, if you add housing benefit (which is more than the cash benefit element).

Graph showing that the generosity of the UK's welfare spending has been declining over decades against trend.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Glad someone senior from the sector is pushing back. Labour MPs need to understand the serious real anger from graduates and the people who produce them. And the dangerous financial situation they have allowed to fester, or indeed worsened, in one of Britain’s leading sectors.

ft.com

Labour has harmed universities as much as Trump, London School of Economics head says

LSE vice-chancellor Larry Kramer points to domestic student fees freeze, international student limits and rise in employers’ national insurance

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Dr Nafeez Ahmed @nafeez.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

1/🧵EXCLUSIVE: @bylinetimes.bsky.social's six-month investigation into Reform UK's policy chief: a secret donation from Peter Thiel, Thiel's life-changing offers to Cambridge scholars, and a far-right, theocratic student recruitment drive in breach of safeguarding bylinetimes.com/2026/07/09/p...

bylinetimes.com

Palantir Co-Founder Peter Thiel and Reform UK's Cambridge University Recruitment Pipeline Project Revealed

The world-renowned academic institution has nothing to say in response to a six-month investigation by Byline Times raising serious concerns about the safeguarding of students and foreign influence at...

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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

This, in particular. Increasingly of the view that government policy towards universities is the test case of whether it really has a wider economic policy.

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Does the BBC think its a university?

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Of course they see AI as part of the solution.

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

This is really quite shocking when all laid out.

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Since the hard-won, fragile, and crucial consensus on climate change was unpicked by the right wing, some on the left are happy to join this regressive attack. What does Graham tell her members about failing crops, coastal erosion, and global instability? Tough tits? It is so disheartening to see.

Burnham meets trade union leaders ahead of expected premiership
Andy Burnham making a speech. He is raising his hands up to his glasses. He has dark hair.
Image source,Getty Images
ByJames Gregory, Political reporter and Iain Watson, Political correspondent
Published
2 July 2026

A central point of contention between some of the unions and Burnham is the possible appointment of Ed Miliband as his chancellor.

The leader of the Unite union Sharon Graham – who represents workers in the oil and gas industries – has openly criticised the potential appointment of Miliband and has suggested he would "put a noose around the neck of job creation".

Miliband has repeatedly dismissed calls to approve new oil and gas licences in the North Sea.

Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB, has described the government's net zero policies on the North Sea oil and gas industries as "shameful" and "economic madness".

At a private meeting with Burnham last week Smith expressed the concerns of energy workers about existing policy.

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Absolutely this. If only we had HE leaders that actually lobbied hard for the sector and its staff that actually deliver this economic success, instead of cutting themselves to the bone and baking in terminal decline.

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Really good piece on the current crisis.'The university system is more like a cartel than a market. Among managers, there is far more imitation than innovation'. Dimaggio and Powell's description of mimetic insitituional isomorphism in their 1983 paper 'the iron cage revisited' seems relevant here.

johnheathershaw.substack.com

The Crisis in Britain’s Universities

The cuts that have been proposed at the University of Exeter demonstrate the crisis of purpose in Britain’s universities. Should not universities also be places to prepare for "eternal dwellings"?

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 26/06/2026

Leaders who can't be bothered to do their jobs, & want to be able to blame someone else for the decisions they want to take, hire consultants who care nothing about education, research, or people. Universities end up wrecked, lives are ruined, only consultants benefit. Again & again & again.

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Ruth Curtice @ruthcurtice.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

As debates rage about where to get the money for higher defence spending, it’s important we have a clear picture of how we spent the peace dividend while it was around. Thread 🧵⤵️

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

trying and failing to think of anything in the UK that isn’t currently in a doom loop.

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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

NEW from me: today I've written another piece in our @isrfoundation.bsky.social series on the destruction of British Higher Education. What's it like to live under the threat of redundancy? Read all about it here: isrf.org/blog/what-do...

isrf.org

What Does It Feel Like to Live Under the Threat of Redundancy?

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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

What is wrong with these people? (www.paconsulting.com/client-story...) (Actually, you only have to put “PA Consulting UK scandals” into Google to see for yourself.)

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Andrew McGettigan @amcgettigan.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

I have seen a few academics offering their takes on English HE in the last week. I don't think the issue of insolvency is really being grasped in these. Basically, it is worse than people think ... The Education Committee gives a good account of the issue: committees.parliament.uk/work/9012/hi...

committees.parliament.uk

Higher Education and Funding: Threat of Insolvency and International Students - Committees - UK Parliament

The UK’s higher education sector is in trouble. Dozens of universities are making redundancies and cuts to courses, trying to stay afloat amid uncertainty over where their money is coming from.  ...

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

In London for a long weekend to see the Pixies, and I can confirm it’s very warm and humid!

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Some call it the Schrödinger's cat of higher education consultancies, suggesting that if you have Nous you don't have nous.

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

this thread is pretty spot on and depressing. I think as a country we might just be totally screwed, but I am a natural pessimist.

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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

For those of you concerned about university solvency, there is actually a lot of good work out there. What about this from m'learned colleague at Brunel on the financial health of every single uni? I count 40 universities rated 'Red' on the Critical List. policycommons.net/artifacts/48...

policycommons.net

The 2026 Reckoning: Financial sustainability, solvency risk, and policy options for UK higher education | Policy Commons

This is a document published by Justin O'Brien in March 2026 about Liquidity. It was written by Justin O'Brien.

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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

NEW from me: many of our universities are now in a dying fall. A new global-national-regional-local split is opening up, which could choke off progress on almost all the Government's plans. Do they have a plan? Nope, nothing, not a clue. 👇 isrf.org/blog/whats-t...

isrf.org

What’s the future for our universities?

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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

The helium shortage is now unavoidable. Another wonderful follow-on to the Iran War, and if you think helium doesn’t matter much, think again:

science.org

Helium and the Strait of Hormuz

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Or we could just not create ‘dangerously capable AI’ so we don’t then have to create ‘super smart babies’ to save the world. Personally, I find the idea of super smart babies far more terrifying than AI.

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Helene von Bismarck @helenebismarck.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

The Strategic Defence Review, which Robertson spearheaded, came out in September 2025, as I was writing the last chapter of my book, which is focused on foreign policy and strategy. I read that entire document and interviewed a number of experts about it. A few thoughts. 🧵

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Michael Peel @mikepeeljourno.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Keir Starmer’s unrealistic goal to build a country where “people are not at the mercy of events abroad” suggests governments are still not willing to be open with the public about the UK’s place in the world. I wrote in my book about how politicians infantilise voters: linktr.ee/whateveryone...

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James Mittra @jmittra.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Great interview with my brilliant colleague @susansegfault.bsky.social about his excellent book on Tor-Dark Web. highly recommend both the interview and the book, which is available free at MIT press direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

podcasts.apple.com

Ben Collier on Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy

Podcast Episode · Peoples & Things · March 30 · 1h 1m

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