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Shane McHugh

@shanemchugh.bsky.social
373 followers 1.6K following 117 posts

Talking about engineering, technology, research security and systems thinking. Fan of cats, Arsenal, weird lit, and both kinds of music.

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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
The always interesting @bioengineergm.bsky.social on how our use of the word technology frames it as an elemental force and elides notions of agency and moral responsibility.
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Royal Academy of Engineering @raeng.org.uk · 09/07/2025
"Engineering has the power and potential to transform the world for the better, and tonight’s awards will honour those who make it possible" 🏆 Congratulations to all our winners, and huge thanks to everyone who attended yesterday. Find out more about our winners: raeng.org.uk/programmes-a...
2025 MacRobert award winners, OrganOx, alongside Academy CEO, Hayaatun Sillem, Academy President, Sir John Lazar, and presenter of the award, Lord Patrick Vallance.
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Some people say the biggest gap in research funding is at mid career level. So here is our new call for our mid career fellowship programme which provides buyout for 6 to 12 months to devote to the completion of a major piece of research. Spread the word! www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/mid-...
thebritishacademy.ac.uk
Mid-Career Fellowships
The Mid-Career Fellowships are designed both to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and soc...
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Royal Academy of Engineering @raeng.org.uk · 27/06/2025
Are you ready to lead one of the UK’s most influential organisations at a time of global change? We are seeking a visionary, values-led Chief Executive Officer to drive the delivery of our bold Strategy 2030: Engineering Better Lives. Apply by 20 July 2025: www.russellreynolds.com/en/executive...
We are hiring a Chief Executive Officer. Apply by 20 July 2025. Are you ready to lead one of the UK’s most influential organisations at a time of global change? This is a defining moment for engineering in the UK and globally. As CEO, you will shape policy, inspire innovation, and help ensure that engineering serves society — sustainably, inclusively, and ambitiously.
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John Herrman @jwherrman.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
The real AI arms race is between one another 🥰 nymag.com/intelligence...
Stories about Al deployment tend to fall into a few categories. You've got productivity stories, where workers — most visibly at tech companies — talk about how Al tools are making parts of their jobs easier or harder, increasing their workload or simply making them redundant and taking their jobs. You've got top-down management stories, where Al use is suggested or mandated by leaders demanding more efficiency, who are either betting that a great deal of automation is possible within their firms, or who are just worried about getting left behind.
Then you've got the stories in which people are more clearly using new Al tools against one another in an escalatory way.
Job hunters, now able to generate custom applications instantly, flood employers, so employers turn to Al to manage the glut. Spammers and other bad-faith actors flood social media with near-infinite material, pushing the platforms to double down on automated moderation.
Rapidly generated presentations lead to rapidly scheduled meetings recorded and automatically transcribed by AI assistants for machine summarization and analysis. Dating-app users generate chats with Al only to be filtered and then responded to by someone else using AI. The starkest and most consequential such story is what's happening in education: Teachers dealing with students who generate entire essays and assignments are turning to Al-powered plagiarism detectors, or getting pitched on ed-tech software that solves cheating with surveillance - with, of course, the help of AI.These are stories about AI, but they're also stories about broken systems. Students flocking to ChatGPT in the classroom suggests that they see school in terms of arbitrary tasks and attainment rather than education. The widespread use of Al in job hunting drives home the extent to which platforms like LinkedIn, which promises to connect job seekers with employers, have instead installed themselves between them, pushing both sides to either pay up or dishonestly game their systems. A dating app where users see opportunity in automated flirting must already be a pretty grim space. If Facebook can be so quickly and thoroughly overwhelmed by Al-generated imagery and bots, it probably wasn't much of a social network anymore — a low-trust platform better at monetizing users than connecting them. Smaller-scale AI arms races like these don't take hold unless users (or workers, or students) have already been pitted against one another by systems they don't respect. In an uncomfortably large portion of modern life - especially online - that's exactly what's happened.
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The Royal Society @royalsociety.org · 24/06/2025
We're happy to announce @markmiodownik.bsky.social as our new Professor for Public Engagement in Science! His mission will be to transform our understanding of how we make, use, reuse & recycle products, & explore how we can live more sustainably. Watch this space! royalsociety.org/news/2025/06...
royalsociety.org
Living sustainably to be theme for new Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science, Mark Miodownik | Royal Society
Material scientist, engineer, broadcaster and award-winning author, Professor Miodownik will use his expertise to explore how we can live more sustainably, both as individuals and as a society.
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John Steele @jfcsteele.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Always exciting when research from the lab is disseminated for the public! @theguardian.com have reported on @swallacelab.bsky.social paper turning plastic into paracetamol using engineered bacteria tinyurl.com/32hxnwsd (original publication rdcu.be/esYfF)
theguardian.com
Scientists use bacteria to turn plastic waste into paracetamol
Genetically modified E coli used to create painkillers from material produced from plastic bottles
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Science|Business @sciencebusiness.net · 19/06/2025
🔁Horizon Europe looks set to continue beyond 2027 — in name as well as scope. At a Brussels event, EU research commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva said #FP10 will retain the #HorizonEurope brand. @ec.europa.eu‬ hasn’t confirmed this officially, but multiple attendees backed the comment.
buff.ly
Horizon Europe forever: EU research programme brand set to roll over in 2028
The next Framework Programme for research and innovation, informally known as FP10, looks set to keep the name Horizon Europe, according to comments by research commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva after…
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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Such a clever idea. You could imagine its application to all sorts of wicked problems…
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Richard Jones @richardaljones.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
I very much welcome the announcement of the Local Innovation Partnerships fund, with ~ £30m funding for industry facing, translational research in each of 7 English city-regions, + places in Wales, Scotland & NI, allocated towards locally determined priorities. www.gov.uk/government/n...
gov.uk
Transformative £86 billion boost to science and tech to turbocharge economy, with regions backed to take cutting-edge research into own hands
Funding package worth more than £22.5 billion a year in 2029 will boost Britain's world-leading status in research and innovation.
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The British Academy @britishacademy.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
"In a geopolitically uncertain world and after more than a decade of low productivity growth, the UK needs to rethink its economic strategy." Today, we're publishing a collection of expert policy insights ahead of the multi-year Spending Review conclusion: buff.ly/DAlcNo5
buff.ly
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Colin Smith @colinsmith.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
Summer 1974 and the ferry from Burtonport Co. Donegal to Bran Island has made room for a “precariously perched car”. According to photographer Frank Bodson, the whole caboodle “excited no interest” among those on-board. (Observer magazine, 1/9/74.)
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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
I’ve been baffled by Ridley Scott’s Napoleon ever since I watched it, but have just realised that if you think of it not as a historical epic, but as a reimagining of Raging Bull then it all makes perfect sense
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
UK must toughen regulation of facial recognition, says @adalovelaceinst.bsky.social on.ft.com/43lnQNL
on.ft.com
UK must toughen regulation of facial recognition, say AI experts
Campaigners call on Keir Starmer’s government to create clear laws to tackle growing use of the technology
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Simon Willison @simon.fedi.simonwillison.net.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2025
I started reading the 120 page Claude 4 System Card and found myself unable to put it down. If you're in the mood for some excellent science fiction (or you miss Person of Interest on CBS) I cannot recommend it enough. I made detailed notes on my highlights here […]
fedi.simonwillison.net
Original post on fedi.simonwillison.net
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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
Potentially great impact on hospital safety from an @raeng.org.uk Industrial Fellowship grant
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Jochen Brandt @jochenbrandt.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
The Department of Chemistry at Queen Mary University of London is looking to support applicants for the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Fellowship. For people <4 years post PhD at the deadline (17th September). #ChemSky See www.seresearch.qmul.ac.uk/ccr/news/496...
seresearch.qmul.ac.uk
Expression of Interest for Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Fellowship
The Department of Chemistry at Queen Mary University of London is looking to support applicants for the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Fellowship. These fellowships are for people who are less t...
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Dan Goodman @neural-reckoning.org · 17/03/2025
If you've finished your PhD in the last 4 years and your research could be considered as engineering, you might be interested in the RAEng research fellowship scheme which provides 5 years of funding to work in the UK. raeng.org.uk/research-fel...
raeng.org.uk
Research Fellowships
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
Intriguing report of the thinking of the Universities Minister www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05...
telegraph.co.uk
Universities have ‘lost sight of responsibility over public money’
Baroness Smith says institutions failing to rein in spending despite demanding financial support from government
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Alberto Comoretto @albertocomoretto.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Autonomous locomotion simply with tubes as limbs, and no brain? 🎈🤖 Yes, through physical synchronization! Our article is out today in Science (@science.org) Article: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Authors: @albertocomoretto.bsky.social, H.A.H. Schomaker, J.T.B. Overvelde More below 🧪 ⚛️ (1/6)
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Alexander Doria @dorialexander.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
New blogpost: "Training as we know it might end". It was originally a panorama of the new methods of synthetic generation but the stakes are now much higher and I openly wonder if model training is not soon going to change forever. vintagedata.org/blog/posts/t...
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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Very clear overview of repositioned U.K. government S&T framework by @sciencecampaign.bsky.social
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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.
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Gina C. Pieters, PhD @ginapieters.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Since there's a lot of discussion about #treasuries, bonds, and yields, I'm going to give a quick thread on what they are. ##EconSky
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Rob Nelson @ailogblog.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
The endless back and forth over AGI is getting stale. We need better ways to talk about what people should do when they use large AI models. @alisongopnik.bsky.social @himself.bsky.social @dsquareddigest.bsky.social offer that and more. On Beyond AGI! www.ailog.blog/p/on-beyond-...
ailog.blog
On Beyond AGI!
We need new language for talking about large AI models. Alison Gopnik, Henry Farrell, James Evans, Cosma Shalizi, and Dan Davies provide one.
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Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 12/03/2025
📢ANALYSIS: UK emissions fell 3.6% in 2024 to lowest since 1872 🏭Coal lowest since 1666, when Great Fire ravaged London 🚗EVs pushed oil down despite more traffic, saving £1.7bn 🌇Gas down on "cleanest ever" power 📈📉Since 1990, CO2 -54% / GDP +84% www.carbonbrief.org/... 1/9
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Paul Nightingale @paulnightingale.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
This is an important paper. There is a big debate on small firms and SME policy. One side think new start ups and entrepreneurs are the best thing since sliced bread. And we have more of them. The other side think there are big differences in the quality of start ups and most start ups are....
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Alex Coad @coad.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
📢 Important paper: 👇 Startup Types & Macroeconomic Performance in Europe De Haas, Sterk, Van Horen K-means clustering on data from 10 EU countries finds 5 types of firms: Basic (49% of all startups); Large (4%); Capital intensive (7%); Cash-intensive (26%); High-leverage (14%) 🧵
Distribution of startup type by country
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
IMPORTANT: Finland is building the world’s largest heat pump to warm homes in Helsinki. It would help decarbonize the city’s district heating system by end of 2026. “Helsinki has set the ambitious goal to become carbon neutral by 2030. Transitioning our heating system is crucial to achieving this.”
euronews.com
Finland is building a giant heat pump to cut CO2 from warming homes
The heat pump will be part of a plant that will warm around 30,000 homes in Finland’s capital city.
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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
This looks like a fantastic programme- putting the May 1st evening with Marina Warner in my calendar already
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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
Wow, the action statement is great! Thank you France for subtly focusing on what’s real. The previous AI Safety Summits were anti regulatory libertarian nonsense. This is about how we harness (intelligent) technology cooperatively to get through the present crises and flourish. #AIActionSummit #AGI
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Andrew Sissons @acjsissons.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Norway’s governing coalition has broken down over energy policy - in particular, over the issue of building more electricity inter-connectors to other countries (including Britain). I think this is quite an important political issue… (Thread) www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...
euronews.com
Norway finance minister blames EU energy rules for coalition collapse
Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre is left heading a minority government after coalition partner pulls out over EU market rules it says make it impossible to shield citizens from high electricit...
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Sarastro @financeguy.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
The past two days we seen something interesting in the European power market: continent wide balancing that is providing security of supply at the lowest prices driven by commercial incentives…
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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
As everyone's becoming an expert on Nvidia stock prices and moats and Jevons paradox, I've got a new Green Paper out on inclusive innovation, social capital, and technology diffusion - three things that literally no one is talking about! www.careful.industries/inclusive-in...
Green Paper
From Hype to Hope
How Networked
Neighbourhoods can make innovation work for everyone
-
Rachel Coldicutt OBE
January 2025
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 07/01/2025
"The fundamental problem, as I see it, is not that social media misinforms individuals about what is true or untrue but that it creates publics with malformed collective understandings." www.programmablemutter.com/p/were-getti...
programmablemutter.com
We're getting the social media crisis wrong
The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics
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POLITICO Europe @politico.eu · 22/01/2025
The EU’s upcoming industrial decarbonization strategy will revolve around six thematic “pillars” ranging from energy prices and workforce issues to recycling and trade.
politico.eu
EU’s Clean Industrial Deal to cover six themes from energy prices to trade
The contours of a mammoth industrial decarbonization strategy are taking shape ahead of its Feb. 26 unveiling.
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Giles Lane @gileslane.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
Back in October we held the @raeng.org.uk 2nd People's AI Stewardship Summit in Glasgow in partnership with @enterprisehub.raeng.org.uk Videos and a visual summary of the day can be found here: raeng.org.uk/policy-and-r...
raeng.org.uk
People's AI Stewardship Summit in Glasgow
The second People’s AI Stewardship Summit took place in Glasgow. This summit focused on exploring the themes of AI in healthcare and education.
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Prof Cath Noakes @cathnoakes.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Come and join the fabulous research and innovation team at @universityofleeds.bsky.social as Head of Research Development. They’re a great team and if that wasn’t enough you even get to work with me 😁 jobs.leeds.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk
Job Opportunity at University of Leeds: Head of Research Development
Interviews are expected to be held week commencing 24 February 2025This role will be based on the university campus. We are open to discussing flexible working arrangements.Would you like to support w...
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Limor Zwi-Dantsis, PhD @limor-zwi-dantsis.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
🎓🚀 Exciting Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunity! The RAEng UK IC Fellowships support early-career researchers in science or engineering to conduct unclassified research with up to £250k funding. 🗓 Deadline: 29 April 2025 💡 Start your application now! Visit: raeng.org.uk/ukicpostdoc
raeng.org.uk
UK IC Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
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Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
Francis Bacon on Columbo:
A page from Francis Bacon's essay, "On Cunning." The highlighted portion reads, "I knew another that, when he came to have speech, he would pass over that that he intended most; and go forth and come back again, and speak of it as a thing that he had almost forgot."
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Juergen Maier CBE @juergenmaier.co.uk · 02/01/2025
This is truly positive news to start the new year. 58% of energy generated from renewable sources in 2024. We now truly have the wind behind us to keep accelerating the pace and trend 😀 Looking forward to working with many of you on doing just that! www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
UK electricity cleanest ever in 2024, with record 58% from low-carbon sources
UK has more than halved amount of electricity generated from fossil fuels but gas still had largest share at 28%
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Prof Rachel Oliver @profrachelgan.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
From my perspective in the semiconductor sector, I know that Thatcher's thinking around investing in close-to-market R&D profoundly influenced the UK's trajectory. Some of the thinking here (and at the Tony Blair Insitute) resonates with my thinking about the (stalled?) semiconductor strategy.
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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
I find this v interesting - a UK ARIA project to establish tipping point monitoring - and would like to understand the underlying theory of change, because *looks out of the window* *reads the news* one does not have to be a foresighting genius to gather that points are tipping all over the place
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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
Reading a collection of Richard Hamming’s lectures and loved this explanation of the difference between science and engineering, a) because it’s pithy and b) because it makes ethics a fundamental element of what it means to be an engineer.
Quote from the first chapter of The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to learn by Richard W Hamming. It reads: 
In science, if you know what you are doing, you should not be doing it.
In engineering, if you do not know what you are doing, you should not be doing it.
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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
This lucid explanation of gen AI from the Financial Times is really enhanced by some stunning visual storytelling
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Nancy Hey @worklifeyou.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
PhD opportunity in climate & disaster risk and resilience with UCL & NERC & Lloyds Register Foundation (and me) unrisk-cdt.ac.uk/projects/
unrisk-cdt.ac.uk
Research Opportunities – Understanding Uncertainty to Reduce Climate Risks
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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
Absolutely astonished at being awarded an MBE for services to Digital Humanities. I’ve no idea who nominated me - great to see #digitalhumanities supported in this context! It will take a moment for this to sink in! Also if the King gives you an MBE for DH, does that mean it’s a real subject? 😊💃👩‍💻📜
theedinburghreporter.co.uk
New Year Honours List recognises culture, education and sport
In this year’s New Year Honours, painter and printmaker, Barbara Rae, CBE, RA, receives a damehood, and others involved in the fields of sport, education and public service in Edinburgh are also honou...
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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
Late to this pretty exhilarating blast from @basharnuseibeh.bsky.social calling on software engineers to live up to their responsibilities as designers and architects of the socio-technical spaces that we all inhabit
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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
This is enticing- the library at the Institute of Making is an Aladdin’s cave and some lucky person will get the job of playing with it
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Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon FREng PFHEA (she/her) @erfmon72.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
I’m deeply protective of international students & of the UK HE sector, so I've written an article for @hepi-news.bsky.social to address myths & set the record straight. #weareinternational #InternationalEducation #UKHE www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/12/02/i...
hepi.ac.uk
In defence of international education  - HEPI
Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon FREng PFHEA is the Provost and Chief Academic Officer of international education provider Study Group. When I first travelled to the UK from my home in Mexico as a pos...
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