Mobility Really Matters

The Imperfect University: Staff getting on their bikes (an updated version of a post from a while back) One of the things professional services colleagues sometimes complain about is that whereas  academic staff can be promoted in post - and indeed can progress all the way from lecturer to professor in the same academic department …

Times and Sunday Times 2015 University League Table Top Placings

The Times and Sunday Times League Table 2015 A quick look at the top 25 in the all new Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide ranking for 2015. Full details can be found on the Sunday Times website (£). (Last year's position in brackets.) 1= (1) Cambridge 1= (2) Oxford 3 (4) St Andrews 4 (5) Imperial …

The Imperfect University: Truly Transnational

There is something close to a genuinely international university Last year Andrew Stewart Coats, commenting on his appointment and the interesting plans for the new partnership between Warwick and Monash Universities, asserted that in higher education: there has been little or no globalization in how we organize ourselves; no global entity runs viable universities in …

The Imperfect University: Mobility Matters

The Imperfect University: Staff getting on their bikes One of the things professional services colleagues sometimes complain about is that whereas  academic staff can be promoted in post - and indeed can progress all the way from lecturer to professor in the same academic department - they can't. Instead to advance their careers administrators have …

Shanghai Jiao Tong World League Table: Subject Rankings 2010

SJTU Subject Rankings 2010 In addition to its overall rankings and Field rankings, SJTU has also developed subject rankings in a small number of disciplines: Mathematics Physics Chemistry Computer Science Economics and Business Some UK universities which don't appear in the global Top 100 do rather well in here. For example: Durham and Liverpool are …

Research universities should consider merging

Research universities should "consider merging" According to a report of a speech by Nigel Thrift, vice-chancellor of Warwick: The top 30 could merge, either with each other or with big American universities, and contemplate bringing in more private providers or collaborate together more formally. Foreign merger or takeover might solve chronic university underfunding, he said, …

More on Departmental Headship (as or versus Stalinism)

Following up an earlier post on this topic (with thanks to John Dale and the author for the prompt): Nice post in which Mark Harrison draws on substantial knowledge and experience to compare and contrast Stalin's Soviet Union with his reign as Head of Department: The big difference was this: I had no barbed wire. …