Opinion

Constant rejections for academic jobs took a bigger emotional toll than anything they encountered during their PhDs, says Michelle de Souza

Most presidents don’t get fired, and those who do typically go on to rewarding new positions, says Holden Thorp

When and how a leader’s tenure comes to an end can be down to many factors – what lessons can be learned from others who have served their time?

An image of massed ranks of anatomy faculty giving the Nazi salute is a reminder that academics are not immune to extremism, says Jonathan Leo 

Senior faculty are trying to prove their worth by making the lives of others so unpleasant that they agree to leave. It is time to call them out, says Aymen Idris

In the absence of domestic fee hikes and full-cost grants, world-class facilities will help maintain international student flows, says Ian Walmsley

T levels are an alternative to A levels, not to level 1-3 vocational courses. Students need both options, says Sam Parrett

No policy initiative within research-intensive universities can be sustainable without researchers perceiving clear added value, says Sari Lindblom

EDI claims should be treated with the same curiosity and scepticism as anything else in academic life, says Maximilian Werner

Incanting managerial buzzwords in response to a handful of free comments is not a strategy for improvement, says an anonymous academic

The lost golden age of hiring and wider social appreciation of the disciplines never existed, says Harvey Graff

States, which all need a well-trained workforce to thrive, must contribute more to reducing the cost of public higher education, says Nancy Zimpher

With the right policies in place, the university can repeat the past 25 years’ economic return within the next decade, says Anthony Freeling

The exascale machine referenced in the budget will be expensive, but the price of strategic missteps is higher, say Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield

Universities need guidance on providing voter registration opportunities and using work-study funds for civic engagement, says Mike Burns

Higher education leaders are often reluctant to enter the political realm, but now this prudence carries the stench of cowardice, says Michael Roth

Trying to forecast the future of higher education tends to leave heads spinning, but new analysis from the OECD’s data guru brings some trends into focus

Grading fills students with anxiety and academics with guilt. It is the enemy of real education. Time for a rebellion, says Andy Farnell

Telling precariously employed literature scholars to just hang in there doesn’t cut it in a job market as bad as today’s, says Chris Townsend

Belated moves to mitigate precarity are welcome but may come too late for one scholar exhausted by insecurity

Forcing teaching-focused academics to produce 3* research is like asking a world-class cricket bowler to focus on batting, says a research director

It would be extraordinary if the UK chose to switch to Plan B at the very moment the main obstacle to Plan A was being removed, says Joanna Burton

We need to find mechanisms to plug in relevant humanities and social sciences from the very beginning of projects, says Christina Boswell

Although some institutions spoke out during China's crackdown on the ‘white paper’ protests, others did not, notes Shaun O’Dwyer

It makes no sense for the country’s new wave of medical schools to be permitted to cater only for overseas students, says Juliet Wright

Vice-chancellors must challenge populist ideas around who belongs to the nation and whether equity goals can end at its borders, says Srila Roy

The pan-continental alliances face many issues, but Erasmus took three decades to attain its present success, says Anthony Forster 

The regulator’s published approach to enforcement lacks basic safeguards around transparency, fairness and accountability, says Smita Jamdar 

Students often have no choice but to include professors who have had no input into papers as co-authors, says Roohola Ramezani

Why should any faculty member have to make a political statement to be given a grant or job, asks Samuel Abrams

Retrofitting traditional assessment methods with more accessible and inclusive overlays is not the right way to go, says Katie Stripe

Sustainability-linked loans allow universities to make savings for fulfilling climate targets. So why are they so rare in HE, asks Geoffrey McGinley

A consensus has emerged on changes that would make the second half of the multi-national programme even more successful, says Jan Palmowski

A funding clawback provoked fury from UK scientists, but now all eyes are on a political breakthrough that could reopen the door to Horizon Europe

Students need to know the broad outlines of global imperial history if they are to judge claims for themselves. But, typically, they don’t, says Ian Pace

Mechanisms to determine university leaders’ salaries are opaque and unreliable. We need more meaningful metrics, says Adrian Furnham

We have a duty to teach the next generation of business leaders about inclusivity, sustainability and corporate responsibility, say Erika H. James and Ilian Mihov

The honours system has too narrow a scope and too few grades. Why not embrace the Hear and the GCSE scale, asks Zahir Irani

The disruption and destruction, on top of concerns about quality, could turn off the international student tap, says Ararat Osipian

Disappointing results from pilot scheme indicate a focus on 10-credit modules, rather than 30-credit courses, is the way forward, says Annabel Kiernan

Developed techniques to create virtual field trips are proving a boon to students’ education and morale, say Simon Hutchinson and Nataliia Popovych

Intense feelings of academic inadequacy and alienation can drive first-in-family students to self-destructive behaviour and thoughts of dropping out, reflects Malik Johnson on his difficult journey from the Baltimore projects to an elite private college

Forcing undergraduates to use AI chatbots as a learning tool will help students and educators, argues Dan Sarofian-Butin

In the week his sister should have graduated in Kabul as a doctor, PhD student Naimat Zafary describes the reality for Afghan women denied their degrees

While corporations and universities bowed to pressure to ban controversial BBC documentary, students showed freedom of speech and critical enquiry still matter in India, says Mukhtar Ahmad

AI-written essays have exposed the unambitious and unoriginal thinking that universities require from undergraduates, says James Warren

The UK prime minister has invested political capital in science and innovation. It is vital that it is not wasted on ill-considered populist ideas about research

Hopes that a new regulator would bring light-touch, proportionate regulation in England have been dashed, says Iain Mansfield

Ron DeSantis’ appointment of political operators as trustees risks compromising universities’ pursuit of the truth, says Richard Joseph 

Students want to understand the complexities of their own relationships, and the philosophy of love has set its heart on doing so, says Luke Brunning

Limiting international student numbers or cutting post-study work eligibility is not the way to become a science superpower, says Max Lu

Despite policy pushes, joint degrees remain a regulatory maze. The new European Degree might be the solution, says Kurt Willems

Spread among more than 100 institutions, an extra £50 million for hardship funds is a drop in the ocean, says Karen Cox

Obliging everyone to undertake post-publication review would aid discoverability in a world without traditional journals, says Robert de Vries

More support and less complex regulation will allow the hybrid qualifications to flourish across more English institutions and sectors, says Dan Lally

The ‘sector’ may be able to afford more than the current offer, but many individual universities cannot, says Peter Sloane

Evidence suggests that honesty pledges make cheating less pronounced than it otherwise would be, say Thomas Gift and Julie Norman

Better alignment of pay and benefits, working cultures and expectations will clear the way for research to have impact, say nine Future Leaders fellows

Rishi Sunak's plan for mathematics to age 18 would come too late to save many university departments, says Ulrike Tillmann

Overheated buildings, meat-heavy menus and solar-panel-free roofs are not a good example, say Karin Bodewits and Philipp Gramlich