Management and governance

As the season of goodwill comes around again, warm words about collegiality and fellowship have been dutifully corralled into all-staff missives from university leaders. But in an era of management, metrics and industrial unrest, does the image of the academy as a commonwealth of scholars still bear scrutiny? Seven academics have their say 

23 December

A push to end the habit of assessing researchers by their publication metrics is gaining momentum. But are journal impact factors really as meaningless as is claimed? And will requiring scientists to describe their various contributions really improve fairness and rigour – or just bureaucracy? Jack Grove reports

9 December

When the current generation of university leaders applied for their posts, none of the job descriptions mentioned Covid-19. So how have they found the past 18 months? And what about the future, economic, political and environmental? We asked 180 leaders from around the globe. Paul Jump reports

28 October