Ben Upton
TimesHigherEducation
Slovenia
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Past articles by Ben:
‘Significant declines’ for US and UK in academic freedom ranking
Drops in campus integrity and freedoms to research and teach leave academic powerhouses sitting below Bosnia and Benin in global rankings → Read More
‘Keep academics without people skills away’ from PhD supervision
European universities outline blueprint to improve doctoral training but acknowledge some professors can’t or won’t change their ways → Read More
Campaigning doctoral candidate resigns from ‘hostile environment’
Maria Toft sparked national conversation about exploitation with #pleasedontstealmywork campaign, but she says it came at the cost of her Copenhagen fellowship → Read More
German university set to drop Kaiser name after review
Westphalian Wilhelms University Münster set to become the University of Münster → Read More
Is Europe seeing the massification of the doctorate?
Vocational institutions are winning the right to award PhDs, while professional doctorates are also expanding. But how compatible are academic and vocational focuses in research degree provision – and how easily can status disparities be overcome, asks Ben Upton → Read More
Netherlands plots cautious return to degree admission lotteries
The decision to allow organised luck back into student selection sits awkwardly between politics and science → Read More
University ‘will never pay ransoms’ despite darknet data leak
Duisburg-Essen has had to rebuild entire IT infrastructure and postpone admissions deadlines, although teaching and exams are able to continue → Read More
Russian student ‘shopped by classmates’ over anti-war posts
Involvement of university staff in prosecution of Olesya Krivtsova a major cause for concern, observers say → Read More
Utrecht short-haul flight ban ‘will cut carbon by 15 per cent’
Staff will need express permission to fly less than 700km, but subsidies for higher train fees are also being scrapped → Read More
ERC evaluation overhaul focuses on proposals over track record
Tweaks to assessment processes are designed to broaden assessment and mollify disciplines that felt disadvantaged → Read More
New Danish government keeps ‘harmful master’s experiment’
Broader coalition arrives without answers on a missing DKr300 million for humanities and social sciences, as universities prepare to debate lifelong learning reforms with a “gun pointed at us” → Read More
Ministers ‘resolute’ on right to sue universities on free speech
Westminster government signals it will seek to reinstate ‘statutory tort’ removed by peers → Read More
Dutch helpline for harassed academics gets first reports
Central reporting depersonalises attacks and helps police spot patterns, according to prominent vaccine scholar who has faced threats → Read More
UK universities ‘systematically underpaying staff for years’
Sector leaders acknowledge long-term problems with pay and say now is the time to resolve them after union promises strikes → Read More
Germans enjoy ‘ground-breaking’ budgets despite bleak outlook
Consensus with regions and reversals by parliament’s budget committee help keep coalition promises → Read More
EU countries back down over ‘bizarre’ cuts to Horizon budget
But lead negotiator for parliament’s research committee said refusal to plough more unspent funds back into programme ‘cannot stand’ → Read More
Norway jails researcher who let Iranians use microscope
Afrooz Barnoush may have aided Iran’s nuclear weapons programme with unauthorised access, but his sentence was softened due to ‘deficient’ university routines → Read More
Hiring freezes and layoffs as inflation hits central Europe
Ministries and rectors in Austria and Slovakia are yet to reach agreements on the extra funding needed to cover surging costs → Read More
Scale of gender-based violence on European campuses ‘terrifying’
First results of landmark survey of 42,186 employees and students released → Read More
Global network formed to combat contract cheating
Members hope closer cooperation will help disrupt innovative multinational fraudsters that target and blackmail vulnerable students → Read More