A Freedom of Information request from the University and College Union reveals a reluctance by universities to share information about their use of teaching staff on hourly contracts Casual staff have always played an important role in university teaching. Many graduate students and postdocs supplement their income by delivering lectures and tutorials, gaining valuable experience...Read More

Opinion piece by Dorothy Bishop* As Fergus Millar noted in a letter to the Times last year, ‘in the modern British university, it is not that funding is sought in order to carry out research, but that research projects are formulated in order to get funding.’ This topsy-turvy logic has become evident in some universities, with...Read More

Opinion piece by Dorothy Bishop, 13 November 2014 Universities have become obsessed with competition: it is no longer enough to do well; you have to demonstrate you are better than the rest. And to do that, you need some kind of metric. Organisations have grown up to meet this need, and to produce league tables...Read More