Opinion

ATEC must work to ensure that under-represented groups aren’t cut adrift from the knowledge economy just as it moves up a gear, says Shamit Saggar

As universities in both the UK and Australia fight to protect vital international recruitment, there is also a need for fresh thinking for future prosperity

Embracing multiple measures of career ‘success’ can move us beyond tiresome debates and put students’ needs first, says Tom Coward

Our responsibility is to keep everyone safe and avoid the situation escalating into aggravated trespass or threats of violence, says George Bass

Those of us who stay on post-study give far more to our adopted country than we have been able to give to our home nations, says Elena Rodriguez-Falcon

Identity politics’ 1960s progenitors had a level of nuance and erudition that today’s EDI activists would do well to emulate, says Martin Levy

The troubled excellence initiative has approved only one new institution since 2020. Has the government lost interest, asks an observer

Whether targets of sexualised attention or audience members, students lack power to divert harmful classroom dynamics, says Mary Peterson

Who wants to be heckled in their workplace by people who think they are entitled to define the parameters of your faith for you, asks Joseph Mintz

The Edinburgh protests underline the need for meaningful ways for students, staff and community to govern the university together, says Kevin Donovan

Students already graduate with huge debts. Rather than accepting yet more easy credit, they should do more paid work, says Paul Wiltshire

Universities are crying out for consistency, something resembling certainty and a plan for the way forward, says Graham Galbraith

Listening to students and engaging activist donors in university affairs in more constructive ways would both help, says Richard Joseph

Despite claims of political appointments, no party seems to want to make interference in universities an election issue, says Mukhtar Ahmad

The likes of Google are being undermined by both AI and their own commercial imperatives. Researchers can no longer rely on them, says Andy Farnell

Western business practice is not universal, so why are studies from elsewhere so rare in the literature, asks Yuliya Snihur  

Intimidation of longstanding civic institutions belies a traditional conservative emphasis on small government and free speech, says Andrew Seligsohn

International student fees are propping up UK universities, but with immigration a key electoral battleground politicians seem not to care

Staff fear not only for their own research time but also for students’ long-term retention of information, says a De Montfort academic

Critics’ claim that research on British policy in Northern Ireland will be influenced by ministers is incorrect, says Ian McBride

The final report’s scant recommendations and mooted interventions are uninspiring, unhelpful and, at times, alarming, says Michael Wesley

The digital revolution is creating a sense of always being watched and judged in both teaching and research, say Chavan Kissoon and Terence Karran

The BJP’s ideological pressure is causing religion and politics to intrude into academia, risking a disastrous brain drain, says Eldho Mathews

Graduates who can’t think critically without electronic assistance will be at a distinct disadvantage in the workplace, says Loïc Plé 

The government should help universities diversify their source countries as it works towards a fix for domestic student funding, says Connor Horsfall

Making people paranoid about employing familiar and useful words is not the way to encourage responsible AI use, say Lilian Schofield and Xue Zhou 

The unprecedented pressure on presidents from donors and pressure groups renders them unable to defend their students, says Harvey Graff

Gendering and decolonising curricula requires a nuanced consideration of learners’ diverse perspectives and cultural contexts, says Heather Jeffrey

New legislation opens the way for quality-focused branches to drive up standards across a traditionally public HE sector, says Ianis Matsoukas

My government-commissioned review is seeking examples of barriers to research on sex and gender faced by UK-based individuals, says Alice Sullivan

Young people are leaving the country in droves yet no political party is committed to reforming higher education, says Asghar Zaidi

These initiatives don’t demand extra funding, undervalue publisher input or create institutional or disciplinary divides, say Anthony Cond and Jane Bunker

Digital transformation is inevitable, but as a Times Higher Education gathering heard, getting it right is complex and fraught with challenges

We must rethink higher education’s intellectual mission in terms that transcend Manichaean critiques of the neoliberal university, says Nicholas Dirks

Overseas students’ respect for learning helps restore some of the authority that consumerism has stripped from UK academics, says Rania Hafez

Perhaps we need, instead, a specific tribunal to investigate and hear the most serious allegations, says Guy Micklewright 

The problem is very real, but it would be more effective to invest in creating an institutional culture of responsibility and accountability, says Jim Nicell 

While well intentioned, reserving positions for under-represented groups only takes us further away from the colour-blind ideal, says an academic

The humanities- and social sciences-focused institution is the canary in UK higher education’s increasingly explosive coalmine, says Sir Keith Burnett

I realised that I was sacrificing my best years – and those of my child – for a dream that did not have my back. So I quit, says Helen Lees

Simplistic analyses belie the complex evolution of students, instruction, reading practices, college regulations and communications media, says Harvey Graff

The broad approach taken by the OfS’ guidance on free speech will safeguard orthodoxy-challenging work, say Abhishek Saha and Ian Pace

Boosting your publication metrics need not come at the expense of your integrity if you bear in mind these 10 tips, says Adrian Furnham

Students see benefits to paid work beyond the money, but they would welcome help in advocating for better pay and conditions, say six academics

Thirty years ago this month, apartheid’s opponents declared victory and signed out. Yet racist legacies persist to this day, says Noam Schimmel

University managers must be committed to cultivating a compassionate culture and building trust in the workplace, says Andrew Woon

Timeliness and rigour are vital, but the publishing and incentives systems are not set up to deliver them, says Meron Wondemaghen

A lack of long-term, sustainable policymaking is crippling universities, and the same mistakes are afflicting those involved in teacher education

The regulator’s example scenarios fail to acknowledge the harm that even lawful speech can cause on campus, say Naomi Waltham-Smith and James Murray

Extra costs linked to proposed new Research Excellence Framework rules could send art history departments to the wall, warns Francesca Berry

India’s surge in patent applications and awards resembles China’s pathway towards becoming a knowledge economy, says Pushkar

Proposed changes to how scholars publish show little awareness of how they will profoundly reshape academic life, says David Lund

Higher education might not be doorstep issue for voters but the importance of universities in tackling the world’s biggest problems has never been higher, argue Amanda Broderick and Patrizio Bianchi

Knowledge is commodified by the prioritisation of economic imperatives over social and democratic goals in educational policymaking, says Zahid Naz

Inflated marks, overworked staff and politically compromised courses are the price of exploiting offshore UK-registered students, says Michael Day

Generative AI firms should stop ripping off publishers and instead work with them to enrich scholarship, says Oxford University Press’ David Clark

What other industry would deem those with so much prior training to still be mere trainees? Let’s call them what they are – researchers, says Michele Nardin

Extending England’s proposed threshold for legal recourse would encourage universities to adopt delaying tactics, says Abhishek Saha

Universities are in a funding cul-de-sac, blocked in by negative rhetoric about their role and value. Will a likely change of government provide a way out?

Management teams and boards need a shared overview of the data and technology that underpin key university processes, says Karen O’Brien