Deschiderea OFICIALĂ a Grădiniței și Școlii Primare JUNIOR a Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași

 Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” – UAIC din Iasi a derulat un eveniment important • Totul este legat de momentul deschiderii noului an scolar la Scoala Junior a institutiei

Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” (UAIC) din Iasi a derulat un eveniment important. Totul este legat de momentul deschiderii noului an scolar la Scoala Junior a institutiei. La eveniment au participat, printre altii, lect. univ. dr. Bogdan Constantin Neculau, Director al Departamentului de Invatamant Preuniversitar de la „Cuza”, prof. univ. dr. Lucia Cifor – prorector pentru programe de licenta si activitati de formare a personalului didactic de la „Cuza”, decanul Facultatii de Teologie Ortodoxa, prof. univ. dr. pr. Ion Vicovan sau directorul Scolii si Gradinitei Junior, Liliana Minea, profesor pentru învatamânt primar.

„Este un moment sensibil pentru noi toti. Este clipa legata de cei mai mici si frumosi membri ai comunitatii noastre. Este esential pentru Universitatea „Cuza” sa acorde atentie, fonduri si energie catre aceasta fundamentala zona educationala”, a transmis, in esenta, lect. univ. dr. Bogdan Constantin Neculau.

Scoala Junior functioneaza ca Departament în cadrul Universitatii „Cuza”. Este vorba despre prima scoala cu clasele I-IV din România, care functioneaza în cadrul unei universitati. A fost inaugurata la 17 septembrie 2007. Dotata modern si adecvat, Scoala Junior asigura educatia unui numar de 90 de elevi, repartizati în cinci clase. Pe viitor, institutia de invatamant superior intentioneaza sa ajunga inclusiv la nivelul de liceu.

Publicație: Bună Ziua Iași

Rectorul de la „Cuza“ deschide un nou front: revendică de la Agronomie cantina din Târguşor

 

Un proces cu miză uriaşă pentru comunitatea academică a început zilele trecute, la Iaşi. Universitatea „Al.I. Cuza“ a dat în judecată USAMV pentru a prelua cantina din Târguşor, unitate aflată acum în administrarea ultimei instituţii. Oficialii de la „Cuza“ invocă documente din perioada comunistă, care ar demonstra dreptul lor de proprietate asupra clădirii de peste 1.000 mp şi terenului de 3.000 mp. În replică, reprezentanţii Universităţii Agronomice spun că dreptul de adminstrare a cantinei le-a fost conferit legal, după ce au fost deposedaţi de comunişti de o altă cantină. Ministerul de resort va deveni, în perioada următoare, parte în proces. Cererea Universităţii „Cuza“, semnată de rectorul Tudorel Toader, vine după o alta la fel de surprinzătoare: evacuarea Politehnicii ieşene din Corpul A al clădirii Universităţii din Copou. Atunci, rectorul a fost acuzat că îşi face, în acest mod controversat, campanie pentru un nou mandat de rector.

Cantina din Târguşor Copou este administrată de USAMV din 1985 şi deserveşte zilnic, în perioada universitară, între 800 şi 1.000 de persoane. Admi­nistrată în prezent de USAMV, cantina este revendicată de către UAIC, într-un proces care a început acum câteva zile. Şefii celei mai vechi universităţi din ţară susţin că ei ar fi proprietarii de facto ai imobilului, cu terenul aferent, invocând, potrivit unor surse judiciare, o serie de documente emise în perioada comunistă.

La finele săptămânii trecute, la Tribunalul Iaşi, a avut loc primul termen de judecată al procesului dintre cele două universităţi. Va fi, cel mai probabil, un litigiu de lungă durată, mai ales că judecătorul de caz a decis ca în cauză să fie introdus şi Ministerul Educaţiei Naţionale.

Istoricul cantinei

Cantina din Târguşor a fost construită de comunişti în anii ’60, după ce regimul opresiv a expropriat un proprietar din zonă. Comitetul executiv de la Sfatul Popular a emis la acea vreme, pe numele UAIC, autorizaţia de construire a cantinei, dar şi a trei cămine studenţeşti. Acest aspect este invocat, potrivit unor surse, inclusiv de UAIC, în actele depuse la instanţă.

„Cuza“ foloseşte acea cantină până în 1985, când comuniştii decid să facă un schimb. Iau cantina pe care Institutul Agronomic o avea la acea vreme, cea de la Liceul Pedagogic, şi o predau acestei instituţii de învăţământ. În schimb, agronomii primesc dreptul de administrare a cantinei din Târguşor.

În procesul deschis acum, reprezentanţii contestă acel transfer, invocând inexistenţa unui ordin de ministru prin care să se decidă trecerea cantinei de la precursoarele UAIC, respectiv USAMV. Rectorul UAIC, Tudorel Toader, a explicat demersul, într-un răspuns oferit „Ziarului de Iaşi“: „Cantina din Copou a fost proiectată şi construită pentru UAIC, care a folosit-o până în 1985. Nu cunosc motivele pentru care, în 1985, UAIC a predat către USAMV respectiva cantină, pe baza unui protocol. Cantina este a UAIC, din punct de vedere juridic. După finalizarea procesului, cantina va reintra în patrimoniul UAIC şi îi vom păstra aceeaşi destinaţie“.

Ce spune rectorul USAMV

În 2009, USAMV a intabulat dreptul de administrare al cantinei, proprietar fiind statul român, prin Ministerul Educaţiei. Actul de intabulare nu a fost contestat de reprezentanţii de atunci ai UAIC.

Vasile Vântu, rectorul USAMV, ne-a precizat că eventuala pierdere a procesului ar putea avea efecte importante asupra studenţilor agronomi. „Cantina este în primul rând pentru studenţi, şi apoi pentru personalul angajat. Universitatea are nevoie, ca orice instituţie de învăţământ care prestează servicii pentru tineri, şi de o locaţie în care să se servească masa. Avem cantina din 1985, preluată printr-un proces verbal semnat de conducerile celor două universităţi. Noi dorim să asigurăm toate condiţiile pentru stu­denţi, însă, cu siguranţă, ne vom conforma deciziei instanţei, oricare va fi aceasta“, ne-a spus Vasile Vântu. „UAIC nu este proprietar al acestei cantine pentru a emite pretenţii privind revendicarea acestui imobil. De asemenea, trebuie ştiut că USAMV şi-a intabulat dreptul de administrare încă din anul 2009. Atât terenul, cât şi cantina fac parte din domeniul public al Statului Român, fiind înscrise în cartea funciara a UAT Iaşi. Dacă, prin absurd, s-ar admite o astfel de actiune, USAMV nu ar mai putea să faciliteze studenţilor săi hrană acestora în regim subvenţionat de stat”, ne-a explicat şi Liviu Bran, avocatul USAMV în această speţă.

Publicație: Ziarul de Iași

 

Data breach may affect 50,000 Australian university students using ‘Get’ app

Students using events app Get, previously known as Qnect, may have had their personal data exposed online

The personal details of an estimated 50,000 students involved in university clubs and societies around Australia may have been exposed online, in the second breach of its kind for the company holding the data.

Get, previously known as Qnect, is an app built for university societies and clubs to facilitate payments for events and merchandise. The app operates in four countries with 159,000 active student users, and 453 clubs using it.

A user on Reddit reported over the weekend that after looking up their own club they were able to get access to other users’ data, including name, email, date of birth, Facebook ID and phone numbers, through the company’s search function, API.

They said they were able to send requests for data without special tokens provided for legitimate access to the service, meaning anyone could request the information.

In response on Sunday, Get posted on its website that it had made a change to prevent that happening and had begun telling organisations about the potential breach.

The company said it was reviewing the API calls to see what data might have been accessed.

“If we become aware of any specific information which has been compromised we will notify the organisations, their members and report a breach,” the company said. “No personal payment information is stored in Get’s databases and payments are processed by a secure third-party payment processor, responsible for many of the world’s online transactions.”

Guardian Australia has attempted to contact Get about the breach.

The user who found the breach told Guardian Australia in a message over Reddit that they had decided to remain anonymous in case Get had a negative response to the finding, but had tried several times to contact the company.

“I’ve reached out to Get around six times over the weekend, but haven’t heard back. I did read their response, but it’s sadly a non-response,” they said.

“Locking the service down is definitely a good first step, but there is no genie back in the bottle (the oldest dataset I saw was 16 months old), and that data is already out in the wild – the least they can do is let people know what was released so that people can take steps to protect themselves.”

Get rebranded last year following a data breach that resulted in members of societies and clubs using the platform being threatened with having their data released by a hacking group, unless then-Qnect paid the hackers in bitcoin.

Co-founder Daniel Liang said at the time that media had blown up in the incident, and the company had been “very transparent”.

“When you’re talking about students’ data and payments, it’s a sensitive thing. We always kept our community up to date, we were very transparent and very clear with them,” he said.

A spokesperson for the office of the Australian information commissioner – who companies must inform about data breaches – did not confirm whether or not Get had reported the breach.

“We’re aware of the reports about a potential data breach involving Get. While we can’t comment on the specifics, we would expect any organisation to act quickly to contain a data breach involving personal information and assess the potential impact on those affected,” the spokesperson said.

Publicație: The Guardian

New Zealand’s vice-chancellors are also walking a tightrope over China

Recent clashes over Hong Kong and Tiananmen Square have strained universities’ diplomatic sinews, says Roger Smyth

We have heard a lot of concerns expressed recently about Australia’s reliance on Chinese students. A recent analysis by a University of Sydney sociologist revealed that 11 per cent of students in Australia are from China, with some universities relying on Chinese students for very high proportions of their revenue – in two cases, more than 20 per cent. An analysis of the latest university annual reports by Times Higher Education revealed that even these figures may be understated.

But neighbouring New Zealand’s exposure is almost as great, with 8 per cent of its students hailing from China. Chinese students represented 47 per cent of all international students in New Zealand’s university system in 2018; no other country contributed more than 8 per cent.

Fees from international students represent a high proportion of New Zealand universities’ revenue: more than 10 per cent across the system. But, as in Australia, there is mounting concern about the possible effects on this revenue stream of the China/US trade war and the falling value of the yuan, in the context of Western anxiety about growing Chinese economic and political power. Souring the relationships with Chinese authorities carries high risk for universities; they need to tread carefully.

Just how carefully was shown in New Zealand as the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square approached in June. A commemoration was to take place on the campus of the Auckland University of Technology (AUT), the New Zealand institution most reliant on international student income (deriving more than 20 per cent of its total revenue from that source in 2018).

This led the Chinese consul-general, Xiao Yewen, to ask the AUT vice-chancellor, Derek McCormack, to cancel the event. Now, it wasn’t an AUT-sponsored event, but the organisers included an AUT staff member, who had booked a room in a university building. The consul-general’s request placed McCormack in a difficult position – how to appease an irate diplomat without appearing to endorse the Chinese government’s view of a shocking event.

Fortunately for AUT, McCormack found a tightrope to walk. The event was scheduled for a public holiday, when the building would be locked. The booking was cancelled – and the organisers found a non-university venue for their event. In his delicately worded email to the consul-general, McCormack explained that the room had not been “booked correctly or paid for” by the organisers and that the event had been scheduled for a day when the building was closed.

“Happily,” he continued, “on this instance, your concerns and ours coincided and the event did not proceed at the University.” He then went on to reiterate AUT’s unwavering commitment to academic freedom, while noting that AUT “has no wish to deliberately offend the government and the people of China”.

More recently, controversy arose across the road from AUT, on the campus of the University of Auckland. Supporters of the Hong Kong democracy protesters started a Lennon wall at the university – a noticeboard covered with notes supporting the protests. This drew the ire of international students who supported the Chinese government position on Hong Kong. They defaced the Lennon wall, placed Chinese flags on it and eventually took it down.

That happened twice. The supporters of the protests created the Lennon wall a third time and stood guard over it. A group of Chinese students appeared and an acrimonious stand-off eventuated, captured on video. Losing his temper, one of the patriotic students pushed the leader of the protest supporter group, Serena Lee, a postgraduate student who is a New Zealand citizen but is from Hong Kong. Lee fell to the ground.

When the video went viral, the consul-general again waded in, criticising media reporting of the clash and praising the Chinese students’ “spontaneous patriotism”.

That led the New Zealand government to intervene – but carefully, walking a tightrope. Foreign ministry officials called in Chinese diplomats, asking them to respect New Zealand’s tradition of freedom of expression – including on university campuses. The Chinese officials retorted that their actions had been “beyond reproach”. They suggested that officials “take off their tinted glasses”.

Meanwhile, the university reported that they had conducted a disciplinary investigation into Lee’s complaint of assault, but they declined to release the outcome other than to assert that “appropriate disciplinary action” had been taken – leading to speculation that the university, too, had borrowed the tightrope.

China is New Zealand’s biggest trading partner. In the year to July 2019, China took nearly 11 per cent of its merchandise exports, compared with 8 per cent for the next highest country, Australia. The imports story is similar – China is number one, supplying 9 per cent, with Australia second on 5 per cent. Moreover, with increases in fees for domestic students controlled by the government and most public funding streams constrained, international students represent the most significant source of potential income growth for New Zealand’s universities. They will need Chinese international students more and more.

Yet, echoing the recent University of Sydney paper, New Zealand’s Tertiary Education Union (TEU) has expressed concern that universities could experience damaging falls in enrolments because of factors such as currency fluctuations, epidemics and economic conditions. Writing on the TEU’s website, Andrew Geddis, professor of law at the University of Otago, argues that this financial dependence on one country creates “an insidious issue: the impact of funding pressures and funder desires on academic freedom”. He added that “the threat to withdraw funding can generate an academic version of Murphy’s golden rule: whoever has the gold, makes the rules”.

Overuse could make the diplomatic tightrope rather threadbare as the next decade unfolds. And as the tug of war between values and pragmatism gets ever fiercer, there is a grave danger that it will ultimately snap.

Publicație: The Times

THE World University Rankings 2020: communities with power to create change

Universities are well placed to collaborate on achieving sustainable cities, gender equality, healthy oceans and global partnerships, says Santa Ono

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020 will be published at 7pm BST on 11 September

Earlier this year, Times Higher Education introduced the University Impact Rankings. This ranking aims to assess universities against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was the first global attempt to document evidence of universities’ impact on society, rather than just research and teaching performance.

I’m proud that the University of British Columbia (UBC) placed high in the rankings. We ranked first for SDG 13: climate action; third for SDG 11: sustainable cities and communities; and joint third overall. However, in light of the urgency of the global environmental crisis, none of us can rest on our laurels.

The 17 SDGs were adopted by world leaders in 2015 at a historic UN summit and came into force on 1 January 2016. The goals call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognise that ending poverty must go hand in hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection. But it’s not just countries that need to address the goals – it’s all of us, including universities.

All the goals are crucial, but in this article, I’d like to focus on four in particular, and how universities can contribute to achieving them.

As the UN notes, gender equality is not only a fundamental human right but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. Providing women and girls with equal access to education, healthcare and decent work, and equal representation in political and economic decision-making processes will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large.

UBC, like many other universities, is making significant efforts towards achieving gender equality. One area that needs improvement is the STEM disciplines – science, technology, engineering and mathematics. As our dean of applied science, James Olson, notes: “For too long there’s been a stigma around women in STEM and we’re all working hard to eliminate that outdated notion.”

I’m pleased to say that we are making progress; for example, we’ve achieved close to 50 per cent female enrolment in our new school of biomedical engineering. However, despite considerable advances, women represent only 25 per cent of our total engineering enrolment. We still have a long way to go.

SDG 11 aims to “make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. Universities such as UBC are especially well poised to play a role here, through teaching, through research and through implementation. Not only is UBC an educational and research institution, it is a community, with thousands of people – students, faculty, staff and many others – living at the UBC Vancouver campus. UBC has the opportunity to serve as a beacon of positive change when it comes to smart cities, clean energy and sustainability.

We have seized that opportunity, using the Vancouver campus as a “living lab” for exploring and testing out new environmental, social, economic and technological advances, some of which could be scaled up to move the needle on global sustainability. The campus is an innovation platform, demonstrating what cities around the world need to do. With total control of all the buildings, all the facilities and all the construction, we can do things faster and we have greater ability to take risks.

We’re also collaborating with other institutions. This past summer, 10 UBC undergraduate and graduate students collaborated with 30 peers from Yale-NUS College, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, the University of Cambridge and Monterrey Institute of Technology on the inaugural Urban Resilience Summer Program in Chennai, India. Together they worked in virtual teams and on the ground, liaising with the city’s chief resilience officer to tackle urgent issues affecting Chennai including the threat of flooding and damage from hurricanes and cyclones, ageing and failing infrastructures, poverty, economic inequality and civil unrest.

The Urban Resilience Summer Program is just one of several UBC-involved cross-institutional initiatives that directly support SDG 11.

According to SDG 14, we need to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources. Here again, universities can play a significant role, through research, through education and through advocacy. Marine-protected areas need to be effectively managed and regulations need to be put in place to reduce overfishing, marine pollution and ocean acidification.

Because of our location on the Pacific Ocean, UBC’s students and faculty are acutely aware of the fragility of our oceans, and are in a position to help find ways to protect and strengthen the marine environment.

But we can’t do it alone. The ocean knows no boundaries. That is why UBC partners with other institutions, for example through the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), a research and engagement network of four universities – UBC, the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Northern British Columbia. PICS supports the co-generation of climate solutions research that can be actively used by decision-makers to develop effective mitigation and adaptation policies and actions in BC and beyond.

We are also working with our partners in the Association of Pacific Rim Universities to try to understand how we can best protect our oceans, and work together on other issues.

SDG 17: partnerships for the goals

As the UN notes, a successful sustainable development agenda requires partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society. These inclusive partnerships built upon principles and values, a shared vision, and shared goals that place people and the planet at the centre, are needed at the global, regional, national and local level.

Above I have mentioned how UBC has partnered with other institutions as we work on the UN’s SDGs. Alongside these collaborations, we also recently co-hosted the University Climate Change Coalition Summit. This brought together the leaders of top research universities, philanthropists, environment ministers, municipalities, utilities and non-governmental organisations to discuss higher education’s role in limiting global greenhouse gas emissions and associated temperature rises to under 2ºC.

UBC also joined with more than 40 universities to form the U7 Alliance under the patronage of French president Emmanuel Macron – an international alliance of university presidents to discuss commitments that universities may take to address the most pressing global challenges in a multilateral context. The inaugural summit this summer tackled issues including the key role of universities in a global world, climate change and cleaner energy, inequality and polarised societies, technological transformations, and community engagement and impact.

The world’s most pressing sustainability and development issues — as outlined in the UN’s SDGs — can’t be solved by institutions or individuals on their own. We need to work together.

Publicație: The Times

Engineering booms, humanities declines as China reshapes research

China’s rise has led to a surge in engineering research – although the discipline is growing in importance in other countries too

China’s 21st-century explosion as an academic powerhouse has drastically shifted global research towards engineering and away from the humanities, a new analysis of trends since 2000 has revealed.

Engineering has overtaken physics, chemistry and fundamental biology to become the second most researched subject behind medicine in terms of articles published, according to an analysis by France’s science and technology observatory, the High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (Hcéres).

Engineering and the social sciences have expanded their share of world publications by almost 50 per cent, according to the report, while fundamental biology and physics have suffered big falls. Chemistry fell slightly.

“The trend towards a greater relative emphasis on engineering and related fields such as physical sciences, computing, etc, has been showing in science paper counts for some time,” said Simon Marginson, director of the University of Oxford’s Centre for Global Higher Education.

The Hcéres analysis, Dynamics of Scientific Production in the World, in Europe and in France, 2000-2016, looked at nations’ subject specialisation and found that China – which has increased the number of papers it publishes twelvefold this millennium – had homed in on chemistry, engineering and computer science, but had relatively limited output in the humanities and social sciences.

In contrast, the US and UK concentrated on the humanities, social sciences and medical research. France has an edge in mathematics, Japan in physics and South Korea in chemistry. Germany had the most balanced disciplinary profile of the countries analysed.

“National research grant allocation within China is exceptionally pronounced in favour of engineering, and has been for many years,” said Professor Marginson.

China’s research path has been steered by intertwined economic and political motivations, according to Xueying Shirley Han, an expert in the country’s science and technology policy at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a US-based research centre.

“Humanities, along with the social sciences, is a potential avenue for social unrest to bubble up and fester in China and poses too much of a risk to China’s central government,” she said. Science, technology, engineering and maths research, on the other hand, were seen as a way to preserve economic growth and so maintain social and political stability, she added.

There was also an aspect of historical “path-dependency” to China’s research direction, said Richard Suttmeier, an emeritus professor at the University of Oregon specialising in science, technology and US-China relations.

“Fields such as chemistry and engineering have deep roots in modern Chinese history. The field of chemistry, for instance, is well-established and has been led by internationally recognised researchers,” he said.

China’s policy was also heavily focused on development – as opposed to more fundamental research – meaning that it favoured more applied fields like engineering, Professor Suttmeier said.

Engineering has been crucial to the country’s industrialisation and urbanisation since the late 1970s, Professor Marginson said, and has fed into improvements in transport, construction, communications and energy.

A world without China, the Hcéres analysis says, would be “noticeably different”. Medical research would make up a full quarter of publications (as opposed to 23 per cent when China is included), while fundamental biology would still account for more papers than chemistry.

Nonetheless, “in this counterfactual world, engineering would still have moved up to second place since the start of the century”, it says.

Engineering’s rise was not just evident in China, said Professor Marginson, but across East Asia – in Singapore, South Korea and Japan – and also other “emerging research systems” such as Iran.

It was also beginning to spill over into more established countries such as the US, he said, pointing to Harvard University’s new 500,000 square foot science and engineering complex, currently under construction but expected to open next year.

A spokesman for the US National Academy of Engineering said that the Hcéres conclusions echoed other work pointing to a rise in the importance of engineering.

The humanities, meanwhile, have moved in the opposite direction, slipping behind both the social sciences and computer science since 2000, according to Hcéres’ analysis.

In response, however, representatives of the discipline questioned whether it was even possible to accurately measure the fortunes of a subject area more structured around books than journal articles.

The data are drawn from Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, an ever-changing database that adds new journals as they are founded to incorporate new disciplines, and also absorbs existing journals to better reflect academic research outside the English-speaking world.

Using this database to track changes in published journal articles “makes perfect sense for the sciences”, but not for the humanities, said Robert Townsend, director of humanities indicators at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The humanities’ relative decline in published articles could still illuminate the changing pressures on academics in other disciplines, he said.

“One of the potential questions would be whether it’s a function of the length of the articles that are appearing,” Dr Townsend said.

In the sciences, there was growing pressure to publish even partial findings to be the first to a discovery; on the contrary, there is “none of that in the humanities”, he argued.

“It has a self-reinforcing effect because in the sciences you’re measured by the number of articles you do,” Dr Townsend said, while in the humanities, at least in the US, books remained more important for promotion.

“It opens up a lot of interesting questions about how scholarship is done,” he said.

Given cuts to humanities funding in some countries, “there’s certainly a possibility that the funding picture is having some impact on these things”, Dr Townsend continued.

US humanities research funding flatlined from 2007 to 2010, before rising again, according to data from the academy.

However, there may be no straight line between funding levels and numbers of publications. For one thing, there will be a lag between funding decisions and a change in output, Dr Townsend pointed out, and a particularly long one in the humanities.

In addition, “it costs so much more to do science research”, he said. “You don’t have big labs…in the humanities.”

Harriet Barnes, head of higher education and skills policy at the British Academy, which promotes the humanities and social sciences in the UK, said that the journals added to the Web of Science database over the period studied “are far more likely to have been in social sciences than humanities, which could well account for the increased proportion of social science publications as part of the whole”.

The Hcéres analysis calculates that two-thirds of the increase in social science articles since 2000 was down to the addition of new journals to the database, as opposed to growing publication volumes in existing journals. Still, it was not clear to what extent this represents “real” growth: these new journals could be newly founded, or could have existed for years but only recently incorporated into Web of Science.

There is also a question as to whether China might be much stronger in the humanities and social sciences than the statistics suggest. “Publications in the humanities are the most likely to be in languages other than English and hence not often captured by the standard databases and so even where developing countries are increasing their research capacity in humanities, this is much less likely to be reflected in studies such as these,” said Ms Barnes.

“An in-depth review of Chinese journals in the humanities and social sciences would be required before reaching any definitive assessments of Chinese work in these areas,” Professor Suttmeier added.

Publicație: The Times

Professors’ protest forces out new university head

Göttingen loses president-elect and chair of search committee after legal challenge

One of Germany’s most historically significant universities has been engulfed in crisis after its president-elect stood aside, amid accusations by professors that he lacked a good enough research record and that his selection process had been “clandestine”.

The University of Göttingen, which has educated figures including statesman Otto von Bismarck and the sociologist Max Weber, has faced criticism from politicians, a legal challenge, and now has to rerun the search for a president.

The case highlights the continuing importance of academic involvement in the appointment of university leaders in Germany, in contrast to the role of governing bodies and headhunters in many anglophone systems.

In June this year, Göttingen announced that Sascha Spoun, an economist and president of the University of Lüneburg, would take over as president in 2020.

But internally Professor Spoun’s appointment caused consternation among some academics. According to Dorothea Bahns, a mathematics professor and one of the academics who led criticism of the decision, “the process was absolutely clandestine”.

Deans and a “rather arbitrary selection of colleagues” met Professor Spoun shortly before the senate voted, she said, but were forbidden to make public who the presidential candidate was. When it leaked out, a group of close to 100 academics unsuccessfully demanded the postponement of the election, she said.

“This is completely contrary to German tradition, where a university-wide hearing of the candidate/s, with ample time until the election to debate and consider the choice(s), is still considered part of the academic tradition,” she said.

There were also doubts as to whether Professor Spoun could claim to be an “internationally recognised scholar with profound teaching experience” as demanded by the job description, she said.

After the appointment in June, about 50 academics including Professor Bahns went public with their concerns, and rival presidential candidates launched a court case challenging the process.

Last month, the university announced that Professor Spoun had decided not to take up the post, and said it would take steps towards making a “legally secure appointment decision”.

Professor Spoun said at the time that the university had told him there were doubts as to whether the appointment was legal, meaning he could not take up the position.

The following day, Wilhelm Krull, the chair of Göttingen’s foundation council – who had headed the search committee that recommended Professor Spoun – said he would resign with immediate effect over the bungled appointment.

Professor Spoun told Times Higher Education that he had been elected by a “very broad majority” in the academic senate, and what he described as a “small” group of professors “took offence at the course of the procedure”.

“This group has expressed its conviction that a proven university manager is not the best choice for the presidency,” he said. He will remain as president of Lüneburg.

The crisis has played out in the German press, and prompted Björn Thümler, the science minister of Lower Saxony – where Göttingen is based – to warn that it had “not exactly helped” the university’s reputation.

The university’s senate will now meet later this month to discuss how to appoint a new president, a spokeswoman for Göttingen said. No one was available from the university to discuss the appointment process, she said.

Publicație: The Times

Research intelligence: women rewrite the publication ‘rules’

Oxford professor’s response to male scholar’s guide to publication considers gendered nature of research career advice

With a research career that began as a 22-year-old engineer on the Apollo 11 project 50 years ago, Denny Gioia decided it was time to pass on some of his wisdom on getting published.

But the US scholar, who is now Robert and Judith Auritt Klein professor of management at Penn State University, did not foresee that his Journal of Management Inquiry paper, titled “Gioia’s Rules of the Game”, would catch the attention of Twitter users earlier this year.

The paper’s recommendations – such as “two good publications per year keep the wolf from the door” and “more shots on goal means more goals” – were criticised by female academics as characterising an essentially male outlook on the publishing world, in which a lone scholar struggles manfully against colleagues, reviewers and editors.

Professor Gioia’s own maxim that the “academic world can be divided into knowledge generators and knowledge disseminators” provoked particular dismay from many scholars, as did the belief that authors should “not take no for an answer” from reviewers or editors.

“It was a paper written by a man, quoting only men, which invoked the idea of a lone author essentially elbowing their way to the top,” Trish Greenhalgh, professor of primary care services at the University of Oxford, told Times Higher Education. Her response to “Gioia’s Rules of the Game’, drawing on social media contributions from 46 female academics – and featuring an introduction from Professor Gioia – was published in the Journal of Management Inquiry in July.

In her paper, titled “Twitter Women’s Tips on Academic Writing”, Professor Greenhalgh suggests alternative rules that highlight how collegiality and cooperation are more important than edging ahead of rivals. She urges scholars to “learn and grow in groups and networks”, ”collaborate on papers” and “build capacity in the next generation”.

“If you want to publish really top level research, you cannot do it on your own,” she reflects, adding in her paper that Professor Gioia’s rules relied on “gendered assumptions and stereotypes” of the “lone wolf” male academic competing with colleagues for a slot in a prestigious journal.

“I sit on the 2021 research excellence framework panel, and did so in 2014, so I can see that multi-authored papers are the thing,” she added. “Single-authored papers are very rare now, even in management, particularly as research is increasingly interdisciplinary.”

Professor Greenhalgh also takes a very different line to “Gioia’s Rules” on the writing process. While he claims that the “academic world can be divided into readers and writers” and it is “better to be a writer”, she calls on researchers to “read others’ writing” to improve their own style.

Nor should scholars feel pressured to publish work that has gone awry. While Professor Gioia urges people to “never give up on a paper”, Professor Greenhalgh advises academics to “know when to give up”. “If your data has become obsolete, or you realise you don’t have a strong message, don’t waste any more time,” she writes, adding that: “Even when one paper doesn’t work out, you can still learn from all that work.”

Since publishing her new rules, Professor Greenhalgh said that she had been contacted by several female academics who described how they struggled to relate to career advice informed by this type of masculine perspective. “So many people have emailed me to say they did not know you could succeed by doing things like that,” she added.

Her rules should not be viewed solely in gendered terms, she continued. “This is not a ‘men are from Mars, women are from Venus’ thing, as this advice is equally relevant to men as women, to arts and humanities as science.”

For his part, Professor Gioia admits, in his preface to Professor Greenhalgh’s paper, that his “well-intended little essay” perhaps did reveal his “hidden biases”.

“Apparently my presumed universalist rules carry the heavy hand of guyness,” he writes, adding that he understood why some had objected to what they saw as a “guy-construction of a publishing world that is ostensibly adversarial and competitive”.

“I am, of course, inclined to be defensive, but I’m more interested in the idea that men were taking different things from my paper than women,” he told THE, adding that, “because the institutional situation [of publishing] has been largely designed by men, it is important to listen to such criticisms.”

Many of Professor Greenhalgh’s rules were, however, not that different from his own, Professor Gioia believed.

“Of course, we should be collaborative – and most of my papers are, so I wasn’t advising anyone to squirrel themselves away in a corner to write,” he said.

“That said, it is foolish not to think publishing is not inherently competitive. There is competition for scarce journal space, so people do need to think how they engage in this game – and all games are competitions.”

Publicație: The Times

Valérie Haas (Lyon 2): «Malgré Parcoursup, le taux de réussite en première année n’a pas augmenté»

La vice-présidente de l’université Lumière Lyon 2 dresse un bilan mesuré de la réforme de l’université. Si les résultats ne se sont pas améliorés en première année, bacheliers et enseignants se sont familiarisés avec la plate-forme Parcoursup.

Parcoursup, année 2. L’an dernier, les universités expérimentaient la nouvelle plate-forme d’accès à l’enseignement supérieur, avec notamment cette grande nouveauté: la possibilité d’établir des prérequis pour classer les élèves qui postulent à des formations «en tension», c’est-à-dire où le nombre de places disponibles n’est pas suffisant pour accueillir tous les candidats. En d’autres termes, la possibilité de sélectionner les candidats dans ces filières. Un peu plus d’un an après la mise en place de la réforme, Valérie Haas, vice-présidente de l’université Lumière Lyon 2, en fait un premier bilan plutôt positif, même si elle confesse que celle-ci n’a pas fait augmenter le taux de réussite dans ces filières. Elle explique aussi que la grogne étudiante contre la réforme, irrespirable l’année précédant la réforme sur le campus de «Lyon 2», s’est largement apaisée l’an dernier.

Valérie HAAS – L’an dernier, il nous a fallu nous familiariser avec le fonctionnement de la plate-forme et ses nouvelles possibilités en un temps record: seulement quelques mois pour tout mettre en place, comprendre le dispositif et établir des liens avec le secondaire pour les «prérequis». Cette année nous étions prêts, et nous avons trouvé que tout s’est passé sereinement. J’ai aussi la sensation que les candidats et leurs familles ont eu de meilleures informations au lycée. L’an dernier par exemple, ils s’étaient précipités sur la plate-forme et nous avions eu sur certaines filières un nombre incalculable de demandes en quelques jours seulement. Cette année, les élèves ont pris leur temps pour réfléchir, le nombre de candidatures n’a pas baissé, mais elles se sont échelonnées dans le temps, ce qui était plus simple à gérer. Nous avons rempli nos capacités d’accueil, mais dans le calme.

«Le taux de réussite est resté sensiblement le même qu’avant la réforme, 53 % en première année de licence »Valérie Haas, vice-présidente de l’université Lumière Lyon 2

Publicație: Le Figaro