Editie - dialog in Studioul BZI LIVE cu doi tineri de succes si un important profesor - psiholog de la Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza din Iasi
Luni, 15 aprilie 2019, incepand cu ora 15.00, in Platoul Studioului BZI LIVE s-a derulat o noua emisiune (cea de-a 283-a pe zona educationala, culturala, istorica si religioasa - n.r.) dedicata tinerilor implicati in miscarea studenteasca de la prima universitate moderna a Romaniei - Alexandru Ioan Cuza - UAIC din Iasi • A fost invitat si un profesor - psiholog care a oferit detalii de interes si importanta in dezvoltarea profesionala si pentru o cariera de succes pentru cei peste 40 mii de studenti din capitala Moldovei • Emisiunea completa cu acestia poate fi urmarita AICI
Dialogul s-a axat pe importanta implicarii si activarii intr-o liga sau asociatie studenteasca de la (UAIC), cum se dezvolta personal si ce oportunitati are un asemenea membru, dezvoltarea in cariera, pregatirea pentru insertia pe piata muncii, consiliere psiho-pedagogica, viziunea noii generatii asupra realitatilor din societatea contemporana!
Invitati speciali au fost: Ana Plumb, studenta la masterul de Literatura universala si comparata, din cadrul Facultatii de Litere; presedinte al Asociatiei Studentilor Francofoni Iasi (ASFI) din 2017 pana in prezent; coordonator al Universitatii de Vara pentru Elevi - SummerIS, lect. univ. dr. Oana Danila, Facultatea de Psihologie si Stiinte ale Educatiei, Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza din Iasi, psiholog in cadrul Centrului de Invatare al UAIC (Centru coordonat de lect. univ. dr. Bogdan Constantin Neculau - Facultatea de Psihologie si Stiinte ale Educatiei, Universitatea Cuza din Iasi, presedinte Comisia pentru activitati studentesti si parteneriate cu mediul economic si sectorul public din Senatul Universitatii Cuza - n.r) si Iulian Marian Lungu, in prezent masterand al Facultatii de Teologie Ortodoxa Dumitru Staniloae din Iasi din cadrul Universitatii Cuza si voluntar al Centrului de Invatare din cadrul aceleasi universitati.
Este absolvent de Teologie Ortodoxa, promotia 2014 - 208. A fost voluntar la evenimentele ITO (Intalnirea Tinerilor Ortodocsi din toata lumea) din anul 2017 si IOTA (International Orthodox Theological Conference) din anul 2019, ambele evenimente desfatsurate la Iasi. Este practicant de Qwan Ki Do de 18 ani, multiplu medaliat la campionatele nationale, internationale si mondiale. Detine gradul de centura neagra 2 Dani, cat si gradele de arbitru si instructor. Avand in vedere toate acestea, productia a oferit un nou dialog riguros si consistent dedicat Educatiei. Emisiunea completa cu acestia poate fi urmarita AICI
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Un cercetător cere explicaţii ministrului Cercetării şi Inovării privind lipsa finanţării pentru proiectele ştiinţifice
Cercetătorul Lucian Pintilie a trimis o scrisoare deschisă ministrului Cercetării şi Inovării, prin care îi adresează câteva întrebări referitoare la bugetul alocat pentru domeniul cercetării ştiinţifice în România.
„Când se va deschide finanţarea la proiectele contractate în anii trecuţi? Bugetul de Stat a fost aprobat de ceva timp dar pe pagina Ministerului Cercetării şi Inovării (MCI) nu a fost făcut public bugetul alocat şi nici repartizarea acestuia pe diferitele programe şi linii de finanţare”, se arată în scrisoarea deschisă.
Semnatarul scrisorii aduce în discuţie faptul că proiectele au echipe de implementare iar cercetătorii din aceste echipe ar dori să ştie ce se întâmplă, de ce se întârzie deschiderea finanţării. „Cu tot respectul, vă atrag atenţia că aceşti oameni nu au alte surse de venit decât ceea ce câştigă pe proiecte. Întârzierea finanţării înseamnă întârziere în plata salariilor. Apoi, derularea proiectelor se face cu nişte costuri legate de infrastructură (energie, apa, gaze tehnice, piese de schimb, reparaţii, etc.). Fără finanţare nu le putem acoperi. Rezultă că nu putem utiliza corespunzător infrastructura, ceea ce pune în pericol realizarea proiectelor”, atrage atenţia Pintilie.
O altă întrebare, la care cercetătorul aşteaptă răspunsul ministrului se referă la data când va fi operaţionalizată o nouă tranşă de Nucleu. „Poate nu ştiţi, dar pentru Institurile Naţionale de Cercetare-Dezvoltare (INCD-uri) este esenţială finanţarea Nucleu, în lipsa finanţării pe proiecte. Am ajuns la limita liniilor de credit acordate de bănci, dupa aceea nu vom mai avea bani pentru salarii şi funcţionare. Găsiţi că este normal ca un INCD, instituţie de drept public, să traiască din credite pentru a nu pierde resursa umană şi a pune pe butuci infrastructura?”, adaugă acesta.
Pintile îl întreabă pe ministru, prin intermediul scrisorii deschise şi despre competiţiile de proiecte în cadrul PN3.
„Suntem în 2019, şi în tot ciclul 2014-2020 s-a organizat un singur rând de competiţii, şi acelea cu restrictii de participare din partea unor componente importante din sistemul national de cercetare. Competitiile, desfasurate corect si nedsicriminator, sunt o sursa importanta de finantare pentru acele organizatii de cercetare care nu au alocari bugetare directe.
- Când se va începe lucrul la viitoarea Strategie Nationala CDI şi la viitorul Program National CDI? Intarzierea in aprobarea noii Strategii si a Programului asociat va duce la imposibilitatea lansarii de competitii de proiecte dupa terminarea actualului ciclu. Daca cele doua acte normative nu se aproba in 2020, in 2021 nu se vor putea lansa competitii, ceea ce va diminua serios sursele de finantare pentru toate organizatiile de cercetare din ţară.
- Ce mesaj transmite MCI către tinerii cercetatori? Insecuritatea finantarii si lipsa ei de predictibilitate genereaza ingrijorare si face cariera in cercetare putin atractiva pentru tinerii care ar avea potential de succes in aceasta cariera. Sunt foarte multe organizatii de cercetare care au facut eforturi pentru a atrage tineri bine pregatiti din tara si diaspora si care sunt puse acum in dificultate in ceea ce priveste mentinerea acestor tineri in activitatea de cercetare. Un nou brain-drain catre exterior este foarte posibil daca nu se schimba cat de cat nivelul de finantare in cercetare si daca finantarea nu devine mai predictibila.
Vă solicit să vă faceţi timp pentru a raspunde la aceste întrebari, nu neaparat pentru mine cât mai ales pentru tinerii din cercetare care asteapta un semn din partea Ministrului Cercetarii si Inovarii pentru a sti daca isi fac bagajele sa plece din tara sau raman sa isi continue activitatea aici. Si inca o precizare, daca pana la 30 iunie nu angajati/cheltuiţi cel putin jumatate din bugetul alocat veţi pierde banii.
Cu stimă,
Lucian Pintilie, Cercetător Ştiinţific grad 1”.
Publicație : Adevărul
Universities should be forced to stick to their entry requirements
Universities need to be honest to students about what academic level is required to take a course and, as a result, unconditional offers will come to an end, argues Tom Richmond
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it,” wrote Oscar Wilde in 1890. Little did he know that his sentiment would now form the centrepiece of a highly-charged debate over the increasingly liberal use of unconditional offers by universities to tempt prospective students. Statistics on the scale of the problem are now easy to come by, but solutions remain largely illusive.
The most popular justifications bandied around by some universities for using unconditional offers include their proclaimed desire to reduce students’ stress, only using the offers to identify exceptional students and, of course, claiming to gauge students’ potential by assessing a wide range of information.
While these defences may on occasion have merit, they are woefully inadequate for explaining why universities made 117,000 unconditional offers last year compared with 3,000 five years ago.
Earlier this month, education secretary Damian Hinds aired his frustration yet again at the extent and impact of unconditional offers and called for at least some types of unconditional offers to be banned. However, universities have legal autonomy over their admissions. This presents policymakers with a dilemma: how do you make universities behave more scrupulously without taking away their autonomy?
The first step is to ask a deceptively simple question: what is a grade-based university offer supposed to represent? As the Ucas website helpfully reminds us, the reason that universities set entry requirements – the most important element being the entry qualifications and grades that students must achieve – is that they wish “to ensure you have the right skills and knowledge to successfully complete the course.”
This is perfectly sensible. After all, students starting a course for which they are academically ill-equipped is in no one’s interest. So, for example, a university would publish its course requirements on the Ucas website – say, three Bs at A level – and then students would apply using their predicted grades. Nothing to be alarmed about so far.
Fast forward to A level results day and things start to get murky. Many students meet their chosen university’s entry requirements; others do not. If a university has decided that a student must have achieved three Bs to deal with the demands of a particular course, on what basis would it then accept a student who fails to meet this benchmark? Indeed, if entry requirements are designed to reflect the academic standards of a course, why should one applicant ever receive a lower offer than someone else?
Furthermore, if the entry requirements reflect the demands of a course, there should be no differentiation between a student who missed out by one grade and a student who missed the requirement by three or four grades – they should both be rejected.
Unconditional offers circumvent this awkward conversation altogether by admitting students regardless of their academic ability, yet this undermines the notion that universities have a responsibility to ensure that students can handle the rigour and expectations of their chosen degree.
As has become clear, there are no consequences for a university that takes advantage of its autonomy over admissions for the wrong reasons. Universities collect tuition fees from anyone they admit, so the incentive to recruit more students – however unsuitable – is potent. Meanwhile, league tables are based on universities’ official entry requirements stated on the Ucas website, not on the actual grades achieved by the students accepted onto each course.
Regrettably, some universities have distorted the concept of entry requirements for their own commercial gain. Despite what it says on the Ucas website, the reality is that universities use the offers they make to attract students to their institution instead of using entry requirements to signify academic standards. Unconditional offers are merely the most extreme manifestation of this behaviour.
The solution to unconditional offers therefore rests on introducing some level of consequences for universities that prioritise commercial interests over students’ interests. Universities should retain their autonomy to set whatever grades and qualifications they require for each course, and these should continue to be published on the UCAS website. Let’s call these entry requirements the “minimum acceptable standard” (MAS).
In future, any applicant who is admitted onto a course after failing to meet the MAS would not be entitled to a student loan for tuition fees or maintenance. Universities are more than welcome to provide funding for any applicants that do not achieve the MAS, but they should not be financially rewarded by taxpayers for accepting someone that the university has themselves declared to be ill-equipped for a particular degree. Universities could still set entry requirements above the MAS for any given applicant, but they cannot drop below it.
This new approach would ensure that universities are honest with students, teachers and parents (as well as the publishers of league tables) about the standards that must be reached before a student starts each degree. In doing so, it would also bring an end to unconditional offers.
In short, ministers and the Office for Students should force universities to stand by their own published entry requirements. This preserves university autonomy because they can still set whatever requirements they wish, but it prevents institutions from exploiting the system by chasing after students who are not suitable for their courses. I’m sure universities will not want their admissions practices curtailed, but when the damage to students’ interests is so plainly apparent then ministers and the OfS have every right to intervene.
Publicație : The Times
Huawei warns innovation will slow if universities reject funding
Vice-president says private sector funding is vital to compensate for decline in public investment in basic research
A senior executive at Chinese technology giant Huawei has warned that global knowledge generation will suffer if universities reject research funding from the controversial company.
Joe Kelly, Huawei’s vice-president of international media affairs, claimed that basic research had hit a “bottleneck” worldwide and that private money was needed to keep the innovation pipeline flowing.
A not insignificant proportion of the private research funding available to universities comes from Huawei, which is set to spend $20 billion (£15.7 billion) on research annually, allocating some $300 million of it to external organisations.
However, research institutions are increasingly wary of accepting it, citing government warnings that working with the company could jeopardise national security. Earlier this year, Huawei pleaded not guilty to theft of trade secrets in the US.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell and Princeton universities, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Oxford are among the institutions that have said they will refuse to accept new research funding from the company.
But Mr Kelly told Times Higher Education that, if more universities followed suit, there would be a knock-on effect on the pace of innovation. Huawei has partnered with some 300 universities worldwide on more than 1,200 projects.
Mr Kelly cited a slowing of Moore’s Law – the idea that computers’ processing power doubles every couple of years while their cost halves – as an example of the bottleneck in basic research.
“We’re seeing multiple governments reducing their absolute investment,” he said. “It’s down to commercial interests to make up the difference. We’re prepared to make a contribution.”
Huawei has always invested 10 per cent of its revenue into research and development, with 10 per cent of that ring-fenced for pure research. Now it is lifting research spending to 14 per cent of revenue, and dedicating 30 per cent of that to basic research.
“The only benefit we achieve from the vast majority of that funding is that we might get to see the research paper two weeks before it’s published,” Mr Kelly said. “We don’t fund university research in the expectation of a return. We fund university research in the expectation that mankind’s collective knowledge will grow. If collective knowledge grows, the cake gets bigger for everybody.”
In response to concerns about Huawei, Mr Kelly said that there were “no dangers” in collaborating with Huawei. He argued that allegations of intellectual property theft were isolated and company structures – including a published “annual report”, arm’s length validation of product security and a recently announced $2 billion initiative to overhaul software – should provide reassurance.
Universities might be most worried by claims that Huawei could be suborned to spy for China, after the 2017 National Intelligence Law empowered intelligence agencies to enter companies’ restricted areas and demand cooperation.
Mr Kelly said that the law did not apply to Chinese companies’ overseas operations, citing Premier Li Keqiang’s insistence last month that forcing companies to spy was “not consistent with Chinese law” and “not how China behaves”.
Perhaps the biggest problem that Huawei faces is persuading universities to believe it. Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University, was unconvinced. “If you work with Huawei on engineering or related issues, there’s a high chance your IP will be stolen,” he said.
Mr Kelly insisted that Western institutions should not fear working with Huawei on any type of research, including telecommunications, citing the company’s “integrity”. Mr Kelly also stressed commercial imperatives against security breaches in a company where staff were the exclusive shareholders. “If we were to compromise any carrier network, our business would be finished overnight,” he said.
In January, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said that neither he nor the company had ever received government demands to provide improper information. “We will certainly say no to any such request,” he told reporters.
Mr Kelly said that this contrasted with revelations about US technology companies, citing leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden showing that they had embellished their products with “back doors” – features allowing secret remote access over the internet – at the instigation of the US government.
But Professor Hamilton said that, notwithstanding its faults, the US was a democratic country where “severe denunciations” of corporate misdeeds came from internal critics including media, intellectuals, civil society organisations and the political opposition. “None of those things exist in China,” he said, adding that if Mr Ren were to refuse a government request for information he would “be in jail within a week”.
“The symbiosis between the state and corporations in China is much tighter than it ever was in the US,” Professor Hamilton said.
Publicație : The Times
Lancaster University protest rules ‘repressive and impractical’
Institution demands seven days’ notice of demonstrations and designation of a ‘principal organiser’
Critics of a new code of conduct on protests at Lancaster University say it is “repressive” and should be reviewed.
The code has been operational since 1 February this year. It includes requirements to give a seven-day notice period ahead of any protest, to designate a “principal organiser” and to provide information about the planned protest on a form.
Tass Sharkawi, a PhD candidate in Lancaster’s department of sociology, said that the “new repressive code” was passed “very secretively and without any meaningful discussion with students and staff”.
“As students we definitely see this as a threat to our freedom of expression,” she said. “Protest is known for its spontaneous action; this is like having to schedule a protest.”
Ms Sharkawi said that students who opposed the new plan were also “very concerned” about the idea of the principal organiser, seeing it as a way of “identifying a scapegoat if something goes wrong”.
Ms Sharkawi also criticised mentions of the university’s responsibility under the Prevent guidance “to have due regard to the need to prevent people being drawn into terrorism”.
“This creates the idea that it is normal to make a connection between peaceful protest on campus and terrorism, which it is not,” said Ms Sharkawi. “This feels very much like US universities post 9/11 and it is not right.”
Lancaster’s University and College Union branch has also raised concerns about the new code, which it called “unnecessary, regressive and impractical”.
“This proposed policy includes specific provisions that are onerous and are likely – indeed, seem intended – to create barriers for those who wish to peacefully voice their dissent,” the union said.
The branch questioned why Lancaster was in a “small minority of UK universities” to have a code of conduct on protest and criticised the “arbitrary and pre-emptive character of the conditions in which the university reserves itself the right to prohibit” a protest.
These conditions include if a planned activity is judged to be unsafe or if insufficient guarantees can be provided that the protest will remain within the law.
A university spokeswoman said that a number of protests had occurred on campus since the new code was introduced, “without any issues about arrangements being raised”.
A draft of the code was sent to representatives of staff unions in December last year and discussed at a consultation meeting later the same month, she said.
“None of the issues now identified by UCU were raised at that meeting,” the spokeswoman continued. “As is the case with any policy, we are open to feedback and will periodically review policies in light of our experience in putting them into operation.”
The spokeswoman said that Simon Jennings, the university’s director of strategic planning and governance, had already met with students and had offered to have further discussion with UCU members.
Publicație : The Times
‘Undue reliance’ on journal impact factor in academic evaluation
First-of-its-kind study indicates at least one in three research-intensive institutions in North America lean on citation data in decisions on promotion and tenure
At least one in three research-intensive universities in North America examined by a study leaned on the journal impact factor of periodicals that academics had published in when making decisions on promotion and tenure, but the true proportion may be much higher.
The study, believed to be the first to examine the use of the journal impact factor in academic performance reviews, warns that there is an “undue reliance” on the controversial metric, which represents the number of times articles in particular publications have been cited in recent years.
Journal impact factors are being used too often “to evaluate the quality and significance of research, despite the numerous warnings against such use”, says the study, published on PeerJ Preprints.
For the study, researchers from four countries collected and analysed review, promotion and tenure policies from 129 universities in the US and Canada.
Among the documents from 57 research-intensive institutions considered by the study, 23 (40 per cent) referred to journal impact factors, with 19 of these mentions (83 per cent of the subtotal) being supportive. Only three of the mentions expressed caution about use of journal impact factors.
Of the documents that did refer to journal impact factors, 14 associated the metric with research quality, while eight tied it to impact and a further five referred to prestige or reputation.
The overall results, including large numbers of universities that offer few doctoral degrees, found that 23 per cent of review, promotion and tenure policies mentioned the journal impact factor, with 87 per cent of these mentions being supportive.
Juan Pablo Alperin, assistant professor in publishing studies at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, and one of the authors of the study, said that the “overall number [of mentions] was lower than we expected”.
However, since the researchers only counted explicit mentions of journal impact factors, “we think we might be underestimating its presence”, Dr Alperin said.
References to “high-ranking” and “top-tier” journals in some of the documents mean that, even if policies do not reference impact factors, the JIF might still be used “in the evaluations at [these] institutions in a less formal way”, he said.
Dr Alperin said that impact factors were “an imperfect measure of anything happening at the article level” – an assertion that has been backed up by several academic studies.
“An article will have the same quality regardless of where it is published,” Dr Alperin said.
However, impact factors remain influential.
Stephen Curry, professor of structural biology at Imperial College London, said that it was “worrying” that “so many universities are looking at this metric as part of their assessment processes”.
“Some seem to claim [impact factors are] a measure of quality. That is a very dubious contention and one I would like to see picked apart,” said Professor Curry. “It suggests to me there is still an undue reliance on metrics and a lack of will to do research assessments in a fully robust manner.”
Professor Curry is chair of the Declaration on Research Assessment project, which urges universities to focus on the scientific content of academics’ output in decisions on hiring, promotion and tenure, not where it is published.
Dr Alperin said citation metrics “only capture one aspect of the work we do in academia”.
“We actually want faculty to do a wide range of work, including work that is shared publicly, and that engages with the public, but citations only reward the circulation of research among ourselves,” he said.
Publicație : The Times
Débats sur la race, le genre... : hausse des tensions dans les universités
Le blocage de la pièce de théâtre « Les Suppliantes », d’Eschyle, à la Sorbonne, par des militants de la cause noire est emblématique du développement de ces crispations.
« Les thématiques autour de l’identité (genre, religion, « race »...) sont sources de crispations dans les universités depuis plusieurs années. » AUREL
Entaille grave à la liberté d’expression, contresens, avènement d’une nouvelle censure au nom d’un politiquement correct devenu absurde… Depuis le blocage de la pièce de théâtre Les Suppliantes, d’Eschyle, lundi 25 mars à la Sorbonne, par des militants de la cause noire et des étudiants dénonçant le racisme dont la mise en scène était à leurs yeux coupables, en raison des masques sombres des acteurs, les réactions pleuvent. Mais pour ceux qui travaillent au quotidien dans les universités, cet incident ne vient pas de nulle part. Il apparaît comme la manifestation extrême d’une série de tensions qui se développent depuis plusieurs années.
Les thématiques autour de l’identité, qu’il s’agisse du genre, de la religion ou encore de la « race », sont sources de crispations, dans les universités, depuis maintenant plusieurs années. Particulièrement dans les facs de sciences humaines, en première ligne sur ces sujets, qui mettent « tout le monde un peu mal à l’aise », reconnaît un universitaire.
« Le climat est difficile sur ces questions à l’université, comme c’est le cas dans toute la société », résume Hervé Christofol, secrétaire général du Snesup-FSU, l’un des deux principaux syndicats de personnels de l’enseignement supérieur. « Il y a toujours eu une contestation du discours universitaire, des accusations de parti pris idéologique… Ce sont les objets qui changent avec les époques, et aujourd’hui, cela se concentre sur les questions de repli identitaire », poursuit Alain Tallon, doyen de la faculté des lettres de Sorbonne université, qui compte reprogrammer la pièce de théâtre en mai. Dans son établissement, l’historien décrit ces tensions comme un phénomène « très ponctuel ».
A l’université de Paris-Nanterre, le président Jean-François Balaudé a aussi vu émerger de telles crispations : « Il y a une sensibilité qui émane d’associations étudiantes, très minoritaires, qui portent des revendications fortes en termes de lutte antiraciste et qui, pour quelques-unes, ont tendance à faire une lecture raciale des politiques que conduisent les universités. » Lorsque l’université ne donne pas suite à une demande de locaux pour un événement ou un débat, elle est tout de suite « suspectée de complaisance envers les discriminations », rapporte-t-il.
Publicație : Le Monde
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