20 mai 2019
EuroInvent 2019, eveniment care a adus la Iasi inventatori si cercetatori din toata lumea, si-a desemnat castigatorii
Sala "Voievozilor" de la Palatul Culturii din Iasi a gazduit ceremonia de premiere care a încheiat cea de-a XI-a editie EuroInvent, evenimentul care aduce an de an, la Iasi, inventatori si cercetatori din toata lumea. Premiile desemnate de juriul international au mers catre cele mai bune dintre cele peste 620 de inventii si proiecte de cercetare. Laureatii sunt: Premiul pentru cel mai tânar inventator "Andi Dwi PUTRA" a mers catre doi inventatori din Vietnam - Nguyen Huu Loc, Ha Thien Kim.
Categoria internationala a Premiului pentru femeia inventator i-a revenit unei inventatoare din Thailanda, Pornsayapat Likhitthummagun, iar categoria nationala a aceluiasi premiu a mers catre Denisa Ficai de la Universitatea Politehnica Bucuresti. Prof. univ. dr. Augustin Semenescu de la Universitatea Politehnica Bucuresti a primit Premiul Forumului Inventatorilor Români, Corina Moga de la SC DFR System SRL a fost desemnata câstigatoarea Premiului pentru Mediu (The Green Environment Award). Echipa Universitatii de Stiinte Agricole si Medicina Veterinara a Banatului "Regele Mihai I al României" Timisoara a primit Premiul pentru cercetari avansate în biologie "Prof. Hazim AL DARAJI".
Premiul Europe Direct Iasi a mers catre echipa Egiptului, cel al Universitatii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC), catre o echipa de cercetatori de la Universitatea Politehnica Bucuresti, coordonata de Denisa Ficai, cel al Universitatii Tehnice (TUIASI) "Gheorghe Asachi", catre echipa Malaesiei, iar Premiul platformei Arheoinvest UAIC a mers catre Universitatea de Stat din Tiraspol.
Premiul pentru Medicina i-a fost acordat echipei din Irak, pentru metoda de detectie rapida a bolilor cu transmitere sexuala. Premiul pentru cel mai bun design a mers catre Institutul National de Cercetare - Dezvoltare în Sudura si Încercari de Materiale ISIM Timisoara, iar echipa coordonata de prof. univ. dr. ing Aurel Mihail Tîtu de la Universitatea "Lucian Blaga" din Sibiu a primit Exquisite Award.
Premiul pentru colaborare - Sinergy Award a fost câstigat de Universitatea din Craiova, iar Universitatea Tehnica din Cluj-Napoca a primit Premiul "Pro Scientia et Innovatio".
Croatian Inventors Network (Reteaua Inventatorilor din Croatia) a primit Marele Premiu Stiintific EuroInvent - categoria internationala. Marele Premiu Stiintific EuroInvent i-a revenit Universitatii Tehnice a Moldovei, pentru complexitatea si numarul mare al inventiilor si cercetarilor cu care a participat la eveniment. Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Protectia Mediului (INCDPM) a primit trofeul Marele Premiu EuroInvent 2019.
Prezent la ceremonia de premiere, Mihai Chirica, primarul Iasului, a primit doua distinctii: medalie de aur din partea lui Fernando Maldonado Lopes de la Inventarium - Science din Portugalia, pentru deschiderea orasului catre inovatie si inventatori/cercetatori si un trofeu de cristal din partea lui Ahmed Majan din Emiratele Arabe Unite (UAE) pentru "primirea calduroasa în orasul despre care a declarat ca s-a îndragostit". EuroInvent este organizat în fiecare an de Forumul Inventatorilor Români, Asociatia pentru Ecologie si Dezvoltare Durabila, prin Centrul de Informare Europe Direct Iasi, Universitatea Tehnica "Gheorghe Asachi", Universitatea "Cuza", în parteneriat cu Universitatea de Medicina si Farmacie "Grigore T. Popa" si în colaborare cu Universitatea Nationala de Arte "George Enescu" (UNAGE) Iasi.
EuroInvent este singurul eveniment din România care se desfasoara sub egida IFIA - International Federation of Inventors' Associations si WIIPA - World Inventions Intellectual Property Associations, reprezentând un eveniment european de elita în domeniul inovarii si cercetarii. Manifestarea s-a desfasurat cu sprijinul: Complexului Muzeal National "Moldova" (CMNM) Iasi, Consiliului Judetean Iasi (CJI), Primariei Municipiului Iasi si al companiilor private. Parteneri au fost si Ministerul Cercetarii si Inovarii, Ministerul Educatiei Nationale sau Oficiul de Stat pentru Inventii si Marci (OSIM) Bucuresti.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Final de SUCCES al proiectului Refresh Heritage Week (RHW) Iasi 2019, derulat de Palatul Culturii si Universitatea de Arte
Mâine, 21 mai 2019, la Iasi se finalizeaza cu succes editia 2019 a manifestarilor derulate sub genericul Refresh Heritage Week în cadrul proiectului "Young Art(ist)s Refreshing Heritage Sites/REFRESH", implementat cu sprijin financiar acordat de Comisia Europeana (CE) prin programul Europa Creativa pentru proiecte de cooperare legate de Anul European al Patrimoniului Cultural - 2018.
Liderul proiectului este Združenje Zgodovinskih Mest Slovenije/Association of Historical Cities of Slovenia, care are drept parteneri: ITACA - Local Development Association din Cellino Attanasio, Italia, Complexul Muzeal National "Moldova" (CMNM) Iasi si Fundacion Universitaria "San Antonio" din Murcia, Spania.
Suita de evenimente RHW Iasi 2019 a fost prima din cele care vor fi organizate în cadrul proiectului REFRESH pe parcursul acestui an în fiecare din tarile participante la proiect. Reunind 19 tineri artisti care au fost coordonati de prof. univ. dr. Atena Elena Simionescu, rector al Universitatii Nationale de Arte (UNAGE) "George Enescu" din Iasi, directorul artistic al RHW Iasi 2019, precum si conf. univ. dr. Modesta Lupascu, lect. univ. dr. Florin Panzariu, manifestarea a avut ca scop crearea de conexiuni între vechi si nou, între lumea de ieri si cea de azi, între patrimoniu si oameni.
Din acest motiv, ca si anul trecut de altfel, RHW Iasi s-a axat în jurul unui eveniment marcant organizat de Complexul Muzeal National "Moldova".
Daca în 2018, tinerii artisti au fost introdusi în fascinantul univers al muzicii mecanice, acum, în 2019, participantii au fost invitati sa îsi gaseasca surse de inspiratie în mostenirea etnografica traditionala si au avut ocazia de a intra în contact direct cu creatorii populari, în cadrul celei de-a XX-a editii a Târgului Mesterilor Populari, organizat de Muzeul Etnografic al Moldovei, în perioada 17 - 19 mai.
Creatiile tinerilor artisti Refresh vor putea fi admirate la Palatul Culturii din Iasi timp de o luna, începând cu data de 20 mai (astazi - n.r.), ora 15:00, atunci când, în Holul de Onoare va avea loc vernisajul expozitiei RHW Iasi 2019. Evenimentul va fi prezentat de prof. univ. dr. Petru Bejan.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Circa 3.ooo de liceeni, la simularea examenului la Medicină
Tinerii care se pregătesc să dea admitere la Medicină au trecut prin prima testare importantă: simularea examenului, care a avut duminică în centrele universitare de Medicină-Farmacie . Aproape 3.ooo de liceeni din întreaga ţară şi-au verifcat cunoştinţele acumulate până acum şi au experimentat condiţiile din ziua admiterii, care va fi în luna iulie 2019.
Cei aproape 3.000 de elevi au avut de rezolvat un test grilă cu 100 de întrebări. După două ore şi jumătate, cât a durat testarea, au venit şi rezultatele, fiecare elev având posibilitatea de a vedea cât de bine s-a descurcat.
Adolescenţii spun că vor să urmeze această carieră din pasiune, ca să-i ajute pe oameni ş pentru că vor să schimbe sistemul medical românesc.
„Pe parcursul a trei ore, participanţii înscrişi vor susţine un test alcătuit din întrebări tip grilă de Biologie, Fizică, Chimie sau Matematică. Întrebările la care vor răspunde elevii au fost realizate de cadrele didactice ale UMF. Peste 150 de voluntari ai societăţilor studenţeşti din cadrul universităţii au fost mobilizaţi pentru a lua parte la organizarea simulării conform metodologiei actuale“, au precizat organizatorii simulării.
În şase ani de studiu, fără rezidenţiat, statul român investeşte într-un absolvent aproape 81.000 de lei, arată un studiu al Organizaţiei Mondiale a Sănătăţii. Însă tot statul român eşuează să îi ţină pe aceştia în ţară astfel că ultimele cifre arată din România pleacă, în medie, 6 medici în fiecare zi.
Examenul pentru admitere la Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie va avea loc pe 24 iulie 2019.
Publicație : Adevărul
The new Gates-funded commission could threaten liberal arts subsidies
The commission will put a value on a college education, moving the country into a two-tiered system, argues Nicholas Tampio
The Gates Foundation is poised to disrupt US higher education with a new Postsecondary Value Commission. As its name suggests, the commission aims to define the value of a college degree.
Among other things, the commission plans to “aid policymakers in gauging what the public gets for its investment in higher education.” If Congress listens to the commission, it could become harder for students majoring in the liberal arts or humanities to secure a federal loan or grant.
As a political scientist who researches education policy, I anticipate that the country will move to a two-tiered system. It will be one in which the affluent will be able to acquire a liberal arts education at elite private institutions, while students who depend on federal financial aid will be steered towards career-focused majors at public universities.
In effect, the country will have one higher education system for the rich and another for everyone else.
The Gates Foundation has convened this commission to address a real problem: student debt. Total student loan debt in 2019 is $1.56 trillion (£1.21 trillion). There are 44.7 million US borrowers with student loan debt.
The commission will address a question that is on the minds of many families, policymakers, and taxpayers. And that is: is college worth it?
The commission will propose a definition of college value to guide policy conversations. In a conference call with reporters, Mildred Garcia, the commission co-chair, shared that she had just spent a day on Capitol Hill talking with legislators.
She stated that “we are definitely hoping” that the commission’s work will “affect” the reauthorisation of the Higher Education Act that controls – among other things – how federal student aid is disbursed.
Just as the Gates Foundation pulled off a revolution in K-12 education with its support for the Common Core, the foundation is serious about using policy advocacy and lobbying to enact “institutional transformation” of higher education.
For instance, commission member Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, recently noted how a recent move by president Donald Trump to focus more on outcomes of specific programmes at colleges and universities is “one more step toward a widely supported movement to reorder higher education as we have known it”.
“In a shift toward program-level outcomes, every college will be unbundled down to the program level – its identity, traditions and structure will become less important,” Carnevale wrote in an opinion piece titled “The Revolution is Upon Us”.
“Instead,” Carnevale wrote, “the outcomes of students in each particular major or field will be elevated in importance.”
Carnevale seemed to be aware of the potential threat that this poses to the liberal arts. He wrote that society will have to “think of new models for assuring core liberal arts curricula that are essential to the well-rounded learning that students need”.
While the Gates commission aims to educate students and families about which colleges and majors are a worthwhile investment, this approach alone may not have much impact.
Presently, the US Department of Education’s College Scorecard collects and publicises information about the debts and earnings of graduates from different colleges.
However, research has shown that most students do not respond to earnings data provided by the College Scorecard. It’s true that colleges with graduates who have higher median earnings have seen a slight rise in the SAT scores of students who enrol. The College Scorecard has also had some effect on where students from affluent public or private schools attend, but otherwise the College Scorecard does not influence who goes to college or where.
So how can this commission transform US higher education where earlier reforms have not worked? By encouraging Congress to make federal loans and grants available to students in some majors, such as engineering or business, where graduates tend to earn a high salary upon graduation.
Conversely, Congress might be moved to make loans and grants unavailable for students in other majors, such as theology or humanities, where graduates do not earn as much.
Congress has already entertained this idea with the PROSPER Act. This higher education bill would have ended access to federal student loans for students enrolled in programmes with low loan repayment rates.
Democratic senators such as Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have co-sponsored the College Transparency Act. The act permits the federal government to collect earnings data on graduates from specific college programmes and majors.
Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate education committee, wants to rewrite the Higher Education Act to collect data on programme-level outcomes.
Even President Trump has jumped on the higher education accountability bandwagon, signing an executive order requiring the College Scorecard to publish programme-level average earnings and loan repayment rates.
Where will this higher education accountability movement lead?
According to Carnevale, it will lead to a “streamlining” of public university systems. Students at the flagship public university will still be able to major in English. But higher education must become accountable to stakeholders who don’t want to subsidise “mediocre programs” on every branch campus.
Would it be a tragedy if society did not subsidise young people to major in the liberal arts or humanities, if they so wish? Yes.
By focusing on the economic returns of higher education, the commission could lead policymakers to put less weight on the other reasons that students go to college, including to read humanity’s greatest books, grapple with big questions about justice, study in other countries, work internships and think about what to do with the rest of one’s life.
This blog was originally published on The Conversation.
Publicație : The Times
Harvard row prompts call for clarity on administrator freedom
Dean was removed following opposition to his role in Harvey Weinstein’s legal team
Universities have been called to clarify the expectations and limitations of academic administrators in the wake of Harvard University’s decision to oust a dean who was on Harvey Weinstein’s legal defence team.
Harvard has faced intense backlash after announcing earlier this month that Ronald Sullivan and his wife Stephanie Robinson would not be continuing as faculty deans of Winthrop House when their terms ended on 30 June.
Professor Sullivan, Jesse Climenko clinical professor of law and director of the university’s Criminal Justice Institute, had been the target of student protests since he announced in January that he would be on former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s defence team.
Students claimed that Professor Sullivan’s decision to represent someone accused of sexual abuse disqualified him from serving in a role of support and mentorship to students. Professor Sullivan left Weinstein’s team the day before Harvard’s decision, according to ABC News.
However, reports in The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper, claim that there have been longstanding concerns about leadership at Winthrop House, one of 12 undergraduate residential houses at the institution.
Jeffrey Sachs, lecturer in the department of politics at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, said that Harvard and other institutions needed to “think more carefully about what academic freedom entails”.
“Many faculty occupy administrative posts that straddle the academic-student relations line. Many more are being encouraged by their institutions to engage with the public online, in talks and in print,” he said.
“These new levels of exposure create real vulnerabilities for faculty and the potential for blowback. Universities need to be explicit with faculty about precisely how much security they have, should they say or do something that proves controversial.”
Jeffrey Flier, distinguished service professor and Higginson professor of physiology and medicine at Harvard Medical School, said that, if Harvard wants faculty deans to “include prominent academics from diverse fields of study, as opposed to counsellors and therapists, some or all of these faculty deans will from time to time express opinions and have roles that some students will disagree with or find politically or morally objectionable”.
“The administration must clarify this: when such unavoidable situations occur, and some students claim emotional harm as a result, will they view this as cause to question or terminate the dean’s tenure,” Professor Flier said.
“I would see such a view as deeply flawed. It diminishes the intellectual discourse that should characterise a great university community, diminishes the capacity of faculty deans to be role models for accomplishment and intellectual bravery, and projects students as children needing protection from dangerous ideas rather than young adults who must learn to grapple effectively with complex ideas and values that are not uniform within the Harvard community, and will not be uniform in their post-Harvard lives.”
A Harvard spokeswoman said that the decision not to renew the faculty deans was “informed by a number of considerations”, including “serious and numerous” concerns from students about “the climate in Winthrop House”.
“The actions that have been taken to improve the climate and the noticeable absence of faculty dean leadership during critical moments has further deteriorated the climate in the house. The college deemed this situation in the house to be untenable,” the spokeswoman said.
She added that “the role and term of faculty deans are explicitly clear to those who are appointed to the position”.
Publicație : The Times
Grade inflation: English universities asked to report next year
Move follows agreement over ‘statement of intent’ on tackling issues linked to rise in firsts and 2:1s in UK
Each university in England will have to publish the results of an internal review into how they assess students next year as part of attempts to tackle the issue of grade inflation.
The measure comes after UK institutions agreed the wording of a “statement of intent” on how they would work to maintain the value of degrees in light of the huge rise in firsts and 2:1s awarded over the last decade.
As part of the statement, which has been signed by representative bodies including Universities UK, universities have pledged to “review and explain” how they calculate final degree classifications and “publish data and analysis on degree outcomes”.
In England, this will mean each institution carrying out an internal review and publishing “degree outcome statements” next year. The implications for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will vary because they have different quality assurance systems.
The outcome statements in England will have to include a detailed analysis of trends in an institution’s degree results as well as explaining whether there is a “clear and publicly accessible” rationale for the algorithms used for determining students’ final marks.
It follows a major report by sector bodies last year that accepted grade inflation was playing a part in the rise in firsts and 2:1s, which have gone up by more than half in the past 10 years.
In the wake of the report, a consultation was launched on proposals to publish a statement of intent as well as other ways to tackle the problem longer term.
As well as pledging more transparency on degree outcomes and how they are calculated, the statement of intent also calls on institutions to “ensure assessments continue to stretch and challenge students” and to “support and strengthen the external examiners system”.
According to a summary of the consultation results, almost 90 per cent of responses supported the proposal for the statement, although most of them said that it would only tackle the problem “in part”.
The consultation also proposed a description of the degree classification system that could be used as a “shared reference point for institutional assessment criteria” but further work is due to be carried out on this “to address concerns raised during the consultation”.
There was also wide support for talking to domestic league table compilers about how they use metrics on degree marks, but “mixed views” on “developing an alternative classification system or changing classification boundaries”.
Education secretary Damian Hinds welcomed the statement of intent but said it needed to be “followed by action. The Office for Students will use its full powers to challenge those institutions that cannot justify a rise in the proportion of top degrees being awarded, starting from next academic year.”
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said that it was good that universities were working together because this was their “only chance” of getting out of the “last chance saloon on grade inflation” on their own terms.
However, he said that the “only way such a technocratic document can ever be deemed a success is if it leads to clear and demonstrable progress and, for now, the jury is out on whether it goes far enough to deliver that”.
Publicație : The Times
US scientists plead for clarity on foreign collaboration rules
White House promising consolidated approach to suspicions of espionage in labs
US research universities are pleading for the Trump administration, as it cracks down on research relationships with foreign nationals, to make clear exactly what is and is not allowed.
Campus administrators and scientists – after months of government-led investigations, scholar bans and evictions of foreign nationals from labs – are feeling trapped by unclear or conflicting rules.
“All over the country,” healthcare pioneer Gilbert Omenn of the University of Michigan told a recent scientific gathering, “people are confused right now about the instructions to identify foreign components – people, trainees, even data, specimens, contacts, [and] co-authorships.”
The situation, said Tobin Smith, vice-president for policy at the Association for American Universities, reflected “a lack of coordination across federal intelligence, security and science agencies” in addressing security concerns in academia.
Race and ethnicity, said one Obama administration science adviser, seemed a pretty clear factor behind the legal inconsistencies. Some data-sharing actions are being “prosecuted and pursued and criminalised for some people of Chinese descent, when similar practices are not criminalised and pursued for other people,” said Kei Koizumi, now a senior adviser for science at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Officials from the FBI and other national security agencies have been warning US researchers for months that scientists from China and other countries are working within their labs to steal valuable scientific material. But major grant-awarding science agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, when asked by universities, have not been able to say what exactly is allowed, said Professor Omenn, a professor of internal medicine, human genetics and public health at Michigan.
“They sort of throw up their hands and say, ‘We’re waiting for clarification’,” Professor Omenn, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a White House science adviser in the Carter administration, told the AAAS-led science policy session.
The current chief White House science adviser, Kelvin Droegemeier, told the same gathering that he was taking the blame for the disorder on behalf of the Trump administration and promising to quickly fix it.
The Trump administration took until February – more than halfway through its term in office – to get Professor Droegemeier installed to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
“Every [university] president I’ve met with, it’s the top line concern,” Professor Droegemeier said, citing the need for clearer policy concerning foreign nationals and university research. “We have not had an active involvement there because there wasn’t a director – that’s the only reason.”
In that absence of such coordination, the NIH has written to dozens of universities asking them to scrutinise the behaviour of foreign nationals on their campuses. That led at least one institution, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, to expel three scientists from Asian backgrounds.
The NSF has not acknowledged taking any similar actions. Some of the cases at MD Anderson reportedly involved scientists who shared some information from NIH grant applications with colleagues in China. Such sharing is not allowed, although it is understood to occur regularly among US scientists who serve on grant review panels and informally discussed their work with US colleagues.
Mr Koizumi said that he served on such grant review panels and knows not to share the contents of grant applications with colleagues outside those panels. Yet he’s less aware of any associated penalties and has not heard of them being applied to Americans.
“All these policies are enforced unevenly, and that's a problem,” he said. “I definitely worry about that, because of course there’s a racial angle to this.”
Publicație : The Times
18 mai 2019
University backtracks on disputed Voynich manuscript theory
Bristol distances itself from academic who claims to have solved century-old mystery
A university that breathlessly declared one of its academics had cracked the code of the celebrated Voynich manuscript has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown after medieval experts poured scorn on his theory.
Bristol University said this week Dr Gerard Cheshire had “succeeded where countless cryptographers, linguistics scholars and computer programs have failed” by identifying the language and purpose of the mysterious and apparently coded 15th-century text.
Although the meaning of the volume, held at Yale University, had eluded experts for more than a century, the university said Cheshire had solved the puzzle in just two weeks “using a combination of lateral thinking and ingenuity”.
Cheshire argued Voynich was a therapeutic reference book composed by nuns for Maria of Castile, queen of Aragon, and the sole surviving text written in a lost language called “proto-Romance”. He described his findings as “one of the most important developments to date in Romance linguistics”.
Cheshire’s paper was peer-reviewed and published in the established journal Romance Studies, but not every expert in the field of medieval literature was convinced. “Sorry folks. This is just more aspirational, circular, self-fulfilling nonsense,” tweeted Dr Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of the Medieval Academy of America, in one of the kinder assessments from its critics.
Now the university has deleted its article about the research, saying concerns had been raised “about the validity of this research from academics in the fields of linguistics and medieval studies”.
Having previously described Cheshire as “a University of Bristol academic”, the university is taking pains to distance itself from him. It said: “The research was entirely the author’s own work and is not affiliated with the University of Bristol, the school of arts nor the Centre for Medieval Studies”.
Asked for his reaction, Cheshire told the Guardian he felt “no disappointment at all” at the university’s backtracking. “It was inevitable and expected, given the passion that the manuscript arouses, that a marginal group would find it difficult to accept new evidence,” he said.
“The paper has been blind peer-reviewed and published in a highly reputable journal, which is the gold standard in scientific corroboration. Thus, all protocol was followed to the letter and the work is officially supported. Given time, many scholars will have used the solution for their own research of the manuscript and published their own papers, so the small tide of resistance will wane.”
Bristol University said it would “seek further validation” in discussions with the journal. The Guardian has contacted the editor of Romance Studies for comment.
Publicație : The Guardian
A master’s degree isn’t always more valuable
Pressure from employers and peers to get higher degrees can leave students with more debt but no better jobs, says Robert Hesketh
Recent official income data from the UK’s Department for Education and Skills has shown that with increasing numbers of people graduating with undergraduate degrees, the biggest earning premium is with those staying in higher education to further their studies.
In most cases this means enrolling in a self-funded master’s degree course. While the UK’s universities minister Chris Skidmore has welcomed this “graduate premium” and of course the universities themselves no doubt are silently pleased at these figures, the invisible downside has been the added pressure that many undergraduate students have felt, not just from employers but
Over the past three years that I have taught a criminal justice master’s degree course at Liverpool John Moores University, I have noticed a dramatic increase in the number of students coming on to the course directly after graduating with their first degree.
My suspicions of peer pressure were confirmed after speaking to some of my postgraduate cohort who admitted that it wasn’t necessarily out of choice that they had enrolled in a second degree course. In fact, they had felt pressure to pursue postgraduate study because many of their friends were asking “What are you going to do for your master’s?”.
Clearly, for some students, having just an undergraduate degree is associated with failure; simply having a bachelor’s degree is not enough to succeed in the world of graduate employment. Postgraduate study has become the new benchmark by which a successful university education is now being judged.
While the figures show that postgraduates have an average salary of £40,000, compared with £34,000 for graduates and £24,000 for non-graduates, the Department for Education and Skills must realise that this is not the path that many students will automatically find themselves on across all parts of the country.
Let us not forget, when it comes to social mobility, the UK is stagnant. According to research by the Sutton Trust, Britain is among the worst of the 37 OECD nations for income mobility, something that the Department for Education would be hesitant to mention, no doubt.
Geography plays a huge role in this. The number of degrees a graduate has can be irrelevant if they end up returning to a location where degree level employment is scarce or bordering on non-existent, and in order to benefit from this so called “graduate premium” the only option available is to migrate.
Yet, with the cost of a master’s course running around £9,000 or £10,000 added to an already bulging student debt of £40,000 or more for an undergraduate degree, relocating may not be a choice.
It is clear that universities and central government need to stand back and gain a true picture of the reality of the climate that austerity has created in some parts of the country.
Having two degrees for some might indeed get them a graduate job that yields dividends in the more affluent areas of the south, but for others just north of the Watford gap, it may mean nothing more that two or three extra letters on their CV with the eventual outcome being a job that could have been obtained with one degree or less.
For final year undergraduate students themselves who are feeling pressurised by the sight of their friends applying for master’s courses, my advice is to stop and think about what you want to achieve, and, more importantly, the value of such a qualification around where you live if you intend to stay there. Talking to others such as local employers and university careers should be your first port of call before talking to your bank manager.
Publicație : The Times
Why we can’t overlook textbook piracy
A new business model is needed if textbook publishers want to win back their student clients, says Matthew Jones
About a quarter of students admit that they regularly pirate academic content, and on average academic publishers lose more than 28 per cent of their potential revenue to textbook piracy.
The industry has already begun to feel the bite, with Pearson and the soon-to-be-merged Cengage and McGraw-Hill all posting extensive losses over the past few years. Why has academic piracy become such an epidemic, and how can the industry respond?
Studies have shown that the prices of academic textbooks have risen by 1,041 per cent since 1977 – outstripping the overall rate of inflation by a rate of four to one. As such, the average student can now expect to pay between £450 and £1,070 annually on books and equipment, a figure that becomes even more significant when the rise in tuition fees and general living costs are taken into account.
While it is true that there has been some movement towards providing textbooks on an open access basis, the uptake of these resources has been comparatively low, and not anywhere close to the level needed for the average faculty member.
As such, with most material being hidden behind paywalls, or in texts whose prices rise relentlessly, is it a surprise that scores of students are being driven towards piracy?
Further compounding the issue has been the ill-fitting approach to security taken by the major publishers. Currently, upon purchasing an e-textbook, a publisher relinquishes total control of the product, relying on often woefully inadequate security measures to prevent its misuse.
The whack-a-mole approach taken to academic file-sharing sites such as Sci-Hub has been equally ineffectual. As anyone who has visited one of the thousands of Pirate Bay proxy sites will know, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notices and cease-and-desist letters are extremely ineffectual because a simple change of domain will allow the pirates to continue their operations with impunity. Sci-Hub’s continued existence – despite more than four years of legal battles – stands testament to this.
Finally, accessibility remains an issue. As traditional academic-focused bookshops close at an alarming rate, some students may feel forced into piracy to access necessary materials. The same can be said for those who suffer from dyslexia, for whom print doesn’t encourage reading.
Quite fundamentally, the vast majority of students do not view academic piracy as a criminal act. One study revealed that an astonishing 88 per cent of students saw no issue with accessing materials in an illegal way.
Part of the reason for this disconnect is to do with the needs and wishes of students, and specifically how they’re not being met by the market. Many view their situation from a position of pragmatism: the unethical act of piracy equates with the alleged lack of ethics on the part of companies that force students to pay high prices to receive an education.
To solve this, it’s important for publishers to address consumer needs. With 65 per cent of students stating that they have decided against buying a textbook on the factor of price, affordability is clearly important. Similarly, with 73 per cent of students indicating that they would prefer an open access model, the provision of genuine convenience is paramount.
Publishers can account for both of these wishes by moving towards a digital, aggregated subscription model, similar to what the music industry has done. It is increasingly clear that if publishers can provide a convenient and affordable way to access the required materials, consumers will choose that option over the often-laborious task of pirating. An NDP study revealed that as Spotify grew, the amount of music that was pirated fell by 26 per cent.
However, it is vital that publishers also avoid segmentation of the subscription market that could result from individual publisher hubris.
While a single-publisher digital model will certainly improve accessibility, and reclaim some of the market share lost to piracy, it would be prudent to keep the cautionary tale of the film industry in mind.
Similar to Spotify, the rise of Netflix led to a corresponding fall in the pirating of films. However, as more major players (Disney, HBO and so on) launch their own subscription offerings, consumers are being driven back to piracy because of “subscription fatigue”. The answer to this issue is to provide a single, convenient and affordable location that offers access to content from all publishers.
The academic publishing world is suffering from piracy because consumers have chosen to rebel against what they see as unjust price inflation. Publishers themselves have compounded this issue by responding to falling revenues by raising prices even higher to try to make up for the losses.
A new approach is needed, and by shifting towards a centralised digital model, publishers can begin to win back lost segments of the market and return the industry to growth.
Publicație : The Times
Leiden builds bridges with campus in The Hague
Home of United Nations court and Dutch government has no university of its own – but Leiden’s outpost ‘could grow to 10,000 or 20,000’ students
The Hague is the seat of government in the Netherlands, the country’s third largest city with a population of more than 600,000 and as the United Nations’ fourth major centre – after New York, Geneva and Vienna – is home to its International Court of Justice. Yet, while it has a university of applied sciences, it has never had its own research university.
Its solution was to ask Leiden University – the oldest Dutch higher education institution, established in 1575 in the beautiful but small city 10 miles away – to open a campus in The
Karel Stolker, Leiden’s rector magnificus and president, said that The Hague’s civic leaders had had “no money for another university” and, moreover, there was “no need” to create one, given the proliferation of existing universities nearby.
While the campus has been up and running since 1997, Leiden has being significantly expanding its teaching and research activities in The Hague since 2016 under Professor Stolker’s leadership.
The “DNA” of The Hague is international and political, said Professor Stolker. Hence Leiden has launched courses such as international studies, political science, international law and international relations at its campus there.
When some Leiden academics previously voiced scepticism about the expansion, Professor Stolker countered with the argument that it was “quite possible that LSE [the London School of Economics] or Yale or [another] university would come over to the Hague and start offering courses in English, in political science, whatever. Then it would be a competitor on your doorstep. That was convincing to them.”
Now “our scholars and our scientists also see the advantages”, he said. For instance, “if you want an ambassador to give a speech to our students it’s really easy”, he added.
Leiden, said Professor Stolker, was still exploring the civic potential of its presence in The Hague, and is “still in the process of learning: what can you do with the city?”.
Teaching in English at the campus was natural “because it’s such an international environment – but we also feel a responsibility towards the local people there” to educate “not just the kids of the diplomats…but also the locals”, said Professor Stolker.
The Hague has a large immigrant population and the borders between some of its immigrant and Dutch-born communities have been described as particularly rigid. The Hague was “a more difficult city than Leiden – there’s much segregation there”, said Professor Stolker.
One key question was how much to grow the Hague campus. “We don’t want to end up with two universities – we really want to stay one university in two cities, that’s the concept,” said the rector.
There are 4,500 students at the campus at present. Natural growth would take that to 7,000.
Professor Stolker said: “But maybe it could grow to 10,000 or 20,000 [students]. Who knows?”
The mayor of Leiden was, he continued, at one stage “kind of afraid” about the university developing its presence in The Hague.
But while there “used to [be] more tensions” around The Hague campus “today it’s quite obvious to everyone this is a very important step”, Professor Stolker said.
“I was born here in Leiden so he [the mayor] trusts me…So for me it was a little bit easier to go to The Hague than for my predecessor, who came from Amsterdam,” he added.
On post-Brexit collaboration, Professor Stolker said he “would love to work together with one or two British universities in The Hague, in international law, European law”.
He added that “most Dutch universities are talking with British universities on collaborations”.
Professor Stolker is in talks with the University of Edinburgh “to discuss future collaborations”. Edinburgh “have come to us because of Brexit”, he said. Such a partnership could involve joint PhDs, joint professorial appointments or joint courses “maybe in The Hague”. Given the ease of travelling from the UK to The Hague it is easy for academics to “come for a couple of days and then go back to Edinburgh”, he explained.
Professor Stolker added: “If you’re the neighbour of one of the best-performing higher education systems in the world [the UK], you want to keep that relationship with that wonderful system of higher education and research.”
Publicație : The Times
Lampsaque, 300 av. J.-C. : « Que soient exemptés de taxes les étudiants étrangers qui viendront résider dans la cité »
Raphaël Doan et François Lefèvre, spécialistes de l’Antiquité, rappellent dans une tribune au « Monde » comment les cités grecques rivalisaient pour attirer étudiants et enseignants étrangers.
« Lampsaque avait un rang à tenir : Anaxagore, le maître à penser de Périclès, y avait enseigné au Ve siècle avant Jésus-Christ, tout comme Epicure lui-même au IVe. » (Photo : représentation d’Epicure sur un timbre paru en Grèce le 15 mars dans le cadre d’une série consacrée aux écrivains et philosophes grecs). DR
Tribune. Par arrêté du 19 avril 2019, le gouvernement a décidé d’augmenter considérablement les frais d’inscription des étudiants étrangers non européens dans les universités françaises. Le débat s’est aussitôt enflammé autour de ce choix essentiellement budgétaire : ne devrait-on pas tout faire, au contraire, pour attirer les talents internationaux sur les bancs de nos facultés, quel qu’en soit le coût ?
Il se trouve que cette question s’était posée, dans les mêmes termes, pour les cités de la Méditerranée antique. Au début de la période qu’on appelle hellénistique, après la mort d’Alexandre le Grand (323 av. J.-C.), la concurrence entre cités grecques était rude, et ne se limitait pas à la politique ou au commerce. Leur rivalité était également culturelle et académique.
Anaxagore, Epicure
On sait par exemple que la cité de Lampsaque, près des Dardanelles, avait fait aux alentours de 300 avant notre ère le choix inverse de celui du gouvernement français en 2019. Une stèle inscrite a en effet conservé les restes d’un décret et on y lit : « Que soient exemptés de taxes les étudiants et enseignants [étrangers] qui résident ou viendront résider dans la cité pour instruire ou être instruits. »
Il faut dire que, dans le monde intellectuel, Lampsaque avait un rang à tenir : Anaxagore, le maître à penser de Périclès, y avait enseigné au Ve siècle avant Jésus-Christ, tout comme Epicure lui-même au IVe. Il s’agissait donc pour elle de continuer à attirer les élites dans un contexte de plus en plus concurrentiel : peu après, des mesures comparables furent prises en Egypte par le roi Ptolémée II, notamment pour sa capitale, Alexandrie, riche de son incomparable bibliothèque et de son musée. Ce dernier n’était pas, contrairement à ce qu’on appelle aujourd’hui sous ce nom, une galerie d’art, mais une sorte de complexe universitaire attirant les plus grands esprits du temps autour d’un sanctuaire des Muses.
On retrouve exactement les mêmes stratégies, en ce début de XXIe siècle après Jésus-Christ, pour attirer les meilleurs étudiants du monde. De plus en plus de pays, comme l’Allemagne ou la Norvège, ont complètement supprimé les frais d’inscription pour les étudiants étrangers, tandis que beaucoup d’universités cherchent à se regrouper pour former des complexes suffisamment visibles dans les classements mondiaux.
Publicație : Le Monde
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