22 iunie 2019

Referendumuri în două mari universităţi ieşene: alegeri prin concurs sau prin vot general cu toate cadrele didactice, cercetătorii şi reprezentanţii studenţilor?

Universitarii ieșeni își aleg rectorul. La TUIASI prin alegeri democratice, la CUZA e ”secret” încă

 În ultimele zile, cadrele didactice de la Universitatea „Cuza“ şi de la Universitatea Tehnică au decis prin vot, cum cere noua legislaţie, modul de desemnare a rectorului: prin concurs sau prin vot general. La Politehnică s-a votat varianta a doua. La „Cuza“ s-a anunţat ieri că rezultatul va fi făcut public la sfârşitul săptămânii viitoare

Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza“ din Iaşi (UAIC) şi Universitatea Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi“ din Iaşi (TUIASI) au stabilit modalitatea de alegere a rectorului, în cadrul a două referedumuri organizate la fiecare universitate în parte. La TUIASI, 83% dintre cei care au participat la referendumul pentru alegerea rectorului au optat pentru varianta votului universal, direct şi secret al tuturor cadrelor didactice şi de cercetare titulare din cadrul universităţii şi al reprezentanţilor studenţilor din Senatul universitar şi din Consiliile facultăţilor. Prezenţa la referendum a fost de aproape 65%, dintr-un total de 740 de persoane cu drept de vot.

Acest referedum a avut loc marţi, 18 iunie, iar rezultatul a fost validat a doua zi de către Senatul TUIASI. „Este vorba de cele două moduri de conducere: managerială sau colegială. În România există o singură universitate care a adoptat modul managerial de conducere, pe lângă universităţile militare, care nu intră în discuţie. În rest, toate universităţile au adoptat conducerea colegială, mai flexibilă, mai apropiată de nevoile corpului profesoral şi al personalului didactic auxiliar şi nedidactic. Semnalul esenţial este acela că întreaga comunitate academică doreşte să-şi exercite dreptul democratic de a-şi alege rectorul dintre ai săi, ca persoană de maximă reprezentativitate. Este un câştig important care rezultă din Legea 1, şi care a schimbat mult situaţia care a existat multă vreme în învăţământ înainte, când rectorul era ales numai de Senatul universitar. Acest sufragiu general este mult mai democratic, mult mai reprezentativ, dă o legitimitate foarte puternică rectorului“, a precizat prof.dr. ing. Neculai Seghedin, prorector responsabil cu activitatea didactică şi asigurarea calităţii.

La Universitatea „Al.I. Cuza“, referendumul a avut loc alaltăieri, dar rezultatul - una dintre cele două metode de alegere a rectorului - s-a anunţat că se va şti abia vinerea viitoare. Asta pentru că astfel prevede metodologia adoptată acum 6 luni: rezultatele sunt analizate în următoarea şedinţă de Senat, şi abia apoi făcute publice. Scrutinul a avut o prezenţă de aproximativ 57%, votând 489 dintre profesorii, cercetătorii şi studenţii cu drept de vot înscrişi pe listele electorale. În total, la UAIC sunt 859 de persoane cu drept de vot. Astfel, a fost întrunit cvorumul necesar validării referendumului, iar rezultatele acestuia vor fi supuse validării în şedinţa de pe 27 iunie, şi vor fi făcute publice pe 28 iunie.

Conform Legii Educaţiei nr. 1/2011 şi Ordinului de Ministru 3.751, există două metode prin care poate fi ales rectorul: 1 - pe baza unui concurs public şi în baza unei metodologii aprobate de Senatul universitar nou-ales, conform cu prezenta lege, sau, 2 - prin vot universal, direct şi secret al tuturor cadrelor didactice şi de cercetare titulare din cadrul universităţii şi al reprezentanţilor studenţilor din Senatul universitar şi din Consiliile facultăţilor.

Publicație : Ziarul de Iași

Universitatea "Cuza" din Iasi, gazda reuniunii celor mai importante institutii de invatamant superior din Romania 

Universitatea "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi a gazduit intalnirea celor mai importante si de traditie institutii de invatamant superior din Romania, entitati ce fac parte din Consortiul Universitaria.

Din acesta fac parte, pe langa universitatea gazda, si Universitatea "Babes Bolyai" din Cluj Napoca, Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara, Universitatea Bucuresti, respectiv Academia de Studii Economice din Bucuresti.

Ceremonia a fost deschisa (ieri, 21 iunie 2019 - n.r.) de rectorul UAIC, prof. univ. dr. Tudorel Toader, evenimentul avand loc in Aula Magna "Mihai Eminescu". Pe langa ceilalti rectori invitati, a participat si prof. univ. dr. Ioan Aurel Pop, rectorul Universitatii "Babes Bolyai", dar si presedintele Academiei Romane.

Discutiile s-au purtat pe grupuri de lucru pe anumite teme: activitate didactica, cercetare stiintifica si studii doctorale, finantarea învatamântului superior si atragerea de fonduri structurale, relatii internationale, activitati studentesti si parteneriate cu mediul economic, strategie si dezvoltare institutionala.

"Întâlnirile Consortiului au ca scop conlucrarea universitatilor partenere pentru ridicarea nivelului cercetarii stiintifice si a activitatii didactice, în vederea recunoasterii nationale si internationale a prestigiului acestora si a clasificarii lor în categoria universitatilor de referinta în Europa, initierea îmbunatatirii cadrului legislativ al desfasurarii învatamântului superior si a cercetarii stiintifice universitare, precum si definirea unitara a programelor de studii universitare si a standardelor minime pentru acestea, ca si a titlurilor si calificarilor dobândite în urma absolvirii lor", au precizat oficialii Consortiului.

În primavara anului acesta s-au împlinit 23 de ani de la semnarea protocolului de colaborare între cele mai importante cinci universitati din tara, ce aveau sa se reuneasca în Consortiul Universitaria.

Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași

 Trei universităţi din România dispar din Clasamentul internaţional al universităţilor QS

Trei dintre universităţile româneşti, care au fost prezente anii trecuţi în clasamentul internaţional al universităţilor Quacqarelli-Symonds, nu s-au mai clasat în top 1000. Conform clasamentului  World University Rankings QS, publicat în urmă cu două zile, Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai din Cluj-Napoca şi Universitatea din Bucureşti sunt singurele universităţi din ţara noastră care au fost incluse în top.

Schimbare dramatică, înregistrată de universităţile din România: trei dintre instituţiile de învăţământ superior româneşti prezente anii trecuţi în rankinguri nu au mai prins top 1000.

România este prezentă în clasament cu Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai din Cluj-Napoca şi Universitatea din Bucureşti, ambele ocupând un loc în categoria 801+, la fel ca anul trecut. Au dispărut însă din primele 1000, faţă de anul trecut, Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza din Iaşi, Universitatea Politehnica din Bucureşti şi Universitatea de Vest din Timişoara.

În urmă cu doi ani, Universitatea din Bucureşti era cel mai bine clasată instituţie românească în acest ranking, ocupând un loc în poziţiile 701-750.

Clasamentul internaţional este condus de MIT, urmat de Stanford şi Harvard.

QS World University Rankings 2020 este condus de universităţile americane, iar primele instituţii de învăţământ superior din Europa sunt Oxford pe locul 4, ETH Zurich pe locul 6, Cambridge pe 7, UCL pe 8 şi Imperial College London pe 9.

Rankingul internaţional arată şi efectele incertitudinii Brexit asupra studenţilor: 56 din 84 de universităţi din Marea Britanie au pierdut poziţii.

Daniel David, prorectorul Universităţii Babeş-Bolyai responsabil cu cercetarea, a declarat că toate cele 5 universităţi au intrat şi anul acesta în evaluare, însă doar primele două au prins top 1000.

„Acesta trebuie să fie un avertisment pentru Guvern şi Ministerul Educaţiei, care dacă nu înţeleg că marile universităţi româneşti nu sunt susţinute printr-o finanţare adecvată care să le ajute în competiţia internaţională cu alte universităţi de tip world-class, în scurt timp România nu va mai avea nicio universitate în topurile internaţionale şi asta va avea consecinţe negative asupra competitivităţii ţării, până la urmă”, a susţinut David, conform edupedu.ro

Prorectorul UBB a explicat că realizatorii clasamentului internaţional „se uită la performanţa universităţii la nivel internaţional şi au un anumit prag de la care contactează universităţile. Deci trebuie să treci un anumit prag de performanţă, după care eşti contactat şi întrebat dacă vrei să trimiţi datele necesare pentru evaluare”.

TOP 50 universităţi în lume:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – SUA: îşi păstrează poziţia de anul trecut 2. Stanford University – SUA: îşi păstrează poziţia de anul trecut 3. Harvard University – SUA: îşi păstrează poziţia de anul trecut 4. University of Oxford – Marea Britanie: urcă o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 5. California Institute of Technology (Caltech) – SUA: cade cu o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 6. ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – Elveţia: urcă o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 7. University of Cambridge – Marea Britanie: cade o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 8. UCL – Marea Britanie: urcă două poziţii, faţă de clasamentul de anul trecut 9. Imperial College London – Marea Britanie: cade o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 10. University of Chicago – SUA: cade o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 11. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU) – Singapore: urcă o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 11. National University of Singapore (NUS) – Singapore *la egalitate: îşi păstrează poziţia de anul trecut 13. Princeton University – SUA: îşi păstrează poziţia de anul trecut 14. Cornell University – SUA: îşi păstrează poziţia de anul trecut 15. University of Pennsylvania – SUA: urcă 4 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 16. Tsinghua University – China: urcă o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 17. Yale University – SUA: cade 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 18. Columbia University – SUA: cade 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 18. EPFL – Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne – Elveţia *la egalitate: urcă 4 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 20. The University of Edinburgh – Regatul Unit al Marii Britanii: cade 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 21. University of Michigan – SUA: cade o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 22. Peking University – Beijing China: urcă 8 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 22. The University of Tokyo – Japonia *la egalitate: urcă o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 24. Johns Hopkins University – SUA: cade 3 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 25. Duke University – SUA: urcă o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 25. The University of Hong Kong – Hong Kong *la egalitate: îşi păstrează poziţia de anul trecut 27. The University of Manchester – Marea Britanie: urcă 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 28. University of California, Berkeley (UCB) – SUA: cade o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 29. The Australian National University – Australia: cade 5 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 29. University of Toronto – Canada: cade o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 31. Northwestern University – SUA: urcă 3 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 32. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology – Hong Kong: urcă 5 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 33. King’s College London – Marea Britanie: cade 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 33. Kyoto University – Japonia *la egalitate: urcă 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 35. McGill University – Canada: cade 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 35. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) – SUA *la egalitate: pică 3 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 37. Seoul National University – Coreea de Sud: pică o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 38. The University of Melbourne – Australia: urcă o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 39. New York University (NYU) – SUA: urcă 4 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 40. Fudan University – China: urcă 4 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 41. KAIST – Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology – Coreea de Sud: cade o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 42. The University of Sydney – Australia: îşi păstrează poziţia de anul trecut 43. The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) – Australia: urcă 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 44. The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) – Marea Britanie: cade 6 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 45. University of California, San Diego (UCSD) – SUA: cade 4 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 46. The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) – Hong Kong: urcă 3 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 47. The University of Queensland – Australia: urcă o poziţie, faţă de anul trecut 48. Carnegie Mellon University – SUA: cade 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 49. University of Bristol – Marea Britanie: urcă 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut 50. Delft University of Technology – Olanda: urcă 2 poziţii, faţă de anul trecut

Vezi aici clasamentul internaţional

QS World University Rankings este construit pornind de la următorii 6 indicatori:

Reputaţia Academică (40%) – Indicatorul se bazează pe un studiu realizat de QS, ce reuneşte opiniile a peste 94.000 de persoane din mediul universitar cu privire la calitatea predării şi a cercetării în universităţi. Reputaţia în rândul Angajatorilor (10%) – Indicatorul se fundamentează pe aproximativ 45.000 de răspunsuri la QS Employer Survey. Chestionarul le cere angajatorilor să identifice instituţiile de unde provin absolvenţii cei mai competenţi, inovatori şi eficienţi. Raportul dintre Numărul de Profesori/Numărul de Studenţi (20%) – QS notează că studenţii menţionează, de obicei, calitatea predării ca cel mai important indicator pentru ei, atunci când compară universităţile. Pentru a vedea importanţa acordată de universitate predării, QS analizează numărul de profesori de toate nivelurile per elev. Numărul de citări (20%) – Indicatorul este folosit pentru a vedea calitatea cercetării la nivelul facultăţii. El este calculat prin raportarea numărului de citări ale tuturor cercetărilor produse de instituţie de-a lungul a 5 ani, la numărul membrilor facultăţii. QS precizează că ţine cont de faptul că există diferenţe între domenii în ceea ce priveşte ritmul publicării de lucrări în reviste de specialitate şi normalizează citările, în funcţie de domeniu. Pentru cuantificarea citărilor, QS foloseşte baza de date Scopus a Elsevier. Ponderea studenţilor internaţionali (5%) Ponderea profesorilor străini (5%)

Publicație : Adevărul și Ziarul de Iași

Mesajul unui olimpic român ajuns la Harvard pentru ministrul Educaţiei: Abandonaţi gândirea învechită. În România, pe elevi nu îi ascultă nimeni

Radu Andrei, medaliat cu aur la Olimpiadele Internaţionale de Fizică şi Astronomie, a vorbit într-un interviu pentru Hotnews despre diferenţele care există între sistemul de învăţământ românesc şi cel american. Acesta a mai povestit despre viaţa de student la universitatea Havard şi a menţionat că nu cheltuie mai mult de 50 de dolari pe lună.

„Abandonati gândirea învechită pe care se bazează sistemul de învăţământ şi fiţi mai deschisă la metodele noi de predare care se folosesc în vest”, acesta este mesajul pe care Radu Andrei, student la Universitatea Harvard, îl transmite ministrului Educaţiei, Ecaterina Andronescu, prin intermediul hotnews.ro. 

Radu Andrei: „La noi în ţară, sistemul este încătuşat de mentalitatea dinainte de 89, când era colaborarea doar în vorbe, nu şi în practică. Cred că elevii ar trebui să aibă mai multe de spus în organizarea sistemului de învăţământ, mai ales atunci când este vorba despre o schimbare. În România nu prea îi ascultă nimeni. Nu ar trebui să existe 13-14 materii de studiat într-un an. Ar trebui păstrate materiile de bază – limba română, matematica, limbă străină…iar restul materiilor ar trebui să fie alese de către elevi, în funcţie de preferinţe. Noi, la Harvard, avem doar 4 cursuri.

Şi în România, materia ar trebui restructurată, acum se axează mult pe teorie şi foarte puţin pe practică. Noi nu avem exerciţiu!  Eu cred că nu mă voi întoarce în ţară, la cum arată acum situaţia. Există o şansă să mă întorc, dacă ajung la concluzia că pot să particip la o schimbare în bine.

În şcolile din România, este o atmosferă destul de competitivă faţă de ceea ce se întâmplă în Statele Unite, acolo totul se bazează pe colaborare. Sistemul românesc de învăţământ este foarte individualist: în momentul în care faci teme, trebuie să le faci singur şi nu colaborezi cu colegii, în momentul în care dai un test, îl dai singur, în momentul în care eşti scos la tablă sau ascultat, trebuie să rezolvi această sarcină singur. Practic, toată schema de notare, de evaluare a unui elev se bazează pe ceea ce poate să facă individual.

Noi, la Universitatea Harvard, suntem încurajaţi să colaborăm cu colegii. De obicei, temele sunt foarte lungi şi ar fi dificil ca un singur student să o rezolve fără niciun ajutor din partea colegilor Întotdeauna ne strângem în grupuri de 3, 4 sau 5 colegi şi rezolvăm mult mai repede şi mai eficient problemele şi ne simţit mult mai bine. Nu am încredere în sistemul de învăţământ românesc, nu este orientat spre pasiunile elevului”.

Cum este viaţa la Universitatea Harvard?

Radu Andrei: „La Universitatea Harvard, profesorii sunt mult mai relaxaţi şi cultivă o relaţie de prietenie. De obicei, în România se simte o rigiditate, o anumită distanţă. Profesorul e undeva, mai sus iar elevul este mai jos. În Statele Unite, vor să se situeze pe acelaşi plan, ca să stimuleze comunicarea. De exemplu, atunci când profesorii ne mai trimit câte un email, ei se semnează doar cu prenumele, fără niciun titlu ori nume de familie: adică Joe, Louis, Jacobs. Atât. Fără alte titluri oficiale, care sunt foarte importante, noi ştim cine sunt aceşti profesori şi cât de buni sunt. Ei nu mai simt nevoia să ne arate lucrul acesta în fiecare zi.

Pe profesorii de la Harvard nu îi interesează ce faci la curs, atâta vreme cât nu îi deranjezi pe ceilalţi şi cât timp înveţi. De exemplu, am avut colegi care veneau la curs dimineaţa cu mâncare sau cafea, pentru că se trezeau mai târziu. Profesorii nu le spuneau nimic. La un moment dat, l-am servit si pe un profesor cu cereale, ne-a zâmbit şi ne-a refuzat, dar nu a avut nicio problemă cu chestia asta.

Cea mai amuzantă fază a fost atunci când un coleg s-a trezit dimineaţa foarte târziu şi a ajuns la curs în papuci şi în pijamale. Profesorul a zâmbit când l-a văzut, dar nu a zis nimic. Nu i-a făcut niciun reproş după curs. În momentul în care îţi faci treaba şi nu îi deranjezi pe ceilalţi, poţi să faci ce vrei!”

Cheltuieli lunare nu depăşesc 50 de dolari

Radu Andrei: „La Harvard, învaţă în acest moment aproximativ 20-30 de români, majoritatea olimpici. Locuim în apartamente, fiecare stă singur în cameră. Nu este doar o chestiune de confort, e şi un mijloc de a ne asigura că dăm rezultate la învăţătură. Camerele sunt foarte mari, spaţioase. Costul căminului este inclus în bursă. Eu nu cheltuiesc foarte mulţi bani, pentru că avem ca tot ceea ce este necesar. Cheltuielile sunt, undeva, pe la 50 de dolar pe lună”

Cum sunt văzuţi românii într-o universitate de top

Radu Andrei: „Este stereotipul acesta că românii sunt buni la matematică şi fizică, mulţi nici nu ştiu unde ne aflăm pe hartă. În general, părerea este pozitivă despre români, dar unii colegi mi-au atras atenţia că am reminiscenţe comuniste. De exemplu, într-o zi, trebuia să iau o decizie după nişte reguli care nu erau încă publicate. Nu am vrut să iau hotărâri pe baza unor simple vorbe şi atunci le-am spus colegilor mei: ”Pănă nu văd ceva scris, eu nu iau nicio decizie!”. M-au întrebat atunci dacă România a fost stat comunist, pentru că au recunoscut neîncrederea aceasta a mea ca o moştenire, un însemn al unui astfel de sistem. Nu m-am simţit bine când mi-au spus asta. Dar, pe de altă parte, cred că aceasta neîncredere a mea ar putea să îmi fie de ajutor în anumite situaţii, e bine să fii un pic mai precaut”.

Publicație : Adevărul 

A networked university is a truly global one

Large-scale, transdisciplinary networks of universities represent the next phase of internationalisation, says Patrick Prendergast

Not so long ago, the recruitment of large numbers of international students was regarded as the hallmark of a global university. The thinking was that the more international students a university had, the more global that university was. The same thinking saw the establishment of international campuses in Asia or the Middle East as the crowning achievement of the parent institution’s globalisation policy.

University mergers across continents were mooted and perhaps they will still come. In the meantime, an alternative model is becoming increasingly popular – the networked university. Historically, of course, universities always had networks championed by individual researchers or departments for specific scholarly and scientific purposes. However, the past few decades have seen the creation of large regional associations and networks.

What are the benefits of these networks and why do they matter? The short answer is that these networks offer ways to connect universities with other institutions around the world and to share expertise, ideas and new ways of working.

Most new networks still focus on strengthening the research and teaching capacity of universities. For example, the League of European Research Universities (Leru), of which Trinity College Dublin is a member, works brilliantly with its members to benefit research practice and to lobby on behalf of the interests of research-intensive universities.

University networks are now the driving force in enabling higher level education to move on from established homogeneous institutional models to globally-active institutions. These networks are a collective effort to innovate and advance the role of the university by exploring new frontiers in how universities serve their publics, and the public good.

As these networks flourish, we can also begin to see how they might evolve in future. I believe that more of them will be geared towards transdisciplinary approaches to education. They will also be fully embedded in their communities and offer all sorts of opportunities to students and faculty to move in and out of the university. This, in turn, will create lifelong learning pathways. The recent proposals for European University Networks launched by the European Commission constitute a valiant move to place Europe at the centre of such innovation.

A good example of the transformative effect of networks can be found at my own university. Six years ago, Trinity pioneered a new network focused on our social and community engagement mission. That network was the Science Gallery Network, which built on the successful Science Gallery that was born on Trinity’s campus several years ago to encourage young people to engage with science. Science Gallery programmes blend art with science, technology, engineering and maths. This aligns perfectly with a focus within our university on interdisciplinarity and the development of critical, creative and analytical skills.

Today, six universities around the world have a Science Gallery, which helps those institutions to provide opportunities for their academic community to engage with students, the public and society as a whole. The network enables researchers to show the impact of their work at a scale that otherwise wouldn’t be achievable, bringing academic endeavour into the public realm and making it widely accessible. The effects of the network are real and tangible.

Science Gallery London is a potent symbol of King’s College London’s mission to connect with the local community. The University of Melbourne is meanwhile reinvigorating its formal curricula by engaging students in its Science Gallery exhibitions. Michigan State University has created a presence in downtown Detroit with Science Gallery Labs; Science Gallery Venice at Ca’ Foscari is a much-needed resource for underserved local youths; Erasmus MC is both in the medical facility of the university and the cultural quarter of Rotterdam, connecting a hospital and the city – a world first. Science Gallery Bengaluru connects three academic institutions – the Indian Institute of Science, the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Shrishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology – to focus on transforming the experience of education and research, revolutionising access to knowledge that was traditionally siloed.

The transdisciplinary approaches of networks like these bring local communities together with research that will have a real impact on the lives of local people, and forge partnerships with both local and international communities. For students, these new kinds of networks offer a catalyst to developing skills that universities don’t conventionally offer: empathy, creativity, imagination, emotional intelligence – all listed by the World Economic Forum as skills needed to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The world we live in today presents a rapidly evolving set of challenges. Flexibility and creativity are demanded from the people and institutions working to solve the world’s biggest problems. There can be no shying away from the scale of the many problems the world faces, nor indeed from the hopes and expectations of the world’s young people. It is now more important than ever for universities to set an example and continue to find new ways to deepen international partnerships and collaboration for the benefit of individual universities and society.

Publicație : The Times

It’s time the UK starts talking about graduate outcomes for international students

To meet the country’s ambitious student recruitment targets, UK institutions should make better use of data showing the return on investment of their degrees, writes Louise Nicol

Putting a value on a higher education degree, many would broadly agree, is no longer accurate based purely on earnings potential.

However it is that return on investment that international students, particularly from Asia, are seeking.

Anyone who has been to an international student recruitment event in China, India or Malaysia – the UK’s major international student markets – will know that what potential students want to know is the kind of job they will secure after graduation.

This information does not presently exist because historically it has been too difficult to collect. So instead, UK Institutions tend to roll out historic Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) data, which are neither up to date nor accurate when it comes to graduate employability in Asia.

But are data on international graduate outcomes really too difficult to compile? For the past three years Asia Careers Group, where I am director, has collected graduate outcomes and career progression data for more than 40,000 graduates returning to Asia.

ACG’s proprietary data collection technique takes data from a variety of recruitment websites and business and social networks to provide in-depth graduate outcomes and careers progression analysis to UK institutions.

Our results point to the conclusion that the return on investment of a UK degree is positive. By making some broad assumptions that the cost of a UK post-graduate taught degree is between £15,000 and £30,000, and if on their return to the region graduates are spending 60 per cent of their income on living costs, and use the remaining 40 per cent repaying the cost of their degree, most international students would repay the cost of their degree in less than four years.

The reality is that many students are funded by their parents so being able to pay back their own loan is perhaps less important than for other cohorts of students, but the exercise is useful in putting a value on the ROI of a UK education.

The data also tell us there is a UK graduate salary premium in Asia and that, increasingly, graduates are entering tech careers. There is also a growing trend for graduates to work for regional and national companies in Asia.

The skills shortages in Asia and the graduate premium for UK degrees mean that there are significant opportunities for UK institutions to create “talent pipelines” where, for instance, UK institutions form close collaborations with employers in Asia to develop course portfolios, and those employers specifically recruit from those institutions.

This is just one example of how international graduate outcomes data can help universities not only recruit more international students but provide insight into how to improve their employability.

Not only that, within Asia a significant number of business and political leaders are UK-educated. This presents a huge soft power advantage to UK graduates seeking employment and to UK business leaders seeking investments, but there is only a short window to maximise on this edge.

To meet the target set out in the UK’s international education strategy of recruiting 600,000 students by 2030, UK institutions need to fundamentally differentiate their offer. Traditional competitors such as Australia and Canada remain strong while new ones emerge in Europe and Asia. Only by focusing first on their international graduate outcomes will UK institutions be able to recruit top talent and show these students what they want to know: that a UK degree delivers a market leading ROI.

 Publicație : The Times

Brazil’s vision for science is strangling the humanities

More investment in gaining skills like critical thinking and problem solving would help the country combat social inequalities, says Sarah O’Sullivan

Winners of the annual Brazilian Math Olympiad for Public Schools, run for the past 15 years, are rewarded with advanced maths classes twice monthly in a local university, with a R$100 (£20) stipend paid by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development. In 2018, nearly 7,500 youngsters won medals and are currently completing advanced maths classes.

OBMEP is one of several Brazilian initiatives which involves going into schools to look for children with an aptitude for science. There are Olympiad competitions in robotics, physics, chemistry, biology, and information technology. Independent research shows that such initiatives not only stimulate talented kids, but that overall performance improved when there were medal winners in a classroom.

Meanwhile, the science minister Marcos Pontes is keen to stimulate Science in the School and recently launched a R$100 million (£20.5 million) programme with the Education Ministry to incentivise innovative teaching methodologies in public schools. Launching the programme, the minister, who is also a former astronaut and the first Brazilian to go into space, pointed to millions of young people in Brazil. With the right “push”, he said, each can become a “scientist, successful business person, happy person, and productive citizen”.

While all of these projects are laudable, and will undoubtedly contribute to more robust generations of Brazilians choosing exact sciences, it seems that social sciences and the humanities are being thrown under the bus.

Brazil came to the attention of many international universities vis-à-vis the Federal Scholarship Programme, known as Science without Borders, which sent more than 90,000 young Brazilians to foreign campuses for at least one academic year.

Nearly 80 per cent of scholarship holders were undergraduate students (which was not Brazil’s intention when launching the programme), and nearly 45 per cent were engineering students.

Humanities were not included, to the disgust of academics, who argued that a focus on so-called “hard” sciences placed too much importance on economic and technological development, while neglecting human development. A legal battle to include humanities in the programme in 2013 was not successful.

The exclusion of humanities is not a new phenomenon in Brazil. From 1964 to 1985, sociology and philosophy were removed from school curricula. And in 2016, Brazil’s Education Ministry suggested that sociology and philosophy become elective subjects on the secondary school curriculum.

While congress analyses the suggested amendments, the current education minister has made it clear that he doesn’t want to invest public money in the humanities. Areas like sociology and philosophy are hobbies of the wealthy, he suggests, and they can afford to pay themselves.

This rhetoric is beginning to have an impact. The number of Brazilian students accessing university has jumped considerably in recent years – 3.5 million young Brazilians were registered in third-level institutions in 2002, while 15 years later this number had risen to 8 million.

Academics report that many students, often the first in their families to access university education, tend to choose courses in the humanities and social sciences, possibly because entry to these courses was not as competitive as courses in exact sciences. However, it is noted that many humanities and social science students are now opting out of their chosen areas when they reach post-graduate levels, choosing “safer” areas like law, education, and psychology.

Meanwhile, academic careers in social sciences and humanities, with historic funding deficits for research, are less appealing to students. With the current education minister stating that areas like philosophy and sociology don’t offer the same return on investment as more technical areas of learning, many fear students will continue to opt out.

Underfunding for the humanities occurs during an unusual and challenging time for education in Brazil. Intellectuals are seen as a public enemy, while ideological war ensues inside the classroom and out.

As the country grapples with a growing and changing demographic, and spiralling problems with urban and domestic violence, among other woes, one would imagine that critical thinking, problem solving and communications skills honed in humanities degrees is just what Brazil needs in order to understand and explore healthy and lasting solutions to societal ails.

Focused investment in exact sciences and business, to the detriment of social sciences and humanities, may only serve to further deepen inequality chasms in the mammoth continent-sized country.

Publicație : The Times

US journalism schools search for answers in Trump era

Tutors struggle to prepare reporters for public less interested in facts

Two and a half years of sustained political attacks on US journalism have left university programmes determined to push back with a commitment to accuracy and modern storytelling, but less clear on whether wholesale changes in their philosophy are needed.

Increasingly, academic and journalism experts said, student education in journalism schools emphasises broader subject knowledge, especially skills involving computers and digital investigative work, along with entrepreneurial flexibility.

But when it comes to figuring out how to approach a public that seems less interested in facts and more receptive to rhetorical assaults, journalism schools do not appear ready or inclined to begin overhauling their models.

Some leaders, such as Peter Bhatia, president of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, the main body for certifying US journalism schools, saw an industry and its educational partners still assessing the harsher climate.

“That’s a work in progress,” said Mr Bhatia, editor of the Detroit Free Press.

Others, such as Charles Whitaker, professor and dean of journalism at Northwestern University, are adamant that any problems with journalism brought to light by the 2016 presidential election are not the responsibility of the schools to fix.

The election of Donald Trump certainly did expose professional failures, Professor Whitaker said, including a flawed idea that “objectivity” meant giving equal weight to opposing sides regardless of factual content. And, more specifically, he said, journalists were guilty in 2016 of taking at face value what US voters and polling data were telling them.

“We should do a better job of picking apart the arguments and laying out more information for the public to make informed choices,” Professor Whitaker said. “And I don’t think we’ve done a very good job of that.”

But those are failures of practising journalists, not of the universities training young reporters, he said. “You’re not going to lay this at the feet of journalism schools,” Professor Whitaker said.

The head of another leading US journalism school, Steve Coll of Columbia University, said that in an era in which the US president labels reporters “enemies of the people”, and domestic assignments can become as violent as overseas postings, journalism schools need to teach students to bring “an attitude of confident professionalism”, without arrogance, as they carry out a constitutional function.

“I think we’re up to the challenge,” said Professor Coll, dean of journalism at Columbia.

Journalism education was being confronted with the specific problems of the Trump era after already having struggled with other manifestations of the digital revolution, Professor Coll said. Schools teaching journalism went through a period of “drift”, he said, reacting to technological change by focusing too much on skills of short-term value and quickly outdated platforms.

“There was a sense of chasing a shiny object around the digital revolution,” Professor Coll said. “I don’t feel like that’s going on any more.”

The internet also left students struggling to define their roles, he said. Just a few years ago, “it wasn’t unusual to encounter young students who were a little bit uncertain or even confused about what journalism was any more,” he said. “There was a sense that, ‘Well, aren’t we all journalists?’”

Budding journalists and their educators might still be hunting the optimal mix of journalism-specific training and outside subject expertise, Professor Coll acknowledged. Columbia’s journalism programme operates only at the postgraduate level, and that might be the better approach overall, he said, as students arrived with a different major and often some on-the-job experience.

One of the most popular routes into journalism, Professor Coll said, involves students with technological backgrounds who discover not long into their careers that they want to work “more in the public square”. Such students are invaluable, he said, because unlike journalists of the past, who might have chosen their profession to avoid mathematics, the ability to analyse data was key to uncovering how leaders in society exercise their power.

More challenging, for now, was finding academic staff who can synthesise those skills. “It’s hard, I’ve learned, to try to add to a faculty these kinds of abilities, because they’re a little bit untraditional; they don’t always fit well in a legacy system,” Professor Coll said.

Journalism schools also needed to help students develop entrepreneurial approaches to practising their trade, Mr Bhatia said.

At Columbia, one statistician and computer coding expert on the faculty offered a no-credit breakfast sessions at 7am on Mondays to teach such skills, Mr Coll said. He regularly attracted some 80 students – about a third of the journalism programme’s entire enrolment.

“There’s a real understanding that this is valuable, it’s necessary, it will give you an advantage.”

 Publicație : The Times

UK campus will teach China to open education to world, says dean

Wen Hai, head of Peking University HSBC Business School’s Oxford outpost, says venture will help foster collaboration between Britain and China

The path of British universities opening branch campuses in Asia is a well-trodden one, littered with some successes and a fair few failures too. There is far less travel in the opposite direction – but the dean of a Chinese business school with a UK outpost hopes that this move will encourage other institutions to follow in its footsteps.

Peking University HSBC Business School’s UK branch, based on a former Open University campus just outside Oxford, is set up to teach international business strategy from a Chinese perspective, and has been open to students from China, the UK and the rest of Europe since March last year.

Believed to be the first Chinese branch campus in Europe, the school’s launch coincides with the UK’s exit from the European Union increasing the pressure on the UK to form new international collaborations and attract foreign talent.

However, Wen Hai, the school’s dean, told Times Higher Education that the move realised a much longer-held ambition for the university.

“We had an idea we should set up a campus as a bridge to bring people from the UK to China,” he said. “UK students want to learn Chinese business, and Chinese students have always wanted to come here, not just because of Brexit – they have always admired the UK education system.

“Having a [UK] base [would mean] forming more partnerships with UK institutions but also increase our global reputation. Then, two years ago we heard that [this site] was being sold. What an amazing opportunity. That does not happen very often.”

Since its unveiling, the school has attracted attention for its enviable location at Foxcombe Hall, a series of 19th-century buildings in Boars Hill, which were bought by The Open University from the theological institution Ripon College in 1976.

The aesthetic no doubt enhances the business school’s attraction for international students wanting a traditional “Oxford” experience – but walking through the grounds is an eerily silent experience, with most of the students enrolled so far being away or returning to China on exchange programmes.

Eventually, Professor Hai hopes to expand the student population to upwards of 200, “the minimum size in order for it to be a great graduate programme”. The campus will take mainly postgraduates, with some shorter-term exchange students, and aims to maintain the same system and standards as in Shenzhen. In short, this means a master’s degree from the branch will take up to three years to finish, compared with the UK’s standard one year.

Professor Hai said that he was particularly keen to nurture “those who have an interest in China as a growing global market. The good thing about working here is our working language is English – the language is a barrier for many people wanting to come to China,” he explained.

The outpost will therefore act, in part, as a taster for UK and EU students interested in pursuing a career in Chinese business. “We are trying to prepare our students here for a year or two, teach them some of the language, so they can go on to study further or work in China,” he said.

Professor Hai argued that there was “good reason” for the UK and China to “take this opportunity to work closely together”, given the state of global politics. “In [the] UK you have Brexit, and in China we also have the problem of the US,” he said.

While he knew of other universities in China that shared similar ambitions, he said that “not many people really know how to do it…hopefully we can set this example and more campuses will follow”.

Concerns over security and industrial espionage have led to concerns about collaborations with Chinese researchers, in the US in particular, but Professor Hai said that the negative press was not something he felt concerned by.

It was “very natural” for older economies to feel “caution or suspicion” of growing economic competitors, he said.

“How to deal with competitors is something other countries should learn and understand,” Professor Hai said, “[but] I don’t worry so much, because I think both sides will adjust.”

At the same time, the dean said that he was determined for the school to make a positive impact on society at both an international and a local scale. “It is a new experience for us and also for the community,” he acknowledged. “We will do our best to learn from the UK system [and] teach our world-leading practices, but also we want to make a contribution to the cooperation and development of this community we have entered into,” he said.

The reaction so far to the school’s presence had been positive. “We appreciate how the UK education system is so open…China should learn [from this] how to open up [its] education to the world,” he said.

 Publicație : The Times

Cambridge’s Trinity faces union boycott after confirming USS exit

Academics may be asked not to apply for jobs, give lectures or conduct external examining at Trinity

Union members could boycott Trinity College, Cambridge, after it confirmed its decision to withdraw from the Universities Superannuation Scheme.

The University and College Union officially censured Trinity – the organisation’s most serious sanction, used only once before – after college fellows voted down a motion to reconsider its departure from the pension fund by 76 to 43.

The union will set up a committee to decide what action the boycott should entail, if Trinity refuses to back down. It may include asking academics from around the world not to apply for jobs, give lectures, or conduct external examining for Trinity.

Scholars may also be asked not to attend conferences or take up visiting professorships at Trinity, or not to write for any journal edited by Trinity staff.

Trinity, which has assets worth £1.3 billion, said last month that it was leaving the higher education sector’s biggest pension fund because of the “remote but existential risk to the college from continued participation in USS”.

The USS is a “last employer standing scheme”, with sponsoring employers jointly liable for members’ pensions. As a result, in a worst-case scenario, all of Trinity’s assets could be lost to USS.

Trinity is spending £30 million withdrawing from USS and setting up its own pension scheme for staff.

The decision to censure Trinity was taken at an emergency meeting of UCU’s higher education committee. The union has only used its power of censure once before, against London Metropolitan University in 2009.

Paul Bridge, UCU’s head of higher education, said that the “cost to Trinity’s reputation from a boycott will be far greater than the tiny risk of being left to carry the can for pensions if the higher education sector collapses”.

“A boycott is our most serious sanction, but Trinity needs to be clear that we are prepared to implement one there,” Mr Bridge said. “The sector needs to work together to deliver high-quality, guaranteed pensions and it is up to Trinity to now reconsider its short-sighted decision.”

A leaked letter from USS to Universities UK regarding Trinity’s departure warned that “should one more strong employer withdraw from the scheme then the covenant would be downgraded from ‘strong’ to ‘tending to strong’”.

Speaking previously, Rory Landman, Trinity’s senior bursar, said that this was “not a decision taken lightly by the college council”.

“Following substantial legal and actuarial advice, and bearing in mind our responsibilities as charity trustees of Trinity, we believe leaving USS is in the best interests of the college,” he said.

 Publicație : The Times

Ethics fly out of the window at Oxford University when big donors come calling

What do we know about Stephen Schwarzman, the US financier whose name, following his £150m donation to the University of Oxford, is destined to become synonymous – as the Schwarzman Centre – with the humanities, the study of ethics in particular?

Much of Oxford’s press release introducing him to British audiences dwells on the philanthropy evidenced in already-colonised academic zones: the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing; the Schwarzman Scholars programme at Schwarzman College (in China); the Stephen A Schwarzman Building (formerly known as New York Public Library); Yale’s Stephen A Schwarzman Center, Yale protesters having had less success, to date, than angry parents at Schwarzman’s old school, Abington. For a donation of $25m, he had wanted it renamed after himself, with separate spaces going to his twin brothers, Mark and Warren.

But it would be mistaken, it turns out, to conclude from the university’s reverent summary of Schwarzman’s academy-naming frenzy that the donor is concerned only with scholarship. For those in private equity, where he made his estimated $11.6bn fortune, Schwarzman needs no introduction; others might find it more illuminating to situate him within Philip Green’s aesthetic movement.

Oxford will be aware, no doubt, of the time, during the 2008 financial crisis, when he publicly hoped it would worsen

The men’s extreme experiments in partying, in different countries but with a similar disregard for either taste or national adversity, must add weight to the theory that some great innovations are, as Malcolm Gladwell once put it, “in the air”.

Consider that, when he had friends, Green flew them around the world for celebrations featuring, for instance (for his Nero-themed 50th) Rod Stewart. In 2007, a £6m party for which 200 guests were transported to the Maldives and entertained by George Michael and fireworks, engendered further disgust.

That same year, shortly before he made £4.62bn from the flotation of Blackstone, a private equity behemoth, Schwarzman held a 60th birthday party so costly and vulgar that it still symbolises for some US analysts the depths of pre-crash excess. Party planners transformed one of the biggest spaces in New York City, the Park Avenue Armory, into a scaled-up replica of his vast apartment. Rod Stewart sang, for a reported £1m. Donald Trump attended.

Schwarzman’s 70th in 2017, staged at his Palm Beach estate, offered acrobats, Mongolian soldiers, fireworks, Gwen Stefani and – ethicists still debate the intentionality of the scripture reference – two camels. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner stood proxy for the new president, who was detained nearby, introducing the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to Mar-a-Lago.

In yet another uncanny similarity, both Green and Schwarzman were made unelected “tsars”: the now disgraced Green by David Cameron, as an “efficiency tsar”, Schwarzman by Trump, as a “job czar”.

For universities such as Yale, MIT and Oxford, the Trump donor’s valued support for a semi-literate liar, racist, molester of women and threat to international security hardly constitutes grounds – being so much less directly compromising than the rapacious business model, criticised for associated redundancies and cuts, that contributed to Schwarzman’s riches – for squeamishness. Oxford will be aware, no doubt, of the time, during the 2008 financial crisis, when he publicly hoped it would worsen. “The real golden age,” he told Robert Peston (then at the BBC), “comes when you have a mess. You have economies that are on their back.”

Since then, Blackstone has become further associated with the misery of families forced out by its financial model, as a landlord, of huge rent hikes. When she established the case for a new predator-funded ethics centre, Oxford’s vice-chancellor, Louise Richardson, will have studied a recent report from the UN special rapporteur Leilani Farha, in which Blackstone is identified as a lead contributor to the global housing crisis. “Properties,” Farha explains, “are being purchased en masse, renovated and then offered at a higher rental rate, pricing tenants out of their own homes and communities.”

But challenged, last week, on Schwarzman’s connections, Richardson confirmed, reassuringly for potential donors, that Oxford has left behind the judginess that refused Margaret Thatcher an honorary degree. “I’d imagine there would be very few people who would feel that way,” she said, you might think unimaginatively. “Do you really think we should turn down the biggest gift in modern times, which will enable hundreds of academics, thousands of students to do cutting-edge work in the humanities?”

If Oxford, given its established reputation and assets, is arguably the joint-least-deserving destination, nationally, for such new investment, which was possibly its main attraction to Schwarzman, once Richardson had reeled him in.

Blackstone is negatively associated with diversity. His chosen institution required the reputational substance permanently to obliterate less edifying aspects of the Stephen A Schwarzman story. Such as his complaint, after Obama proposed more taxes on private equity: “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” His praise for Saudi Arabia’s “intelligent, reform-oriented” government. And before that, his James Bond party, with models dressed as Bond girls.

That ethical quibbles about the Schwarzman alliance have been settled to Richardson’s complete satisfaction may not, inevitably, be a precursor to similar insults: Foxtons College, the George G Osborne Centre, Arron Banks Hall, the Boris and Carrie Johnson Professor of Conflict Resolution.

Actually, with the Sacklers’ latest donation rejected by the V&A, BP sponsorship increasingly targeted, the (ex-) director of the Serpentine Gallery pressured on business connections and escalating demands for renaming, there are increasing signs of respect for Nan Goldin’s proposal that cultural institutions should have some principles. “We have to hold museums to a higher standard,” the artist says. “They are supposed to be a repository of the best of humanity, a repository of learning and culture.”

If such thinking catches on, it may not surprise Schwarzman’s admirers to find that he has once again, amid fast-rising caution about risky-name refreshment, grabbed himself a bargain.

Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist

 Publicație : The Guardian

Chieti, l'ultimo guaio dell'università telematica: fondi stornati per conti personali e ville

Cinque arresti e 18 indagati: prelevati 1,8 milioni di euro. Le responsabilità del rettore Cuccurullo

ROMA - Hanno prelevato dall’università telematica pubblica - la Unidav, dal 2004 filiazione online della statale Gabriele D’Annunzio di Chieti e Pescara – un milione e 800 mila euro. Con quei soldi hanno, quindi, ristrutturato una villa in Toscana, riacquistato un appartamento a Cecina già pignorato e - più in generale - spostato risorse pubbliche su conti esteri personali. I vertici dell’Unidav, seguendo il filo del procuratore capo di Chieti, Francesco Testa, per oltre due anni hanno depredato l'università “allo scopo di creare nuove società in Italia e all'estero”. Servivano, le società, per ottenere risorse pubbliche e fondi comunitari. “Una banda di affaristi", li ha definiti la procura.

L’operazione Minerva, costruita insieme da Guardia di Finanza e Carabinieri di Chieti, ha portato in carcere tre persone, ne ha consegnate ai domiciliari due e indagate diciotto, tra cui due docenti e il rettore di Unidav Franco Cuccurullo, ex Magnifico – dal 2007 al 2012 - dell’Università statale D’Annunzio.

La faccendiera con interessi in Slovacchia e a Malta

Centrale nell’inchiesta è Lorenzina Zampedri, 65 anni, originaria di Racconigi (Cuneo), membro del Consiglio di amministrazione di Unidav e presidente di Sevs, ateneo privato della Slovaccchia (la Sevs nel 2015 prenderà la maggioranza delle quote della telematica teatina). Già coinvolta nell’inchiesta, alla fine dello scorso settembre la Zampedri chiese di essere ascoltata da “Repubblica”. La incontrammo nella hall di un albergo di Roma, insieme al suo avvocato (anche lui ora arrestato) e raccontò un sequel di vicende che portavano all'omicidio di Jan Kuciak, giovane reporter investigativo slovacco ucciso con la fidanzata il 22 febbraio 2018 nell’appartamento di Velka Maca: stava raccontando su un sito di inchieste la corruzione del suo Paese e l’enorme flusso di finanziamenti europei sottratti al pubblico interesse. “Temo per la mia vita”, ci disse la Zampedri alludendo a figure della malavita che ruotavano attorno alla Unidav, da tre anni, appunto, controllata da una società slovacca.

Oggi le carte dell’inchiesta della Procura di Chieti raccontano la storia di una spregiudicata imprenditrice, la Zampredi, titolare tra l'altro di imprese “educational” a Malta, che all’università telematica di Torrevecchia Teatina ha chiesto un prestito di 30.000 euro per affrontare le spese “per un intervento medico urgente di mio marito”. Il prestito è stato concesso, ma l’intervento non sarà mai realizzato. Il denaro, sostiene l’accusa, viene girato alla moglie di Ciro Barbato, napoletano con residenza in Romania, socio della Zampedri in progetti sempre nell’ambito educativo. Anche lui è stato arrestato giovedì scorso.

Con le risorse Unidav, la Zampedri avrebbe ricomprato, ancora, un immobile a Cecina, già di sua proprietà ma pignorato: come base d’asta per l’esecuzione immobiliare avrebbe usato due assegni circolari da 31.376,73 euro l’uno. “L’edificio doveva ospitare una sede scolastica”, si è difesa con gli investigatori. A queste affermazioni, come ha scritto il Giudice per le indagini preliminari, non si è trovato alcun riscontro. E così è stato per quattro fatture da 117.600 euro: erano fondi dell’Unidav e sono approdati sui conti di una società di ricerca scientifica con Lorenzina Zampedri presente nel cda: “Il progetto era inesistente e la pubblica università non lo ha mai controllato”, ancora l’accusa.

Il professore che ha ispirato le tracce della Maturità

L’inchiesta giudiziaria è stata innescata da un esposto firmato da Luigi Capasso, presidente della Fondazione d’Annunzio, fino al 2015 ente di controllo per Unidav. Ventidue perquisizioni, giovedì scorso, hanno dato riscontri a frodi, appropriazioni e falsificazioni di documenti su larga scala: le persone arrestate e indagate, tutte coinvolte per aver prestato la propria opera nella gestione dell'università telematica, sono ora accusate di peculato, riciclaggio, auto-riciclaggio e abuso d’ufficio. Al rettore Cuccurullo è stato contestato anche un abuso in atti d'ufficio per la nomina di Antonio Cilli a professore universitario di Informatica giuridica. Il contratto prevede 2.500 euro il mese. Per aver avallato la nomina è stato indagato anche il professor Saverio Santamaita, docente di Storia della pedagogia alla D’Annunzio, oggi fuori ruolo. Il suo testo “Storia della scuola” è diventato traccia per i liceali di Scienze umane che, martedì scorso, hanno affrontato la seconda prova della Maturità.

La Procura di Chieti ha inviato un’informativa al ministero dell’Istruzione: la telematica abruzzese è una delle undici accreditate e finanziate dal Miur. Sergio Caputi, rettore dell’ateneo controllante Gabriele D’Annunzio, ha detto che, a proposito del milione e otto sparito, si costituirà parte civile. E, comprensivi dei danni all’immagine, ne chiederà quattro di risarcimento. L’Università madre sta faticosamente cercando di uscire dai guasti seriali provocati dalla precedente gestione di Carmine Di Ilio e Filippo Del Vecchio: furono proprio l’ex rettore e l’ex direttore generale ad aver fatto entrare la slovacca Sevs nell’ateneo telematico trasformando un’università a controllo pubblico in una struttura con una maggioranza privata.

Publicație : La Repubblica

24 iunie 2019

Exclusiv! Un proprietar celebru din Iasi investeste o suma fabuloasa in una dintre cele mai frumoase case din Copou

Anul acesta, un celebru proprietar din Iasi investeste o suma spectaculoasa intr-o importanta casa din Copou • Aceasta este pozitionata intr-o zona selecta si este un imobil istoric • Din fonduri proprii si guvernamentale, aici va fi investit peste un milion de euro • Aici, constructia dispune si de un teren de sute de metri patrati, o gradina de vara, constructie subterana si etaj • Deja, totul se afla in procedura in sistemul informatic de achizitii publice • In acest moment, Universitatea "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" asteapta venirea ultimelor avize de la ANAP/Agentia Nationala pentru Achizitii Publice, la care UAIC a raspuns vineri la ultimele cereri de clarificare, apoi va fi postata pe SEAP licitatia pentru demararea restaurarii

Anunt de ultima ora, in exclusivitate, pentru cotidianul BUNA ZIUA IASI (BZI) facut de rectorul Universitatii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi - prof. univ. dr. Tudorel Toader. Dupa doar doi ani de la momentul in care, printr-o decizie definitiva si irevocabila a instantelor, UAIC a devenit (asa cum era si legal - n.r.) proprietar cu acte in regula al Casei Universitarilor (CUI) din Copou, institutia este pe ultima suta de metri in etapa ce tine de demararea reabilitarii si restaurarii faimosului imobil.

"Deja, totul se afla in procedura in sistemul informatic de achizitii publice. In scurt timp vom trece la etapa lucrarilor efective. Este vorba de reabilitarea, refunctionalizarea si modernizarea Casei Universitarilor Iasi, cu nr. contract 1.198 din 15.09.2017 (proiectare) si o valoare de 7,38 milioane de lei. Vorbim despre o investitie de peste 1,5 milioane de euro. Deja, a fost igienizat intreg spatiul. Aici, cladirea va ramane una de patrimoniu. Optiunea mea este de a da o dubla functionalitate acesteia, anume socio-culturala, si unde sa existe sali de conferinte, dezbateri universitare si editoriale sau prezentari de carte. Va fi ceva complet schimbat", a transmis rectorul Toader.

Hrubele unde multe personalitati si-au plimbat pasii

Punctul esential in aceasta reabilitare, asa cum rectorul Toader scoate in prim-plan, este cel al hrubelor. "Este un loc pe care (hrubele de la CUI - n.r.) putini dintre noi, cei care traim in contemporan, le cunosc! Spun asta pentru ca, la vremea lui, probabil era un loc cunoscut si un loc apreciat. Casa, in ultimii ani, a fost concesionata unui intreprinzator privat. Dupa un proces care a durat multi, multi ani, casa a reintrat in proprietatea Universitatii intr-un stadiu de nefolosinta, sa spunem asa, asta pentru a evita cuvantul de degradare avansata. Acum, ce ne propunem sau, mai bine zis, ce cred ca suntem obligati sa facem este sa reabilitam Casa Universitarilor, sa-i redam functionalitatea pe care a avut-o dintotdeauna si cu care a intrat in constiinta comunitatii, pana la urma, de casa cu profil cultural, stiintific, social pentru Universitatea «Cuza», pentru mediul academic iesean in general. Interesant este ca inclusiv hrubele de care dispune cladirea, aflate in curtea interioara si care dau spre Bulevardul Carol, vor avea parte de reabilitare si restaurare, aici putand fi organizate evenimente - simbol unde sa participe invitatii nostri. Eu as spune ca, dincolo de istoria acestor hrube, este vorba de un loc interesant despre care istoricii ne vor spune faptul ca multe, multe personalitati si-au plimbat pasii, gandurile si faptele in spatiul la care facem referinta", a mai precizat prof. univ. dr. Tudorel Toader, rectorul UAIC.

Faimoasa Casa "Canta", loc simbol al Iasului modern

Ca date istorice, actuala Casa a Universitarilor a apartinut logofatului Nicolae Canta. Ea a fost construita in jurul anului 1800 si refacuta complet in 1840. Proprietarul Canta a fost dregator in timpul domniei lui Mihai Sturdza si Grigore Ghica. Iordache Cantacuzino - Canta a trait intre 1740 si 1826. A fost Mare Logofat în Divanul Moldovei, a îndeplinit functia de caimacan al Moldovei în perioada 19 septembrie - 28 octombrie 1802, între sfârsitul domniei lui Alexandru Sutu si domnia lui Alexandru Moruzi. Imobilul de acum este trecut in Lista Monumentelor Istorice din judetul Iasi.

Pe de alta parte, legat de fosta Casa "Canta" este si o poveste romantica ce pleaca de la Maria Cantacuzino de Chavannes (1822-1898 – n.r.), faimoasa reprezentanta a boierimii din Moldova si cu importante legaturi ce tin de orasul Iasi. Ea a acceptat sa-i fie model sotului sau, Puvis de Chavannes, pentru o serie de fresce ce o intruchipeaza pe Sfanta Genevieve - patroana Parisului.

Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași

Centrul de Studii Europene din cadrul Facultatii de Drept a Universitatii "Cuza" din Iasi organizeaza un curs gratuit Jean Monnet, dedicat temei Creativitatii

O noua initiativa laudabila si extrem de interesanta, la Iasi. Concret, Centrul de Studii Europene (CSE) din cadrul Facultatii de Drept a Universitatii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi organizeaza un curs gratuit Jean Monnet, dedicat temei Creativitatii.

"Cursul este gratuit, întâlnirile desfasurându-se sub forma unei Scoli de Vara, ce va avea loc în perioada 1 - 10 iulie 2019. Orele de curs se desfasoara zilnic, în perioada mentionata, dupa un program stabilit ulterior centralizarii optiunilor exprimate în fisa de înscriere. Publicul tinta: Cursul este adresat tuturor celor interesati, conditia minima fiind ca acestia sa fi absolvit deja studiile liceale. Sunt disponibile 50 de locuri", au precizat oficialii UAIC.

Echipa de profesori implicata este una interdisciplinara, fiind formata din specialisti în Economie, Drept si Psihologie. Coordonatori: CS. dr. Sorin Mazilu, lect. univ. dr. Nicoleta Dominte, Facultatea de Drept.

La finalul cursului, absolventii vor primi un Certificat Jean Monnet (6 credite ECTS). Cursul Culture and creativity: keys factors for prosperity in European Union este inclus în Modulul Jean Monnet Culture, creativity and human capital: pillars for European Union’s prosperity (EUcreaTip), co-finantat de Uniunea Europeana (UE).

Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași

Universitatea "Cuza" din Iasi, cel mai mare grant institutional Erasmus+ din Romania

Universitatea "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi deruleaza, anual, doua proiecte institutionale de schimburi academice pentru studentii, cadrele didactice si personalul administrativ din Universitate: unul, Erasmus+ KA 103, în cadrul Programului Erasmus+ cu Tarile Participante (statele membre ale Uniunii Europene, ale Spatiului Economic European, Macedonia, Turcia si Serbia), iar cel de-al doilea, Erasmus+ KA107, în cadrul Programului Erasmus+ cu Tari Partenere (celelalte state non-UE).

"Universitatea a depus proiectele pentru KA103 si KA107 în luna februarie 2019, solicitând finantarea de schimburi academice cu universitati din toate statele membre UE si 27 de tari din afara Uniunii Europene. În urma evaluarii de catre ANPCDEFP (Agentia Nationala pentru Programe în Domeniul Educatiei si Formarii Profesionale), proiectul Erasmus+ KA103 al UAIC a fost aprobat si finantat cu un grant institutional de 1.997.645 Euro (aproximativ sase la suta din grantul national total pentru cele 73 de universitati românesti participante, grantul institutional mediu fiind de aproximativ 467.000 Euro); valoarea grantului institutional KA-103 este stabilita în functie de realizarile anterioare ale fiecarei universitati în Programul Erasmus. Astfel, raportat la numarul mediu de studenti Erasmus din universitatile din tara, în anul 2017-2018 UAIC a avut o performanta de peste sase ori mai mare", au reliefat cei de la Universitatea Cuza.

Grantul institutional de anul acesta va permite UAIC finantarea a 310 stagii studentesti de studiu, 350 de stagii de practica pentru studenti si pentru absolventii UAIC din 2020, 200 de stagii de predare pentru cadrele didactice si 80 de stagii de formare pentru toate categoriile de personal din Universitate.

Conform statisticilor publicate de Comisia Europeana (CE) pentru ultimul an academic încheiat (2017-2018), UAIC se situeaza mult peste media europeana în ceea ce priveste numarul de studenti care beneficiaza de stagii Erasmus+ de studiu si practica. Astfel, în timp ce media europeana a numarului de studenti beneficiari este de 77 de studenti/institutie, de la UAIC au plecat în stagii Erasmus+ 614 studenti (media în institutiile de învatamânt superior din România fiind de 99 de studenti beneficiari de stagii Erasmus/an). Implementarea acestui proiect Erasmus+ KA103 2019 a început deja prin organizarea selectiilor în facultati, urmând ca stagiile sa se desfasoare începând din toamna anului 2019. Rezultatele pentru cel de-al doilea proiect Erasmus institutional depus de "Cuza", KA107, sunt asteptate în luna iulie.

Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași

Super-eroi pentru studentii internationali înscrisi la Universitatea Tehnica din Iasi

Porectoratul Relatii Internationale al Universitatii Tehnice (TUIASI) "Gheorghe Asachi" din Iasi a recrutat un numar de patru studentiTUIASI în vederea constituirii BUDDY SYSTEMS (BS) - corp de sprijin pentru studentii internationali.

Acestia devin persoana de contact dupa ce studentul international este înscris la TUIASI, deruleaza corespondenta electronica cu studentii internationali, pentru a-i sprijini în pregatirea venirii si sederii în Iasi sau participa la organizarea si la derularea evenimentelor organizate pentru studentii internationali.

La selectia pentru constituirea celei de-a doua echipe BS au putut participa studenti înscrisi la oricare dintre facultatile TUIASI. Studentii selectati vor fi angajati cu contract individual de munca pe perioada determinata. Perioada de colaborare este 1 august 2019 - 30 noiembrie 2019.

Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași

University graduate in seven-year battle with Home Office after being ‘robbed’ of post-study visa

'This process has turned my life upside down. I feel so hopeless,' former student says

A graduate of a UK university is embroiled in a seven-year legal battle with the Home Office after the promise of a post-study work visa was “robbed” from her just weeks before she completed her degree.

Mahe Henadeerage decided to leave Sri Lanka and pay tens of thousands of pounds to study in the UK after she was told she woud have two years to amass work experience after finishing her course.

But in April 2012, the government scrapped the post-study work visa, which allowed international students to stay in the UK and work for up to two years after graduation.

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The Nottingham Trent graduate missed the application window for the “dream” opportunity as her degree did not end until May.

Ms Henadeerage came to England to pursue a career in sustainable fashion, but the government’s reforms made it difficult for her to get a job as she had less time on her visa.

Team Ineos lead the peloton including leader Chris Lawless as they climb a hill in Haworth, during stage four of the Tour de Yorkshire

PA

Seven years on, her life is still in “limbo” amid a lengthy and costly battle with the Home Office.

She was given hope in 2014 when a first-tier tribunal judge said there was an arguable case for leave to remain be granted on the basis of disruption to the graduate’s six-year plan.

But the Home Office appealed the ruling and won. The 32-year-old, who has been in Britain for 11 years, is now waiting to fight her case once more in a new hearing in the autumn.

Ms Henadeerage, who lives with her sister in the UK and who does volunteering work with a charity, is worried that she will be deported back to Sri Lanka where she no longer has a home or any family.

“I am here in this country within the legal framework. England is my home now. I have not committed any crime. I have been a model citizen volunteering in my local community,” she said.

“I feel like my entire future has been robbed. The best part of my 20s have been in limbo fighting for something that should’ve been an obvious solution.

“This process has turned my life upside down. I feel so hopeless and I feel like my worth is nothing. I have lost so much in terms of my family’s money and my future I could’ve had, which I can’t get back.”

Earlier this month, the home secretary said he backed an amendment tabled by former universities minister Jo Johnson to allow international students to stay in the UK for up to two years.

Sajid Javid called for an end to the four-month restriction introduced by Theresa May when she was home secretary, adding that it made no sense to send “some of the brightest and most enterprising people in the world straight home after their time here”.

The government acknowledged the cap had caused issues earlier this year when it announced that it would extend the post-study leave period from four months to six months.

But organisations representing universities and students say it does not go far enough, and they argue a two-year visa must be reintroduced to send a more “welcoming” message to overseas students.

Manish Khatri, co-founder of the Post-study Work Visa Now campaign, said international students were now looking to study in Australia, Canada and the US, rather than the UK, because of the limited offer.

On the six-month extension, he said: “I don’t think it will make a difference. The employer will look at it and see that they only have six months on their visa max. It doesn’t help much in the long run.”

Even with the restrictions brought in by the Home Office in 2012, agents are still targeting young people overseas, who bring in large fees to UK universities, and promising them employability, Mr Khatri said.

“Universities have to be clear about what they can offer. People that come here are told they will be able to find a job,” he told The Independent.

Ms Hendareeage was one of the young people who decided to study in the UK after being “sold a dream of opportunity”. She was told that the country’s post-study visa would make easier to get a job.

She added: “There needs to be some sort of accountability. You can’t swindle people. You can’t say there’s one thing and then when we arrive here with that trust it’s a different story.

“They used the post-study two-year work visa as a marketing tool and a promotion. I felt like I had been tricked and robbed of the opportunity and money.”

Nazek Ramadan, director of Migrant Voice, said: “The damage to the lives of those thousands of students like Mahe denied the chance to work in the UK is immeasurable – but there’s a financial cost too that can be measured.”

A recent report from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) estimates that £150m in revenue is lost each year because of the government’s restrictions on post-graduation employment in 2012.

Ms Ramadan added: “If this government is serious about attracting international students – and we would remind them that they contribute far more to our country than cash – the insular, anti-migrant logic underpinning all UK immigration policy must be replaced with an open-minded attitude and a set of policies to match, starting with this visa.”

Yinbo Yu, international students’ officer at the National Union of Students (NUS), said: “It is clear that the hostile environment has had negative economic, educational, and human impacts, in particular to students on the basis of both heritage and nationality.

“We welcome international students and would encourage the government to make changes to ensure that they are treated in a way that is equitable and inclusive.”

A Universities UK spokesperson warned an “uncompetitive post-study work offer” had curbed growth in international enrolments and called for an extension of at least two years.

They said: “Universities UK has proposed an improved post-study work system for graduates, who are massive contributors economically and culturally.

“While the government’s International Education Strategy is a positive step, we can do more to send a strong message of welcome.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The UK has a world class educational system, which continues to attract leading talent from across the globe.

“There are no limits on the number of international students who are welcome to study here and this is evidenced by the fact that university student visa applications are at the highest level on record.

“Our White Paper builds on our already strong student offer by extending the time students can stay post-study to find employment, going beyond the recommendations of the independent Migration Advisory Committee.”

Publicație : The Independent

London academics criticise 'oppressive' treatment of student protesters

University of London staff speak out against security guards’ ‘heavy-handed’ tactics

Academics have condemned the “oppressive” treatment of student protesters after the university hired private security staff who forcibly evicted a group that were peacefully occupying a campus building in support of outsourced cleaners.

The University of London (UoL) spent more than £1.3m on additional security officers, receptionists and other security measures from March 2018 until November last year, amid student demonstrations and over a dozen workers’ strike days.

The total until now is likely to be much higher for what protesters say has been the increasingly heavy policing of demonstrations in support of demands for the mainly migrant workers to be brought in-house under equal terms.

Video footage has emerged from the second and final day of the occupation last week showing private security guards – whose company badges were concealed – removing protesters from Senate House.

Asked upon what legal grounds they were being removed, a security guard is heard saying: “We don’t need powers.” He later said the protesters were trespassing, adding: “The university have asked us to remove you from the premises.”

Ross Tayler, a master’s student at University College London, said: “We were dragged down the fire escape stairs. It was brutal and intimidating.”

After some protesters were removed, another security guard said: “I’ve just spoken with them, they’re saying the meeting is still on the table ... with the vice-chancellor.”

Before the eviction, Senate House management were criticised for preventing fellow students from bringing food to the occupiers.

In a statement, Justice for UoL Workers said the occupation was a method of “peaceful escalation” in the campaign’s pursuit of “basic fairness and workers’ rights”.

“Approximately 15 bailiffs with riot shields, stab vests, bolt cutters and concealed equipment broke into the occupation by force,” a spokesperson said. “They had covered the insignia on their shirts … and refused to answer any questions including [those about] their legal grounds for eviction. All occupiers received varying forms of injury and were deeply distressed.”

It added: “UoL management peered through the window and watched, refusing requests to communicate as their students were violently manhandled on their orders.”

However, the video shows a bailiff stating they had permission from the university to be there and does not show any violence by them towards the protesters.

Academic staff from across UoL criticised the treatment of the protesters, and that of the outsourced staff.

“What’s happening at the UoL is part of a broader recognition that cleaners at universities should be treated with dignity and respect,” said Dr Jamie Woodcock, a visiting academic at Goldsmiths’ Institute of Management Studies.

“I’ve been completely astonished by the university’s response to the protests, putting up barriers around entrances and hiring private security. It looks like something out of an oppressive regime that the university would condemn. Why are publicly funded universities spending money attacking non-violent protesters?”

He added that evidence suggested that bringing cleaners in-house was cost-effective and outsourcing to an external company might not save money.

“The cost of paying cleaners more is being dwarfed by the huge amount spent on policing protests,” he said. “It shows this is a question of the university not wanting to bow to pressure from students and staff. They are making a political choice.”

Leo Zeilig, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, said events at UoL were part of a global movement to kick back against outsourcing.

“I have witnessed private security guards hired specifically for their muscle who have used heavy-handed aggression and physical intimidation at legitimate, peaceful protests with workers and students at the university,” he said.

“I have colleagues in Sydney who know about the situation at the UoL. I’m ashamed of how the university has been treating its outsourced workers, while claiming they have no responsibility for them. It is a fig leaf of justification and it can’t go on.”

Ashok Kumar, a lecturer in political economy at Birkbeck, said other colleges within UoL had brought maintenance staff in-house and that “increasingly militaristic” tactics were being employed, such as the use of private security to evict student occupiers without an injunction. “It’s fairly unprecedented,” he said.

Last month, the University and College Union voted to boycott Senate House, the administrative centre of UoL, because of its treatment of cleaning, catering and security staff and others not directly employed by the university.

UoL has been contacted for comment.

Publicație : The Guardian

REF: 15% of academics in survey ‘made to change research focus’

Nearly one in five respondents to four-campus study said they feared role change if they underperformed

A significant minority of UK academics who responded to a survey reported having been threatened with a change of role or contractual status if they performed unsatisfactorily on the research excellence framework, or said they had been asked to change their work’s focus to better suit the assessment.

The Real-Time REF Review, a longitudinal pilot study commissioned by Research England to evaluate the impact of the exercise on academics, found that – on the whole – respondents’ views about the evaluation were not as extreme as is sometimes thought, and were best described as “moderately negative”. The study was based on survey responses from 598 academics across the universities of Cardiff, Lincoln, Sheffield and Sussex, as well as interviews with 21 managers involved in the REF across the four institutions.

However, recurring issues of performance management, game-playing and a perceived negative impact on researchers’ mental health were highlighted as continuing concerns.

Some 17.5 per cent of survey respondents said their department had indicated that they could expect their role to change if they failed to perform to the standard that managers wanted to achieve in the REF, and 10.3 per cent said they could expect their contract to change if they did not meet expectations.

After the decision that all academics with “significant responsibility for research” will be submitted to REF 2021 – a change from 2014, when managers could choose which employees to enter – there has been significant anxiety that staff who fall short of expectations for research output will be moved on to teaching-only contracts.

Meanwhile, 15.4 per cent of respondents reported having been asked to change the focus of their research to “accommodate” the REF.

“While this is a relatively small proportion of respondents, it still indicates that a sizeable portion of research content within the UK may be directly shaped through REF expectations,” the study’s authors write.

James Wilsdon, professor of research policy at the University of Sheffield and co-author of the pilot study, said the proportion of academics who had been asked to refocus their research was “low, but still something to be concerned about”, given that the purpose of the REF was to “measure and not interfere with research agendas”. “The tail is not meant to wag the dog,” he said.

While just under one in six respondents reported the use of two or more worrying management tactics in their department, the study’s authors note that “constructive motivational approaches” were being used “more frequently than pressuring motivational strategies”.

It was not possible to tell from the survey exactly how research was being influenced, but Professor Wilsdon said he imagined it was “likely to be the case that researchers are being pressured to submit work to higher impact journals rather than being told to change the trajectory of their work”.

Surveys for the study were taken between April and August 2018, when changes to the 2021 REF where being implemented in accordance with the 2016 Stern review – which made recommendations designed to reduce game-playing among institutions and to make the exercise less burdensome.

Steven Hill, director of research at Research England and chair of the REF 2021 steering group, said the findings gave “valuable understanding about the lived experiences of academics” that would be taken on board in the design of future assessments.

“There is much in this report that reassures, but also some evidence that we can improve processes…We also encourage higher education institutions to consider the report’s findings on good practice and the role it plays in supporting a positive research environment,” he said.

 Publicație : The Times

Journal articles ‘should cost £300 to publish’

Calculation by open access campaigners questions supposedly unnecessary spending by publishers on lobbying, marketing and executive pay

Publishers are hugely inflating their costs through unnecessary spending on marketing, lobbying and executive pay packets, according to open access campaigners who have calculated what they claim is the real cost of publishing.

It should cost on average just $400 (£315) to publish an academic paper, and at the very most about $1,000 for very selective journals with high rejection rates, an analysis says.

This is far less than the prices universities currently pay publishers, it argues: estimates of costs vary, but subscription journals receive about $4,000 to $5,000 per article, while article processing fees for open access papers average at least $1,470.

Publishers have long been criticised for their high profit margins, which regularly exceed 30 per cent. But this does not fully explain the difference between costs and price, say Björn Brembs, a neurobiologist at the University of Regensburg, and Alexander Grossmann, an informatics and media professor at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences.

Instead, publishers are adding to costs by splashing out on activities that are not essential to academic publishing, the pair argue in a PeerJ paper.

“How do you justify the costs…to the people who pay the bill, who are the taxpayers?” Professor Brembs asked.

One area the pair single out is lobbying: RELX, the parent company of Elsevier, spent between €400,000 (£357,000) and €500,000 lobbying the European Commission in 2018.

The preprint also highlights what it sees as high top salaries at some publishers. In 2016, the New England Journal of Medicine spent 4 per cent of its publication revenue on the salaries of the 10 highest paid staff, which would add about $160 to the cost of each paper.

Publishers also spend extra on trying to attract authors through advertising or on promoting their brand at conferences, as well as paying for sales teams to deal with libraries, it points out. A handful of journals, such as Science and Nature, also employ journalists.

Professor Brembs said he would be happy to pay for this journalism, and noted that activities such as lobbying, while they “sound superfluous”, could be useful if deployed on behalf of the entire research community.

But these extra activities should be separated out from wider subscription costs, he argued.

A spokesman for the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers pointed to other assessments of costs that came up with higher figures: one 2011 calculation, for example, put the cost of activities such as peer-review management, copy-editing, typesetting and origination at an average of £1,261 per article.

Publicație : The Times

ETH apologises for postdoc job advert demanding ‘Nature paper’

Swiss university has signed San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, which says academics should not be judged on the journals they publish in

A university that pledged not to judge academics on the journals that they publish in has apologised for posting a job advert calling for a postdoc who had published in a title such as Nature or Science.

ETH Zurich is a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, known as Dora, which says that journal impact factors should not be used as the proxy for the quality of scholarship.

But its Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering posted an advert for a postdoctoral position in sustainable process systems engineering that said researchers must have published in a journal with an impact factor above 10.

“A specific requirement for this position is to have published as main author or co-author (at least one journal article) in a high-impact journal (impact factor above 10, eg, Nature, Science, Nature Communications, Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability, Nature Climate Change, PNAS, Energy & Environmental Science, etc). Applications not fulfilling the latter requirement will get a rejection,” the advert said.

Only a limited number of titles have such a high impact factor and they typically have a very high rejection rate. More significantly, critics of journal impact factors point out that where a paper is published is not necessarily an accurate reflection of its quality, and that selection of papers in highly selective periodicals and is shaped by editorial biases and networks.

The postdoc position was for an initial period of one year, and a maximum of three. The advert also stated that the successful candidate “will communicate the results through regular publications in high-impact journals”.

The advert was for a role in the group of Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez, who issued an apology on Twitter after widespread criticism. “I apologise to ETH and the whole research community and will change requirements,” he said, adding that he had “reflected deeply” on comments from peers.

Stephen Curry, chair of Dora and assistant provost for equality, diversity and inclusion at Imperial College London, said that he was “disturbed” to see an advert from a “signatory organisation that was obviously contrary to the letter and spirit of Dora”.

Professor Curry, who has written to the president of ETH Zurich, said that the university had already taken action and was “very committed to implementing Dora”.

“We recognise that in any large organisation it is always a challenge to ensure that everyone is aware of the obligations that come with signing Dora,” he added.

Lynn Kamerlin, professor of structural biology at Uppsala University, said that if she had used the same recruitment criteria as the ETH advert, she would have missed out on many “outstanding candidates who performed extremely well in my group”.

In her adverts, she asks for “publications of a high scientific standard, assessed according to the Dora principles”.

However, with every job application being “an investment of a candidate’s time and hopes”, Professor Kamerlin said the “tough question is, if this is the filter that would be used, is it not more honest to actually put it in the advertisement to stop people from wasting their time?”

An ETH spokeswoman said that the “sensitivity to primarily consider qualitative criteria in recruiting is enormously high” at the university, and that it “fully supports” Dora.

ETH “dissociates itself from the requirements expressed by the professor in question and has since sought dialogue with him”, the spokeswoman added.

Publicație : The Times

India makes a welcome turn to the liberal arts

The New Education Policy breaks with India’s post-independence preference for vocational avenues of upward mobility, says Saikat Majumdar

The recent landslide general election victory by India’s ruling National Democratic Alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will have big implications for the country’s universities.

The re-elected government has outlined a 100-day education agenda that includes the replacement of the University Grants Commission with a new governing body, the Higher Education Commission of India; a new, decentralised accreditation system; the expansion of the Institutes of Eminence excellence programme; and a new National Research Foundation as an umbrella body for funding science and technology research.

But the first item on the agenda was the report of the committee formulating India’s New Education Policy (NEP), which was published on 31 May. This policy – open for feedback until 1 July – has been long in the making. It was part of the BJP’s previous victorious election campaign in 2014, when a new education policy was already long overdue. Independent India’s first education policy was framed in 1968, and the second in 1986, revised in 1992.

More than a quarter of a century is a long time to wait for a replacement – especially for a country that has changed as fast as India has since the liberalisation of 1991. The education system’s rooted stagnancy cannot go on as we face up to the further realignment of human potential that artificial intelligence will bring.

What is particularly striking is the NEP’s statement that “the needs of the 21st century require that liberal broad-based multidisciplinary education become the basis for all higher education”, including undergraduate programmes in “professional, technical, and vocational disciplines”.

This is a welcome sea change in a nation still largely trapped between an antiquated, colonial model of general education in the arts and sciences on one the hand, and a fevered fetish for professional education on the other, mainly in engineering. Even champions of liberal education, myself included, have tended to define it against professional education, reinforcing the divide that goes back to Cardinal Newman’s idea of liberal knowledge as its own end.

But the NEP committee instead advocates a “liberal definition of the arts that goes back to the idea of the 64 ‘kalas’ or arts canonised in India’s ancient books, which included singing, playing musical instruments, and painting, but also ‘scientific fields’ such as engineering, medicine, and mathematics”. There is a risk that such an expansive definition may be almost shapeless, but I can also see that the committee’s understanding of the symbiotic relation between the liberal and the professional stems from that expansiveness.

The idea of energising professional education with elements of liberal education is not far from the original vision behind the Indian Institutes of Technology, which were always meant to go beyond mere technological competence and create holistically educated technocrats. “Given that professional and vocational fields are also better served in many cases by those obtaining a liberal education,” the policy states, “professional, technical, and vocational education programmes will arrange to enable…students to pursue a truly liberal undergraduate education.”

But the traffic is two-way, with all undergraduate liberal arts programmes also being required to have “a robust element of skills and professional competence”. It is important not to see this as an instrumentalisation of liberal education, which would defeat its very purpose – but rather as a broadening of its range to include aspects of experiential learning and community service.

There is already rising interest in the liberal arts among India’s expanding middle class, which enjoys a certain freedom from the traditional identification of higher education with immediate, vocational avenues of upward mobility, thinking of it more in terms of personal and social enrichment. Still, India has been historically adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and it remains to be seen whether a right-wing government that has a troubled relationship with universities will be able to look beyond the “liberal” label and embrace the NEP committee’s recommendation to build on such overdue developments in one of the world’s largest higher education systems.

Publicație : The Times

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