Revealed: for whom the bill tolls
The West’s elite institutions are paying the price for state funding cuts, our World University Rankings show
The West’s elite institutions are paying the price for state funding cuts, our World University Rankings show

Science Media Centre's rapid rollout of experts' views sway most media. Paul Jump reports
A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers
• Students arriving for their first day at A.C. Grayling's New College of the Humanities had to brave a mob of protesters, The Independent reported on 25 September. About 30 demonstrators gathered...
I have been back in Sydney this past month for the first time in seven years. One of the few non-family things I did was to visit the University of Sydney and call into its development office. It was...

These robots form part of the ALIZ-E project designed "to move human-robot interaction from the range of minutes to the range of days".
University of OxfordDouglas HiggsThe new director of the Medical Research Council Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (WIMM) at the University of Oxford has called it an honour to be chosen to...

There was never a golden age in which academic values such as universalism and disinterestedness were not at risk, argues Bruce Macfarlane. But in an age of sponsorism and insecurity, all scholars...

World University Rankings 2012-13

Animated films aren’t just for children, argues James Clarke. They’re lyrical metaphors for the richness of human existence

Alan Ryan on the dystopian and utopian aspects of MOOCs
As the traditional academic publishing model comes under pressure from legitimate criticism, austerity and alternative forms, firms are springing up to exploit the uncertainty. Iain Stevenson...

"A truly major scholar" who transformed our understanding of doctoral research has died.Alison Lee was born on 25 July 1952 and brought up in the small Tasmanian town of Burnie before going on to...

Weekly transmissions from the blogosphere

University of East AngliaChained lettersA collection of letters that paints a vivid picture of 19th-century American slavery has gone on display in Norwich as part of Black History Month. The letters...