Italians to rebuild face of Petrarch
A team from Padua University has opened the marble sarcophagus containing the remains of Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) and plans to recreate his face and body. But when a 1-tonne...
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1,100 staff could go in Irish spending freeze
Job losses are inevitable following an Irish government decision to freeze state spending on the republic's seven universities next year. Exchequer funding makes up 85 per cent of the universities'...
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Russia asks US to lift sanctions
Russia is to press the US to lift sanctions imposed on its universities and research centres for allegedly cooperating with Iran's nuclear programme. Of the 12 institutions that the US originally...
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Germany boosts cause of women
Germany has revitalised an equal opportunity programme for female academics with an injection of €92 million (£65 million) over the next three years. Wolf-Michael Catenhusen, state secretary of the...
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Call for mediation on loan discrimination claim
New Zealand's student loan scheme will go to mediation in the new year after the country's Human Rights Commission accepted that it may discriminate against women borrowers. According to the New...
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Gender balance shifts in US doctoral awards
Women have for the first time inched past men among US citizens awarded doctorates, and nearly one in five doctorates is being earned by an ethnic or racial minority. But the number of doctoral...
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Rector faces ruin in palace tax row
The rector of Istanbul University may lose his passport and faces huge fines in a row with the Turkish government over unpaid taxes relating to a former palace used for staff and alumni events. Kemal...
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Top-up fees are neither our saviour nor Satan
US experience shows that a focus on access must not be lost in the debate on variable fees, says Jamie Merisotis The political storm in Parliament over top-up fees in many ways mirrors the US debate...
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Don's diary: Under the knife and over the moon
July For the first time in two years I have a proper family holiday - one not tagged on to an overseas academic conference. While coming down a giant water slide with my two youngest children, I...
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With a song in their heart
The following Christmas entertainment is being advertised in the corridors of lecturers' union Natfhe: "Andrew Adonis Productions in association with Mandy Partners proudly presents The Top-up Fees...
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Brunel's card is marked
Brunel University vice-chancellor Steven Schwartz has emailed his friends worldwide to explain the lack of Christmas cards this year. He's decided to give the money the university normally spends on...
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The cruellest gag
The Diary was bemused by the response to its request to attend a conference of the Higher Education External Relations Association at Warwick University last week. One of the organisers grumpily...
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Nobel pursuit
Your help is needed in tracing almost 1,000 winners of the 1993 Ig Nobel prize for literature. Cardiologists E. Topol, R. Califf, F. Van de Werf, P.W. Armstrong and 972 co-authors were awarded the...
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Why I... believe you should retire if you want to be an academic
I am enjoying being an academic more this year than at any time since the 1960s, when I started. With three books coming out next year, time to do two research projects, teach undergraduate and...
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Expertise required
Do not pander to the public's 'distrust' of science or exaggerate it, advises Lewis Wolpert Lord Winston argued last week that the public should be much more involved in the direction of science....