Jon Reades
@jreades.bsky.social
Prof of Geographic Data Science & HoD @ CASA, UCL. Python, Housing, Neighbourhoods, Industrial location, and Text. Sometime DB, MTB & 🍄 nerd. Co-auth: “Why Face-to-Face still matters” (http://bit.ly/3cW5gSr)
Reposted by Jon Reades
January 17, 2026 at 6:26 AM
Reposted by Jon Reades
Please help spread the word on this, especially to those who may be feeling cold winds towards their research.
We’ve opened the call for our International Fellowships, enabling early career researchers to work for two years at a UK research institution
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...
We’ve opened the call for our International Fellowships, enabling early career researchers to work for two years at a UK research institution
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...
January 15, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Please help spread the word on this, especially to those who may be feeling cold winds towards their research.
We’ve opened the call for our International Fellowships, enabling early career researchers to work for two years at a UK research institution
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...
We’ve opened the call for our International Fellowships, enabling early career researchers to work for two years at a UK research institution
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...
Reposted by Jon Reades
🌍✨
Our next seminar in February is with
@ruthneville20.bsky.social
who is Research Fellow at CASA, UCL.
"From boom to bust:
Two decades of international student mobility"
Date: Tues 3rd Feb 2026 @ 2pm UK time (online)
Register here: tinyurl.com/3zuw6tcn
✨🌍
Our next seminar in February is with
@ruthneville20.bsky.social
who is Research Fellow at CASA, UCL.
"From boom to bust:
Two decades of international student mobility"
Date: Tues 3rd Feb 2026 @ 2pm UK time (online)
Register here: tinyurl.com/3zuw6tcn
✨🌍
January 14, 2026 at 7:00 PM
🌍✨
Our next seminar in February is with
@ruthneville20.bsky.social
who is Research Fellow at CASA, UCL.
"From boom to bust:
Two decades of international student mobility"
Date: Tues 3rd Feb 2026 @ 2pm UK time (online)
Register here: tinyurl.com/3zuw6tcn
✨🌍
Our next seminar in February is with
@ruthneville20.bsky.social
who is Research Fellow at CASA, UCL.
"From boom to bust:
Two decades of international student mobility"
Date: Tues 3rd Feb 2026 @ 2pm UK time (online)
Register here: tinyurl.com/3zuw6tcn
✨🌍
Reposted by Jon Reades
I wonder what Londoners know that the rest of the country don’t?
January 11, 2026 at 9:26 AM
I wonder what Londoners know that the rest of the country don’t?
Reposted by Jon Reades
news from PySAL world: we have a new package in the ecosystem(!) As of today, `gwlearn` is available in package managers. It provides a suite of tools for geographically weighted machine learning using a sklearn API.
pysal.org/gwlearn/v0.1...
great work by lead author @martinfleischmann.net
pysal.org/gwlearn/v0.1...
great work by lead author @martinfleischmann.net
gwlearn
pysal.org
January 9, 2026 at 7:09 PM
news from PySAL world: we have a new package in the ecosystem(!) As of today, `gwlearn` is available in package managers. It provides a suite of tools for geographically weighted machine learning using a sklearn API.
pysal.org/gwlearn/v0.1...
great work by lead author @martinfleischmann.net
pysal.org/gwlearn/v0.1...
great work by lead author @martinfleischmann.net
Reposted by Jon Reades
We extracted (parts of) 12 books in experiments with 4 frontier-lab, production LLMs.
We prompted the LLMs with a short prefix of a book and asked them to complete the rest. For Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we extracted 95.8% of the book from jailbroken Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
We prompted the LLMs with a short prefix of a book and asked them to complete the rest. For Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we extracted 95.8% of the book from jailbroken Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
January 7, 2026 at 8:31 PM
We extracted (parts of) 12 books in experiments with 4 frontier-lab, production LLMs.
We prompted the LLMs with a short prefix of a book and asked them to complete the rest. For Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we extracted 95.8% of the book from jailbroken Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
We prompted the LLMs with a short prefix of a book and asked them to complete the rest. For Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we extracted 95.8% of the book from jailbroken Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
Reposted by Jon Reades
Since Jan 1 2025, which feels like four trillion years ago, research has been shared on here 5 million whole-ass times. Bluesky recently passed 2 billion posts IN TOTAL.
So 0.25% of the entire site's traffic was citations to research.
That is actually massively high. Is it? Yes. Here's why.
So 0.25% of the entire site's traffic was citations to research.
That is actually massively high. Is it? Yes. Here's why.
January 8, 2026 at 1:08 PM
Since Jan 1 2025, which feels like four trillion years ago, research has been shared on here 5 million whole-ass times. Bluesky recently passed 2 billion posts IN TOTAL.
So 0.25% of the entire site's traffic was citations to research.
That is actually massively high. Is it? Yes. Here's why.
So 0.25% of the entire site's traffic was citations to research.
That is actually massively high. Is it? Yes. Here's why.
Reposted by Jon Reades
The Geography of the Labour Force Composition in the Netherlands by Ate Poorthuis (doi.org/10.1111/tesg...). One of the best uses of the centered ternary balance scheme (www.demographic-research.org/articles/vol...) I've seen so far. Build with tricolore github.com/jschoeley/tr... @ikashnitsky.phd
January 8, 2026 at 8:31 AM
The Geography of the Labour Force Composition in the Netherlands by Ate Poorthuis (doi.org/10.1111/tesg...). One of the best uses of the centered ternary balance scheme (www.demographic-research.org/articles/vol...) I've seen so far. Build with tricolore github.com/jschoeley/tr... @ikashnitsky.phd
Reposted by Jon Reades
'Despite all their difficulties, universities remain an enormous and irreplaceable national asset. As well as educating millions of people, they generate about £24bn in export earnings, which is about 1% of GDP – more than aircraft manufacturing and legal services combined'. 1/2
The Guardian view on universities: Labour needs a clearer plan | Editorial
Editorial: Ministers promised a ‘change of approach’, but their new tax could tip weaker institutions over the edge
www.theguardian.com
January 7, 2026 at 8:15 AM
'Despite all their difficulties, universities remain an enormous and irreplaceable national asset. As well as educating millions of people, they generate about £24bn in export earnings, which is about 1% of GDP – more than aircraft manufacturing and legal services combined'. 1/2
Reposted by Jon Reades
'The white paper places the responsibility to fix the sector’s challenges on individual providers rather than on offering... policy support. The autumn budget illustrated this lack of joined-up thinking, introducing an international student levy that will negate the uplift in tuition fees. 1/3
Warm words alone will not sustain higher education’s diversity.
Planned reforms in 2026 must redress policy bias towards large-scale operations, says Kate Wicklow.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...
Planned reforms in 2026 must redress policy bias towards large-scale operations, says Kate Wicklow.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...
Warm words alone will not sustain higher education’s diversity - Research Professional News
Planned reforms in 2026 must redress policy bias towards large-scale operations, says Kate Wicklow
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
January 6, 2026 at 3:24 PM
'The white paper places the responsibility to fix the sector’s challenges on individual providers rather than on offering... policy support. The autumn budget illustrated this lack of joined-up thinking, introducing an international student levy that will negate the uplift in tuition fees. 1/3
Struck by how useful I have found GPT for working through #quarto and #LaTeX issues on a project, but also how many times it took me down dead ends that we only got out of because I had sufficient context/knowledge to reframe. I just don’t know how we get our students to that point.
January 6, 2026 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Jon Reades
Fully-funded UCL-EPSRC studentships 🌍
Applications now open for the 2026–27 Landscape Award four year studentships, including within BSSC, BSEER & CASA.
🔗 Apply by 05 January: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/epsrc-doctoral-training/prospective-students/ucl-epsrc-landscape-award-uela-studentships
Applications now open for the 2026–27 Landscape Award four year studentships, including within BSSC, BSEER & CASA.
🔗 Apply by 05 January: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/epsrc-doctoral-training/prospective-students/ucl-epsrc-landscape-award-uela-studentships
January 5, 2026 at 3:23 PM
Fully-funded UCL-EPSRC studentships 🌍
Applications now open for the 2026–27 Landscape Award four year studentships, including within BSSC, BSEER & CASA.
🔗 Apply by 05 January: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/epsrc-doctoral-training/prospective-students/ucl-epsrc-landscape-award-uela-studentships
Applications now open for the 2026–27 Landscape Award four year studentships, including within BSSC, BSEER & CASA.
🔗 Apply by 05 January: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/epsrc-doctoral-training/prospective-students/ucl-epsrc-landscape-award-uela-studentships
The R&R benefits of the festive season and some quality time in the Highlands have not survived past the first five minutes of contact with my MS to do list. But here’s a nice photo of a Scots pine from that period.
January 5, 2026 at 12:36 PM
The R&R benefits of the festive season and some quality time in the Highlands have not survived past the first five minutes of contact with my MS to do list. But here’s a nice photo of a Scots pine from that period.
Reposted by Jon Reades
Allocate research funding by sortition. Then you can do the work of submitting a plan for what you'll do with the money, once you know you've got the money. And put the research office resources into post-award support.
Oh, and increase base funding for research activities in HEIs.
Oh, and increase base funding for research activities in HEIs.
This report in Nature on the costs of competing for & administering scientific grants is shocking: "In other words, European taxpayers will have spent more on the funding process than on the funding itself, and the scientific ecosystem has been drained." www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪
Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding
With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.
www.nature.com
January 2, 2026 at 3:37 PM
Allocate research funding by sortition. Then you can do the work of submitting a plan for what you'll do with the money, once you know you've got the money. And put the research office resources into post-award support.
Oh, and increase base funding for research activities in HEIs.
Oh, and increase base funding for research activities in HEIs.
Reposted by Jon Reades
« Pour maintenir le taux d’encadrement actuel des étudiants, il conviendrait au total de recruter à un rythme multiplié par 1,28 par rapport à la période 2018-2024, calcule la note. »
www.lemonde.fr/campus/artic...
www.lemonde.fr/campus/artic...
Les universités françaises vont faire face à des départs en retraite massifs d’enseignants
Les disciplines scientifiques devront recruter des enseignants à un rythme deux fois plus élevé dans les dix prochaines années, alerte une note du service statistique du ministère de l’enseignement su...
www.lemonde.fr
December 31, 2025 at 9:00 AM
« Pour maintenir le taux d’encadrement actuel des étudiants, il conviendrait au total de recruter à un rythme multiplié par 1,28 par rapport à la période 2018-2024, calcule la note. »
www.lemonde.fr/campus/artic...
www.lemonde.fr/campus/artic...
Reposted by Jon Reades
2025 has been a rotten year for most early career postdoctoral researchers, especially in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
For a better 2026, check out (or repost) this short thread on a free resource for UK-based SHAPE PhDs within 10 years (excluding career breaks) of the doctorate. 1/3
For a better 2026, check out (or repost) this short thread on a free resource for UK-based SHAPE PhDs within 10 years (excluding career breaks) of the doctorate. 1/3
Early Career Researcher Network
An inclusive, researcher-led network for UK-based early career researchers working in the humanities and social sciences
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk
December 31, 2025 at 2:47 PM
2025 has been a rotten year for most early career postdoctoral researchers, especially in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
For a better 2026, check out (or repost) this short thread on a free resource for UK-based SHAPE PhDs within 10 years (excluding career breaks) of the doctorate. 1/3
For a better 2026, check out (or repost) this short thread on a free resource for UK-based SHAPE PhDs within 10 years (excluding career breaks) of the doctorate. 1/3
Quick visit to see the extended family’s new neighbours before getting started on the festive cooking. 🏴🦫
December 24, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Quick visit to see the extended family’s new neighbours before getting started on the festive cooking. 🏴🦫
My favourite example of this in geography is Cairncross’ _Death of Distance_. It may be wrong about quite a few things, but does not really say (IMO) the one thing most people accuse it of being wrong about. Easy but incorrect signalling.
I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite
Do not cite an academic paper unless you’ve read it
December 21, 2025 at 3:44 PM
My favourite example of this in geography is Cairncross’ _Death of Distance_. It may be wrong about quite a few things, but does not really say (IMO) the one thing most people accuse it of being wrong about. Easy but incorrect signalling.
Peak middle age: my garden makes a brief appearance on Gardeners’ Question Time! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... (beware if I gift you an elder)
Gardeners' Question Time - Waltham Forest: Coriander, Sow-By-Date and Perennials - BBC Sounds
Kathy Clugston and the GQT panel are in Waltham Forest to answer your gardening issues.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 21, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Peak middle age: my garden makes a brief appearance on Gardeners’ Question Time! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... (beware if I gift you an elder)
Reposted by Jon Reades
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
December 19, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Reposted by Jon Reades
did you see this?
Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.
AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist -- And They're Being Cited in Real Journals
Academic articles from authors using large language model are creating an ecosystem of fake research that threatens human knowledge itself.
www.rollingstone.com
December 19, 2025 at 7:31 PM
did you see this?
Reposted by Jon Reades
Just published in Nature Cities, a study led by recent CASA PhD graduate Andrew Renninger advances our understanding of urban inequality by focusing on experienced socioeconomic segregation, or daily encounters between individuals of differing socio-economic groups.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
December 17, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Just published in Nature Cities, a study led by recent CASA PhD graduate Andrew Renninger advances our understanding of urban inequality by focusing on experienced socioeconomic segregation, or daily encounters between individuals of differing socio-economic groups.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Reposted by Jon Reades
Likewise with university marking and the legal principal of academic judgement. Sacrifice the exercise of academic judgement and expect your marking decisions to be contestable in English courts.
AI is not our peer, so AI review is not peer review. If for some godforsaken reason the editor of a journal wanted to know what AI would say about a paper, they could do it themself.
Just decline the peer review invitation.
What are you people even doing?
What are you people even doing?
December 17, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Likewise with university marking and the legal principal of academic judgement. Sacrifice the exercise of academic judgement and expect your marking decisions to be contestable in English courts.
@casaucl.bsky.social @ the #V&A Storehouse before stepping it up a bit with classic arcade games for an end of term 🎉
December 16, 2025 at 4:57 PM
@casaucl.bsky.social @ the #V&A Storehouse before stepping it up a bit with classic arcade games for an end of term 🎉
Reposted by Jon Reades
CASA staff Philyoung Jeong and Dr Duncan Smith have published a new working paper on accessibility to cycle routes in London, examining new cycling indicators for tracking cycle network development, gaps in the network and challenges faced by vulnerable cyclists.
discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...
discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...
December 15, 2025 at 1:54 PM
CASA staff Philyoung Jeong and Dr Duncan Smith have published a new working paper on accessibility to cycle routes in London, examining new cycling indicators for tracking cycle network development, gaps in the network and challenges faced by vulnerable cyclists.
discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...
discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...