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British Academy responds to government announcement on university maintenance grants

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 9d

There are more equitable ways of raising money from international students. The wealthier ones are consuming more luxuries and taking holidays, perhaps raise taxes in these areas? Others are struggling financially and having to work to support themselves while studying.

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 10d

Using the proposed levy on international students towards maintenance grants doesn't make the levy any more sensible as a funding instrument.
And if Govt is bringing back maintenance grants, let's have them cover all arts, humanites & social sciences
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/respons...

The British Academy has issued a response to the government's announcement on using a proposed levy on international students to fund maintenance grants.

www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk

Understanding Society @usociety.bsky.social · 9d

In our latest blog, Peter Lynn takes an overview of survey methods, and says understanding and care are more important than budget

How do you build a survey that works? - Understanding Society

Peter Lynn, Associate Director of Understanding Society, tackles the question in an article in Nature: Human Behaviour Peter Lynn, Associate Director of Understanding Society, examines the features of...

www.understandingsociety.ac.uk

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 9d

I am starting to appreciate how little training academic researchers get on how to present and frame things. In particular the ethics around it. The default is focused on framing things for journals, and the limited training on knowledge exchange emphases "impact" not balanced advice.

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 9d

This is not new as Bertrand Russell said "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 9d

On many issues the science is so complex that it's not possible for anybody to understand it all and people emphasise parts of it in biased way often very loudly and aggressively. This is political but it is not a proper debate.

British Academy responds to government announcement on university maintenance grants

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 9d

Was asked about collinearity again, so here's Vahove's 2019 post on why it isn't a problem that needs a solution. Design the model(s) to answer a formal question and free your mind janhove.github.io/posts/2019-0...

tl;dr

Collinearity is a form of lack of information that is appropriately reflected in the output of your statistical model.
When collinearity is associated with interpretational difficulties, these difficulties aren’t caused by the collinearity itself. Rather, they reveal that the model was poorly specified (in that it answers a question different to the one of interest), that the analyst overly focuses on significance rather than estimates and the uncertainty about them or that the analyst took a mental shortcut in interpreting the model that could’ve also led them astray in the absence of collinearity.
If you do decide to “deal with” collinearity, make sure you can still answer the question of interest.

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 10d

Using the proposed levy on international students towards maintenance grants doesn't make the levy any more sensible as a funding instrument.
And if Govt is bringing back maintenance grants, let's have them cover all arts, humanites & social sciences
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/respons...

The British Academy has issued a response to the government's announcement on using a proposed levy on international students to fund maintenance grants.

www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk

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Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 11d

Gender pay gap
S Korea 31%
Israel 25%
Japan 21%
Canada 17%
US 17%
Mexico 17%
UK 15%
Germany 14%
Turkey 10%
France 9%
Spain 7%
Italy 3%
Belgium 1%

Chart shows difference between median full-time earnings of men and women as % of median earnings of men in OECD countries.

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Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 11d

I am all for making sure politicians retrospectively get the terrible ratings they deserve . On this basis of failing to implement the Dilnot report, austerity and Brexit, David Cameron is the worst PM of my lifetime.

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 11d

Two decades ago David Coleman from a right wing perspective and Danny Dorling from the left seemed to be able to maintain a much higher profile than anybody does now.

It's almost as if the discipline is actively trying not to upset anyone.

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Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 11d

It does raises concerns over what the UK's academic demographers have been doing for the last couple of decades.

Demography has been driving UK Politics for more than a decades, and they are almost completely invisible.

Why I gave the world wide web away for free

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 12d

Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee

My vision was based on sharing, not exploitation – and here’s why it’s still worth fighting for

www.theguardian.com

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Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 14d

Please only repost the first or key posts in a thread. If people are interested in it they will naturally follow it. Reposting all of them ends up with the thread in the wrong order and makes it harder to read.

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Deena Mousa @deenamousa.com · 15d

In 2016 Geoffrey Hinton said “we should stop training radiologists now" since AI would soon be better at their jobs.

He was right: models have outperformed radiologists on benchmarks for ~a decade.

Yet radiology jobs are at record highs, with an average salary of $520k.

Why?

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Jan R. Boehnke @jrboehnke.bsky.social · 16d

I have been following #psychometrics jobs in #Scotland for a while. I think this is the first one* I am notified about in 2 years
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOU426/d...

I have no experience with/connection to the employer. Given its rarity, it seemed worth passing on.

#DataAnalysis #Job #MedicalEducation

Data Analyst at Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh

Discover Data Analyst jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

www.jobs.ac.uk

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Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 17d

Well provide support for your position with evidence from a survey on why clinicians are leaving research. The limited data in the article focuses on security of funding.

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 17d

I have reread the article, the main focus s on the job security and funding for researchers NOT salaries. Hardly surprising as job security has always been the main concern of early career researchers. The solution to that is senior academics showing more solidarity to their junior colleagues.

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 18d

There are thousands of people losing their jobs in academia due to funding problems. MRC units are being closed. Inflation is running at 3.8% the current pay offer for non-academics is 1.4%. The solution to this is solidarity, and that requires focusing the support on the most disadvantage.

Think you’re kind? Maybe you’re just being nice. I’ve learned there’s a big difference | Ann Russell

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 18d

The difference between being nice and being kind. It is important to recognise the difference.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Like many women, I was conditioned to people-please – until I realised that this was neither helping others, nor myself, says author Ann Russell

www.theguardian.com

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Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 19d

We have also known for probably an even longer time that not only the academic career structure has incentived novelty over rigour. But also that workloads and job insecurity have made it really difficult to change the system.

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · 19d

The idea that population health needs to take a socioecological approach has been well established for decades see for example Tony McMichael's article on the Prisoners of the Proximate, doi.org/10.1093/oxfo...
and related ideas have been developing since at least the 19th Century.

doi.org

NIHR ARC Wessex closes X/Twitter platform account after comments from owner

NIHR ARC Wessex @arcwessex.bsky.social · 25d

NIHR ARC Wessex withdraws from X/Twitter

@nihrarcs.bsky.social @nihr.bsky.social

www.arc-wx.nihr.ac.uk/post/nihr-ar...

NIHR ARC Wessex has withdrawn from the X/Twitter platform following comments at the weekend by its owner Elon Musk. See BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnvr5782yp3o We would encourage...

www.arc-wx.nihr.ac.uk

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Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · Sep 8

I also think it's reasonable take industrial action to make sure that University's become much better at lobbying government's in our interests.
I would be happy to take a pay cut if it leads to a fairer society, but not to appease the continued rightward drift of UK politics.

Richard Shaw @richardshaw.bsky.social · Sep 8

I voted against industrial action but I think more recognition is needed that the dire financial state of some University's is a direct consequence of government's (doomed) attempt at appeasing far voters, plus the failed market model.

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration @ukllc.bsky.social · Sep 8

We are excited to be attending the Society for Social Medicine & Population Health 69th Annual Scientific Meeting this week at The Midland Hotel and Kala Sangam in Bradford

If you’re attending, we’d love to meet! We will have a stand with UK LLC merchandise and friendly faces 👋

#SSM2025

lnkd.in

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Jon Minton @jonminton.bsky.social · Sep 7

KGB: 1992’s subtly terrifying social poison simulator:

jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...

Jon Minton’s Blog - Remembering KGB: 1992’s subtly terrifying social poison simulator

jonminton.github.io