Andrew Coogan
@cooganlab.bsky.social
520 followers 540 following 730 posts
Sleep Researcher and Professor. "One of the finest efforts in Lincolnshire".
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cooganlab.bsky.social
Doing research, the science should be the hard bit, but somehow universities, funders and others have managed to produce a system where doing the science is no longer the hardest part of the process. Why do we even bother?
cooganlab.bsky.social
Apart from the financials, the public health aspect of this is so regressive, where half of this effective subsidy is going to go to the big fast food chains.
cooganlab.bsky.social
630,000,000 euro subsidy from the public purse supporting McDonalds, Burgerking, Dominoes, Supermacs etc.
cooganlab.bsky.social
Budget 2026, for Higher Education and Research, was there a "PRTLI" allocation made? I cannot see specifics, there is a reference to a infrastructure programme, but capital allocation only increased by 90 million assets.gov.ie/static/docum...
assets.gov.ie
cooganlab.bsky.social
Aristotle an excellent example of the value of a decent period in exile.
cooganlab.bsky.social
630,000,000 euro subsidy from the public purse supporting McDonalds, Burgerking, Dominoes, Supermacs etc.
cooganlab.bsky.social
Well stop sending Mac emails then, duh.
cooganlab.bsky.social
We pay 23% VAT for consumables for medical research, but for some reason the government priority is to cut VAT to 9% for this lot.
cooganlab.bsky.social
Aah, the glories of rural Ireland, where no wedding is complete without a bridal tractor.
cooganlab.bsky.social
Ah, the old rope a dope tactic.
cooganlab.bsky.social
Just watched the first episode of House of Guinness.
Wolf Hall it is not.
cooganlab.bsky.social
But it could have been much worse..,
cooganlab.bsky.social
UK University leaders skillfully maneuvered the sector into a position over the past 15 years where it is getting the very worst of all worlds, simultaneously bound to government policy, abandoned by government policy and damaged by government policy.
cooganlab.bsky.social
Chairing Academic Meetings.
cooganlab.bsky.social
“The core business of the university - teaching and research - is co-ordinated virtually entirely by ordinary non-executive staff”.
markrubin.bsky.social
Report on Australian Higher Education finds:

🔹️ Council members have no lived experience of universities

🔹️ Council members have COIs with consultancy firms

🔹️ Council meetings are closed affairs that lack transparency

🔹️ Leaders' exorbitant salaries could not be justified
One submission said leaders’ salaries could not be “justified by the quality of executive decision-making, nor by the scope of executive duties. The core business of a university – teaching and research – is co-ordinated virtually entirely by ordinary non-executive staff”.
cooganlab.bsky.social
The article even does the usual thing of failing to distinguish the UK from Britain, so there is no hope.
cooganlab.bsky.social
Gerry Adam’s walking around West Belfast with his Brit Card hanging around his neck on a Union Jack patterned lanyard.
Reposted by Andrew Coogan
miriamposner.com
The university relies so deeply on its faculty to do our jobs with sensitivity and care, going far beyond the letter of our contracts to mentor and advise and assist our students. You would think that it would see the inadvisability of treating its entire teaching staff with contempt. And yet!