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Shane McHugh

@shanemchugh.bsky.social

350 followers 1.6K following 120 posts

Talking about engineering, technology, research security and systems thinking. Fan of cats, Arsenal, weird lit, and both kinds of music.

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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Oct 20

I’ve updated my starting pack of U.K. engineers and engineering adjacent people.
Still a work in progress, especially in areas like civil and mechanical, so please get in touch if you want to be on it or suggest more names.

go.bsky.app/HZ9n48g

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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Aug 30

Kill list. Thought it was a gangster flick, was rooting for the main character and his family, and the turn towards horror deeply unsettled me. Felt grubby and ill at ease for days afterwards

Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Aug 30

Bread lobby in cahoots with the strawberry mafia

Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jul 30

The always interesting @bioengineergm.bsky.social on how our use of the word technology frames it as an elemental force and elides notions of agency and moral responsibility.

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · Jul 30

on.ft.com/45cJxz9 It’s time to retire the word ‘technology’

It’s time to retire the word ‘technology’

The word spans too much and clarifies too little

on.ft.com

Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jul 24

Haven’t seen it mentioned yet, and of course not U.K. but I have a very very soft spot for the first few Horslips albums and especially the Táin

Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jul 12

What a fantastic resource!

Reposted by Shane McHugh

Royal Academy of Engineering @raeng.org.uk · Jul 9

"Engineering has the power and potential to transform the world for the better, and tonight’s awards will honour those who make it possible"

🏆 Congratulations to all our winners, and huge thanks to everyone who attended yesterday.

Find out more about our winners: raeng.org.uk/programmes-a...

2025 MacRobert award winners, OrganOx, alongside Academy CEO, Hayaatun Sillem, Academy President, Sir John Lazar, and presenter of the award, Lord Patrick Vallance.

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Reposted by Shane McHugh

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · Jul 2

Some people say the biggest gap in research funding is at mid career level. So here is our new call for our mid career fellowship programme which provides buyout for 6 to 12 months to devote to the completion of a major piece of research. Spread the word!
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/mid-...

Mid-Career Fellowships

The Mid-Career Fellowships are designed both to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and soc...

www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk

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Reposted by Shane McHugh

Royal Academy of Engineering @raeng.org.uk · Jun 27

Are you ready to lead one of the UK’s most influential organisations at a time of global change?

We are seeking a visionary, values-led Chief Executive Officer to drive the delivery of our bold Strategy 2030: Engineering Better Lives. Apply by 20 July 2025:
www.russellreynolds.com/en/executive...

We are hiring a Chief Executive Officer. Apply by 20 July 2025. Are you ready to lead one of the UK’s most influential organisations at a time of global change? This is a defining moment for engineering in the UK and globally. As CEO, you will shape policy, inspire innovation, and help ensure that engineering serves society — sustainably, inclusively, and ambitiously.

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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jun 27

See also: Bernard Hill and Bernard Cribbins

Reposted by Shane McHugh

John Herrman @jwherrman.bsky.social · Jun 26

The real AI arms race is between one another 🥰 nymag.com/intelligence...

Stories about Al deployment tend to fall into a few categories. You've got productivity stories, where workers — most visibly at tech companies — talk about how Al tools are making parts of their jobs easier or harder, increasing their workload or simply making them redundant and taking their jobs. You've got top-down management stories, where Al use is suggested or mandated by leaders demanding more efficiency, who are either betting that a great deal of automation is possible within their firms, or who are just worried about getting left behind.
Then you've got the stories in which people are more clearly using new Al tools against one another in an escalatory way.
Job hunters, now able to generate custom applications instantly, flood employers, so employers turn to Al to manage the glut. Spammers and other bad-faith actors flood social media with near-infinite material, pushing the platforms to double down on automated moderation.
Rapidly generated presentations lead to rapidly scheduled meetings recorded and automatically transcribed by AI assistants for machine summarization and analysis. Dating-app users generate chats with Al only to be filtered and then responded to by someone else using AI. The starkest and most consequential such story is what's happening in education: Teachers dealing with students who generate entire essays and assignments are turning to Al-powered plagiarism detectors, or getting pitched on ed-tech software that solves cheating with surveillance - with, of course, the help of AI.

These are stories about AI, but they're also stories about broken systems. Students flocking to ChatGPT in the classroom suggests that they see school in terms of arbitrary tasks and attainment rather than education. The widespread use of Al in job hunting drives home the extent to which platforms like LinkedIn, which promises to connect job seekers with employers, have instead installed themselves between them, pushing both sides to either pay up or dishonestly game their systems. A dating app where users see opportunity in automated flirting must already be a pretty grim space. If Facebook can be so quickly and thoroughly overwhelmed by Al-generated imagery and bots, it probably wasn't much of a social network anymore — a low-trust platform better at monetizing users than connecting them. Smaller-scale AI arms races like these don't take hold unless users (or workers, or students) have already been pitted against one another by systems they don't respect. In an uncomfortably large portion of modern life - especially online - that's exactly what's happened.

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Reposted by Shane McHugh

The Royal Society @royalsociety.org · Jun 24

We're happy to announce @markmiodownik.bsky.social as our new Professor for Public Engagement in Science! His mission will be to transform our understanding of how we make, use, reuse & recycle products, & explore how we can live more sustainably. Watch this space! royalsociety.org/news/2025/06...

Living sustainably to be theme for new Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science, Mark Miodownik | Royal Society

Material scientist, engineer, broadcaster and award-winning author, Professor Miodownik will use his expertise to explore how we can live more sustainably, both as individuals and as a society.

royalsociety.org

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Reposted by Shane McHugh

John Steele @jfcsteele.bsky.social · Jun 23

Always exciting when research from the lab is disseminated for the public! @theguardian.com have reported on @swallacelab.bsky.social paper turning plastic into paracetamol using engineered bacteria
tinyurl.com/32hxnwsd (original publication rdcu.be/esYfF)

Scientists use bacteria to turn plastic waste into paracetamol

Genetically modified E coli used to create painkillers from material produced from plastic bottles

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Shane McHugh

Science|Business @sciencebusiness.net · Jun 19

🔁Horizon Europe looks set to continue beyond 2027 — in name as well as scope.
At a Brussels event, EU research commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva said #FP10 will retain the #HorizonEurope brand. @ec.europa.eu‬ hasn’t confirmed this officially, but multiple attendees backed the comment.

Horizon Europe forever: EU research programme brand set to roll over in 2028

The next Framework Programme for research and innovation, informally known as FP10, looks set to keep the name Horizon Europe, according to comments by research commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva after…

buff.ly

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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jun 18

My mistake: a valuable learning opportunity, I’m honoured to contribute this lesson to humankind

Your mistake: an abomination which must be eradicated from the Internet, my followers will be happy to perform this favour, fly my pretties, fly

Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jun 17

Such a clever idea. You could imagine its application to all sorts of wicked problems…

Matt Clancy @mattsclancy.bsky.social · Jun 17

What’s the return on government support for R&D?

To try to get a credible answer, Open Philanthropy and the Sloan Foundation are committing up to $1 million to trying something new: we call it a Pop-Up Journal.

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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jun 11

It’s like pure bottled generosity

Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jun 11

There’s no day that can’t be improved by this album. Minnie Riperton and her heavenly raindrop noises on the title track. And Lean on Me digging down and then soaring up so high you never want it to stop.

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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jun 11

Conscious of time

Reposted by Shane McHugh

Richard Jones @richardaljones.bsky.social · Jun 8

I very much welcome the announcement of the Local Innovation Partnerships fund, with ~ £30m funding for industry facing, translational research in each of 7 English city-regions, + places in Wales, Scotland & NI, allocated towards locally determined priorities.
www.gov.uk/government/n...

Transformative £86 billion boost to science and tech to turbocharge economy, with regions backed to take cutting-edge research into own hands

Funding package worth more than £22.5 billion a year in 2029 will boost Britain's world-leading status in research and innovation.

www.gov.uk

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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jun 7

Yes… ha ha ha… YES!

Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · Jun 7

The alt text on these ridiculous pictures always makes my day

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Reposted by Shane McHugh

The British Academy @britishacademy.bsky.social · Jun 3

"In a geopolitically uncertain world and after more than a decade of low productivity growth, the UK needs to rethink its economic strategy." Today, we're publishing a collection of expert policy insights ahead of the multi-year Spending Review conclusion: buff.ly/DAlcNo5

buff.ly

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Reposted by Shane McHugh

Colin Smith @colinsmith.bsky.social · Jun 1

Summer 1974 and the ferry from Burtonport Co. Donegal to Bran Island has made room for a “precariously perched car”. According to photographer Frank Bodson, the whole caboodle “excited no interest” among those on-board. (Observer magazine, 1/9/74.)

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Shane McHugh @shanemchugh.bsky.social · May 31

I’ve been baffled by Ridley Scott’s Napoleon ever since I watched it, but have just realised that if you think of it not as a historical epic, but as a reimagining of Raging Bull then it all makes perfect sense

Reposted by Shane McHugh

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · May 29

UK must toughen regulation of facial recognition, says @adalovelaceinst.bsky.social on.ft.com/43lnQNL

UK must toughen regulation of facial recognition, say AI experts

Campaigners call on Keir Starmer’s government to create clear laws to tackle growing use of the technology

on.ft.com

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