Renaissance Man?

This week the sad news of the death of physicist and erstwhile colleague Tom McLeish was announced, a soft matter theorist and committed interdisciplinarian – as well as a committed Christian. He is particularly associated with developing theories for the flow of polymer melts, theories he would illustrate with interesting demonstrations (often involving...

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Contrasting fates of Cambridge and Burnley

It is depressing to learn that the Treasury is essentially constraining any capital spending from the Department of Housing, Levelling Up and Communities. Whereas when Michael Gove was appointed Secretary of State there might have been some optimism that he ‘got’ the need for investment in left-behind regions, the way the Department’s budget has so...

Feb 2023

Celebrating a Pioneering Engineer

Constance Tipper (née Elam) was born on this day in 1894. Although some years ago I gave a talk at TWI, just outside Cambridge, to the Tipper Group – a group which endeavours to promote diversity and inclusion to wider audiences – and was introduced then to her name, I am only just learning what a remarkable woman she was. One who undoubtedly has suffered...

Feb 2023

Inequity and Research Culture

Research culture remains a topic that is of concern to many, because it can be so very far from ideal. You don’t have to be from a minority background – of whatever kind – to find yourself in an environment that doesn’t bring out the best in you. Can anything be done because, if it can, it is likely to help all those who are ‘othered’ by their personal...

Jan 2023

Where is Social Mobility Heading and for Whom?

Levelling up may have been a phrase that tripped off Boris Johnson’s lips more than other politicians, but whether or not the phrase is politically dead, the concept is as important as it ever was during his prime ministerial tenure. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, certainly thinks so, having said recently “I’ve always been clear since I...

Jan 2023

The Humane Scientist

It was Philip Ball who drew my attention to the recent memoir by Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman. He said, over Twitter, that he thought it would resonate with me, and it certainly did. His review of the book can be found here. There is much that is factual – about her treks to study the so-called flood basalts in Siberia,...

Jan 2023

What Does Excellence Look Like?

Harnessing the Metric Tide, the recently-published follow-on to the 2015 Report The Metric Tide, provides a welcome focus on our cultures and practice within HEIs. It imagines an ecosystem where metrics are collected which inform the community about the health of their working world, where inclusion is the norm. It fleshes out some of the ways the aspirations...

Dec 2022

Has the World Changed (Enough)?

“The reported incidents of racism and misogyny are extremely alarming” according to Gareth Cook, fire brigade’s union regional organiser for London about the recent report into the London Fire Brigade. “Women have been “systematically failed” by the criminal justice system”, says Andy Marsh, the chief executive of the College of Policing about the way...

Nov 2022

Refereeing and Bullies

We’ve heard a lot about bullying at the heart of government in recent days. One defence of the behaviour of the former Chief Whip is that it used to be worse, much worse. That is of course a line one hears about predatory behaviour in academia. What was once regarded as ‘normal’, most certainly isn’t now. But it still goes on and, as today’s report...

Nov 2022

Research Leadership: Are we Getting it Right?

We are stuck in an academic world where the model of how science research is done appears not to have shifted much from that deemed appropriate fifty years ago. Back then (more or less when I set out, give or take a few years), there was – certainly in Cambridge – typically only one professor in a department, even quite large ones. This person was also...

Nov 2022