Social Science Space

A lack of public understanding, the decline of collegiality and poor framing of the underlying issues will all make the success of planned UK university strikes unlikely, argues Daniel Nehring.

One way or another, the Journal Citation Reports today play an outsized role in determining whose careers thrive and whose careers whither and which journals flourish or fade away.

Daniel Nehring predicts that UK universities will embrace the vocational, commercial side of higher education even more enthusiastically, faced with the consequences of Brexit, an escalating economic crisis, and the philistine demand, again long entrenched in higher education policy, to demonstrate ‘impact’ and good use of taxpayers money.

This seems, writes Daniel Nehring, to be a good time to feel pessimistic about academia in the COVID world, and to turn this pessimism into meaningful debate and effective action.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacted a toll on academic freedom is several ways, in particular by restricting mobility and allowing for greater surveillance.

In terms of the organization of academic labor, higher education is ever more sharply divided between, on the one hand, an advantaged minority in full-time, long-term employment and, on the other hand, academia’s reserve army of labor.

Throughout the 20th century, psychological knowledge managed to break free from the confines of academic debates and clinical practice, defining, by the early 21st century at the latest, how we think about who we are, how we feel, what our goals in life are, how we form relationships with others, and how society’s institutions operate

Academic capitalism exhibit a lack of transparency and accountability where it truly matters. Peer review and the ways in which journals often handle peer reviews are one key site of such intransparency and unaccountability.

Around the world, face-to-face teaching has ceased, campuses are closed and empty, a sudden shift to pervasive online has generated little enthusiasm among students, travel restrictions have drained the lucrative flow of international students to a trickle, and many universities have reported significant financial problems. So what do I do with my freshly minted PhD?

Brexit seems likely to extend the hostility of the UK immigration system to scholars from European Union countries — unless a significant change of migration politics and prevalent public attitudes towards immigration politics took place in the UK. There are no indications that the latter will happen anytime soon.

With a little luck, nunchi — billed as ‘the Korean secret to happiness,’ might just become the next mindfulness, spawning a decade-defining self-help trend and sparking a lasting media debate.

A new report from the Royal Society about the effects on Brexit on science in the United Kingdom has our peripatetic Daniel Nehring mulling the changes that will occur in higher education and academic productivity.