The gig economy is characterized by contract, freelance, or short-term work engagements with employers who do not provide benefits beyond the immediate payment. This type of transactional employment is becoming more common in academia. What does this mean for research?

The higher education system rests on the principle of meritocracy, with entry into the ‘top’ Russell Group universities supposedly the product of ability. This is despite growing attention to the over-representation of independent school students studying at the ‘top’ universities, with state school students and disadvantaged groups less likely to secure admission.

Universities in effect, argues our Robert Dingwall, are asked to exercise all the responsibilities of parents and to act as a secular equivalent of the medieval church as the conscience of the nation.

The Psychological Science Accelerator is a global network of more than 500 labs in more than 70 countries which aims to re-do older psychology experiments, but on a mass-scale in several different settings. The effort is one of many targeting a problem that has plagued the discipline for years: the inability of psychologists to get consistent results across similar experiments.

Spats, fall-outs and intellectual and personal feuds have long been commonplace among scholars. And, because critiques of ideas and publications are also exercises in freedom of expression, they are integral to the rough and tumble of academic life. But British universities are now facing much more insidious challenges…

Their paper about the evolution of malaria was in review for what seemed like an eternity. Every month, Susan Perkins and her then-graduate student Spencer Galen would check in with the editors. The problem seemed to be a lack of peer reviewers …

Funders from private industry — which represent two-thirds of funding in medical research, for example — can go great lengths to suppress the publication of findings which appear unfavorable. How can academic freedom be protected with this monumental funding shift?

I had no reservations about conducting research in the UAE. And I underwent a rigorous ethical and fieldwork assessment and was sure to follow established protocols before and during my trip. Yet I was imprisoned for nearly seven months …

Academic freedom is under threat everywhere. Not only do some countries perpetrate direct attacks on students and scholars. But the internationalization of higher education has also created new global threats for both scholars and students. Here is how to defend academic freedom.

New bans and restrictions of research and teaching on topics such as constitutionalism and civil society have impeded independent scholarship in China. How should universities and academics outside of China react?

The Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success project examines student success from the perspectives of the students themselves, the challenges they face in achieving it, and the services they think might effectively support them in their attainment of success. Given that three quarters of students surveyed also have jobs, when students’ needs aren’t met in their everyday lives, their academic performances suffer.

University rankings might claim to provide an index through which students, faculty, and the general public might ascertain a number of things: the quality of education provided by an institution, the potential for networking at an institution, the breadth and depth of research being performed at an institution, and more. The institutional quest towards topping the university rankings can, however, derail efforts towards the improvement of society and higher education at large.