Margot Finn

#earlymodern #skystorians

#WHM A different type of resource today & #ODNB ongoing programme to increase its coverage of women - the brilliant Lynne Walker has written many of these on women in/and architecture. See this for more on the programme of updates: www.oxforddnb.com/fileasset/AM...

Coal? Yesterday's answer to tomorrow's problems.

Who gets permission to enjoy their education? From GCSEs to university, expectations around “realism” vary by background. Hannah Rolley considers what this means for widening participation and students’ freedom to choose what they study From GCSE...

'Maintenance support tied to “priority courses” and proposals to withdraw funding from degrees deemed insufficiently lucrative, do more than shape university provision. They send a cultural message about which kinds of thinking are worth public investment — and for whom.'

We are delighted to announce the winner of the WHN Book Prize. The judges chose Female Servants in Early Modern England by @charmianmansell.bsky.social

The highly readable & engaging book, interrogates long-standing assumptions about the domesticity & constraints of women’s lives in service.

First New V-Level subjects announced from 2027 Ministers say

'The Sixth Form Colleges Association welcomed the announcement, as well as the government's decision to retain BTecs while V-levels were phased in.'

'Like other big publishers, it has been adding suites of journals to its catalogue in recent years, which has come alongside an increase in volume. Elsevier published 795,000 articles in 2025, compared with 720,000 the year before.' 2/2

'Elsevier made £1.04 billion in profit in 2025, according to its parent company’s latest annual report, up 7 per cent on 2024.' 1/2

'But when it comes to master’s level courses, the only actor who anyone can currently imagine taking a view is the Home Office – and it’s to the detriment of the system’s health that no-one is really setting out a vision for what progress would look like.' 2/2

The MRes boom isn’t just an issue of visa policy Rumours of Home Office action on the dramatic growth in research master’s provision continue to swirl. Yet for Michael Salmon there’s a wider question about where responsibility lies for postgraduate-...

'The industrial strategy is heavily concerned with the UK workforce’s readiness to engage at the cutting-edge of science and technology. Skills England wants provision up to level 8 to be considered as part of local skills needs.' 1/2

'It had been expected that many universities...would encourage more of their academics to focus on teaching, with research commitments, particularly at less prestigious universities, under threat.'

But 'the number of teaching-only roles fell by 3,555 across the sector last year'. 3/3

'There were 85,170 (35 per cent) in teaching-only roles, which was 4 per cent down on the year before and in contrast to the number in research-only roles, which rose 4 per cent to 52,220 (21 per cent).' 2/3

Teaching-only and temporary roles bear brunt of UK jobs cull Decline in fixed-term and zero hours contracts ‘not good news’ in sector shedding thousands of positions

'Of the 244,755 academics recorded [by Hesa], the largest share were in teaching and research roles – 105,630 (43 per cent of the total), which was slightly fewer than in 2023-24.' 1/3

'By 18 March ministers must deliver an economic impact assessment as well as a progress update on a consultation about the legal overhaul, against a backdrop of anger among creative professionals about how their work is being used by AI firms.' 2/2

Thousands of authors publish ‘empty’ book in protest over AI using their work About 10,000 writers including Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory and Richard Osman join copyright campaign

'About 10,000 writers have contributed to Don’t Steal This Book, in which the only content is a list of their names. Copies of the work are being distributed to attenders at the London book fair on Tuesday'. 1/2

Ah yes he has a plan for ‘the Golf’.

Work to start on repairing 'tired' historic Lincoln Roman arch The city council says the 3rd Century monument suffered damage during bad weather

Not surprised it's tired.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

POST-DOC!

3-year job in history of political thought / visual culture / art history
Department of Politics & International Studies
University of Cambridge
@thecambridgeschool.bsky.social

www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/54724/

Restricting student loan access ‘will worsen existing inequality’ Birmingham vice-chancellor’s call to review loan eligibility for students with no A levels criticised by own staff members

@birminghamucu.bsky.social criticises "dangerous" comments by v-c Adam Tickell, who questioned whether students with no A levels should get loans, accusing him of “gatekeeping” HE at expense of “less advantaged students” www.timeshighereducation.com/news/restric... via @jgro-the.bsky.social

Archaeology and Local History Online Taster Session Please enable JavaScript in your web browser to get the best experience.

How do archaeologists engage with material culture? What can we learn from ‘reading’ the everyday lives, ideas and cultures of the people who built the world around us? Join us on 19 Mar at our IHR Archaeology and Local History Online Free Taster Session. www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Apertus | Swiss AI

" www.swiss-ai.org/apertus was developed as part of the Swiss AI Initiative. It is the result of a collaborative effort bringing together researchers, engineers, and students from across Switzerland, alongside the engineers and infrastructure of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS)."

Inequality and the Future of London Join PQ and the Mile End Institute to celebrate a new Special Collection, 'Inequality, Opportunity, and the Future of the Capital'

On 26 March, the @mileendinstitute.bsky.social and @politicalquarterly.bsky.social will be holding a special event on "Inequality & the Future of London".

Join @rupahuq.bsky.social @mikebrewerecon.bsky.social @sachahilhorst.bsky.social and Joe Fyans. All welcome!
www.eventbrite.com/e/inequality...

A piece related to this topic was published by an Egyptian scholar based in the UK 3 months ago. It is not referenced in the Guardian piece so here it is
www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/opinion/2025/12/ancestors-dignity-cannot-wait-for-repatriation/#

‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ The man navigating Manchester’s biggest job Students cheating via AI and international applications ‘tanking’ – Duncan Ivison is at the helm of a big ship in stormy waters

Over the past few months, I've been meeting Duncan Ivison, who in my view has the most important job in Manchester. I wanted to ask the vice chancellor of @officialuom.bsky.social about its reliance on China, the threat of AI and its relationship to the city.

manchestermill.co.uk/why-the-hell...

‘Misogynistic robots’ a real risk unless more girls get i... Wendy Hall, regius professor of computer science at Southampton University, says women are needed to counter the tech bro bias in AI programming

Add 'sorting out misogynistic robots' to the things your daughter needs to do (for less money than a man) to save society and politics. Or, maybe work to sort out misogyny, which all of us can do? (Of course, that's not required to be a binary).

A hotel full of students? People thought it would be chaos A radical idea to create a hotel housing a mix of students and guests has arrived in Glasgow.

This is fun. And possibly very pertinent for (for example) Nottingham, Leicester, Leeds... www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

Ministers could ban relatives of overseas students on some courses, adviser warns Steve Smith says restrictions may follow if enrolments to research masters programmes continue to rise

Case study in gratuitous distinction between 'the Russell Group' and 'outside of the Russell Group' in the stats presented here and the way in which the latter (large and very diverse) group is depicted as lacking research intensity or focus.

A history of humanity’s relationship with the (now burning) earth - LSE Review of Books In The Burning Earth, Sunil Amrith offers a wide-ranging global history of the relationship between human societies & their environments across eight centuries.

'In his British Academy Book Prize-winning book, The Burning Earth, Sunil Amrith offers a global history of the relationship between human societies and their environments across eight centuries. The book represents a masterful attempt to acknowledge the ecological underpinnings of human freedom'.

The financial resilience of DCMS-sponsored museums and galleries - NAO report This National Audit Office report reviews how well the 15 DCMS-sponsored museums and galleries and DCMS have manages financial challenges.

DCMS must ensure that it has structures in place to identify early warning signs, should museums and galleries start struggling to manage their financial risks, so it can intervene early – potentially before additional funding is required. New @nao.org.uk report
www.nao.org.uk/reports/the-...

Separately, my longer research article on the political economy of the post-Brexit immigration regime is here:

www.iza.org/publications...