Dr Eleanor Hopkins

We’re getting into the weeds of how we tell a better story about the value of HE and research in society with our brilliant plenary panel @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social, British Academy President Susan J Smith and Professor Malcolm Press from Universities UK #SHAPEConference26

To finish off our session, Prof David Worthington highlights how SHAPE research and education at UHI are contributing to the Highlands and Islands regional economic strategy and energy transformation #SHAPEConference26

Prof Vanessa Toulmin outlines best practice in the University of Sheffield’s co-production of the Sheffield City Culture Strategy, highlighting that an important element to the university’s engagement with its creation included supporting the sectors that SHAPE graduates enter #SHAPEConference26

Prof Duncan Morrow kicking off our post-lunch 10 minute talks, taking us through Ulster University’s active embeddedness in some of the most conflicted and deprived areas of the UK in NI. Community is a foundational and integral part of Ulster’s research agenda #SHAPEConference26

And after! Following a very lively discussion spanning environmental impacts, personal responsibility, and how AI unearths existing structural issues in the system (which we perhaps need to address before we reach an AI utopia).

Fantastic to see a full house for our debate on whether ‘responsible’ AI can ever be possible in research? Some fantastic provocations from Oonagh Murphy and Tom Stoneman #SHAPEConference26 (our menti is our before poll - let’s see if the debate shifts perspectives in the room …)

This year marks 40 years of the @britishacademy.bsky.social Postdoctoral Fellowship and we are delightly to welcome a wonderful panel including Evelyn Welch, Will Allen, Mike Braddick and Daisy Ogembo to reflect on the changing face of precarity in HE

Priorities include protecting curiosity driven research, collaborating across disciplines and leveraging private sector funding towards strategic priorities, and supporting innovative companies (did anyone say buckets)

Absolutely fantastic to have Lord Patrick Vallance giving our opening Plenary at the @britishacademy.bsky.social #SHAPEConference26 discussing priorities for the R&I system and the importance of SHAPE to them

How far back in time can you understand English? An experiment in language change

If you liked this experiment, I published a full piece today in the same vein: a text that gets 100 years older with every section, from a modern blog post to a medieval chronicle.

It's a single story spanning 1000 years of English. See how far you get.

www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

The Bucket Stops Here UKRI’s new funding framework takes a stab at classifying budgets – but doesn’t yet govern research

This is an incredibly informative interrogation of the UKRI buckets framework (as you’d expect from Ben Johnson), including delving into the nitty gritty of the disconnect between the framework and the UK’s dual-funding system, and UK research base across IS-8.

open.substack.com/pub/johnsonb...

With the world (and life) in the current state it is, MAN Women’s Big Air (the skill, the camaraderie, the talent!) is the antidote I didn’t know I needed. I am in awe of those amazing women.

❤️

The latest issue of @edinburghup.bsky.social's Gothic Studies features articles by our own Dr Nick Freeman and doctoral researcher Milly Harrison, on 'Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic':

International Fellowships 2026 The International Fellowships Programme enables researchers to work for two years at a UK institution with the aim of building a globally connected, mobile research and innovation workforce. Funding status Open for applications Career stage Early-career

Please help spread the word on this, especially to those who may be feeling cold winds towards their research.

We’ve opened the call for our International Fellowships, enabling early career researchers to work for two years at a UK research institution
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

THREAD: I'll fact-check all the viral misinformation about the US military operation in Venezuela in this thread

This image, purporting to show the US military arresting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is AI-generated.

According to Google's SynthID detector, it was created using Google AI.

a schematic depiction of a trend line and several causal forces that give it its shape

Change over time is often depicted as a trendline. But what does shape a trendline? Which forces? Our new paper presents a method allowing to “decompose” trendlines into constituent forces. Also, we tackle an old puzzle: Does culture change “one funeral at a time”? 🧵(1/8) doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Well this is a marvellous betwixmas read.

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

University students facing course 'cold spots' as enrolments fall New data analysis suggests courses like artificial intelligence are surging in popularity as languages fall.

British Academy's pioneering 'cold spots' work now replicated by HESA.

'University "cold spots" are developing in some parts of the country, new data analysis suggests, with courses in some subjects no longer available to students in certain regions.' 1/2

ICYMI - the latest issue of Gothic Studies journal is devoted to the author, mystic, and media star Algernon Blackwood.

The Intro asks how we can understand Blackwood as an author both in and beyond the Gothic tradition and how his work reshapes the genre.

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

Fantastic opportunity for SHAPE experts to contribute to DSIT's College of Experts and to provide impartial scientific and technical advice.

DSIT is looking for experts in areas including AI, cyber security, digital infrastructure, economic security, R&I and regulatory innovation, to name a few!

The British Academy responds to the resuming of REF2029 The British Academy has responded to the Department for Education's announcement regarding the resumption of REF2029

“The restarting of REF2029 brings welcome clarity and allows universities to resume preparations with purpose."

@eicathomefinn.bsky.social reflects on the government's announcement today on the restarting of REF2029 - see our full response here: https://bit.ly/4pre8Sl

What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article, both written in 1953, reveal that she was an equal player.

For another year, it appears, this article I wrote with @nccomfort.bsky.social is the most read of @nature.com's News articles...

You can’t fix OfS’ quality proposals without fixing the NSS There's a lot wrong with OfS' proposals on quality regulation – like the punishment of students in providers that get Bronze, the abandonment of educational gain despite students repeatedly requesting...

'the thing that’s been really nagging at me since October is the cheek of proposing to fundamentally restructure quality assessment without looking at whether the National Student Survey (NSS) – which sits at its heart – is fit for the purpose OfS wants it to serve.'

Everything Is Television A theory of culture and attention

I knew the chilli peppers were right …

‘When everything turns into television, every form of communication starts to adopt television’s values: immediacy, emotion, spectacle, brevity’

www.derekthompson.org/p/why-everyt...

The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care? The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity

I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...

The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care? The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity

Good to see the problems facing our colleagues @britishlibrary.bsky.social being raised here by @hetanshah.bsky.social (of @britishacademy.bsky.social). If this had happened in France it would be considered a national problem to be urgently addressed! www.cityam.com/the-british-...

Edinburgh University Press Journals - Table of Contents - gothic: Vol 27, No 3

Publication day! My special issue on Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic is officially out: www.euppublishing.com/toc/gothic/c...
My heartfelt thanks to all the contributors. So much in here - will cover in future posts. The issue positions B as a major force in C20th British Gothic.

The Economic and Social Research Council core budget for 24/25 was £134m, not £8 billion.