Katy Stoddard

Smearing Sussex (and Me): Responding to Nigel Biggar’s Latest Attack in The Spectator The University of Sussex, Feb 2026, taken by the author. Alan Lester The Spectator has published an article by Nigel Biggar smearing the University of Sussex as repressing students who ‘don&#…

The Spectator published this attack on me & colleagues just as the High Court is considering Sussex’s request for review of the Office for Students fine. It accuses us of ‘repressing’ our students. The magazine ignored my request for to reply. Please disseminate.

alanlester.co.uk/blog/smearin...

DORA has launched an introductory course on responsible research assessment! 🤩
🤓 What is it? A free online self-paced course
❓ Who is it for? Anyone who wants to learn more about the basics of research assessment, regardless of career level or discipline
🌐 Explore the course 👉 bit.ly/DORA-Intro-C...

We had our specialist subjects!

Gavin plus Linda for the odd obscure 80s music track and we could sit back!

Always a good night when we had Gavin on the team!

Women remain underrepresented in leadership, particularly in traditionally masculine work settings. At the same time, the visibility of this imbalance has led to growing calls for diversifying leadership. This research examines how both men and women contribute to the preservation or disruption of gender inequality in masculine organizational contexts. Men remain the gatekeepers of change—deciding who rises to the top and under what conditions—while women face the strategic dilemma of fitting in by downplaying inequality (supporting the status quo, sometimes called ‘queen bee behaviour’) or ‘rocking the boat’ by advocating social change (challenging the status quo). Across five experimental studies (total N = 887), we examined how evaluators assessed male and female leadership candidates who either supported or challenged the status quo. Results revealed that although men favoured female over male candidates, they consistently preferred women who reinforced the status quo over those who advocated equality. By contrast, male candidates who supported the status quo were penalized, and female evaluators showed no such preferences. These findings highlight subtle mechanisms through which gendered power dynamics are maintained, underscoring both the strategic trade-offs women must navigate to advance and the conditional nature of men's support for gender equality.

Women Leaders

"Women are expected to promote gender equality and show communal behaviour, yet those who do so...are less likely to be selected for leadership."

Derks et al. (2026). Don't rock the boat! Do men prefer women leaders who support the status quo?

doi.org/10.1111/bjso...

Co-Working Sessions - From PhD to Life Join me for weekly 90-minute co-working sessions Wednesdays at 10am ET on Zoom. These are free and all are welcome. Register once here and remember to add this recurring meeting to your calendar so you remember each week (that you want to join). Sessions begin on 14 Jan and the registration link above is for […]

No cameras required. No talking unless you want to. Free PhD co-working every Wednesday. #PhDSky

Guidance for responding to 'A Fairer Pathway to Settlement' consultation We are Amnesty International UK. We are ordinary people from across the world standing up for humanity and human rights.

The UK government is proposing radical and punitive changes to settlement rules. This is settlement, not citizenship. The consultation is open until 12 February; please respond to it and oppose these evil proposals. Amnesty have a good guide: www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/gu...

Open-source AI tool beats giant LLMs in literature reviews — and gets citations right Researchers can deploy the cheap and transparent model on their own computer system.

'Researchers have published the recipe for an artificial-intelligence model that reviews the scientific literature better than some major large language models (LLMs) are able to, and gets the citations correct as often as human experts do.' 1/2

We're looking to capture experiences of what it means to be queer in the UK today! To do that we're collecting day diaries for 12th February. It doesn't matter what you get up to, or how you record it, we'd love to have it!🧵 (1/4) #LGBTplusHM #lgbthm26

Ministers on lobbying blitz to avoid Labour rebellion over Send changes Government has ‘learned lesson’ of botched welfare overhauls but MPs say they will not back cost-saving measures

Labour's plans to "reform" SEND in schools will not only will deny children much needed support, but they aren't even fiscally practical. It is well documented that better funding of SEN and support early on helps reduce later life costs, e.g. with healthcare.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

An egg slicer, thin metal wires stretched across the centre of a white plastic frame.

Zeigt her eure Eiershneider! Ich habe das von meinem Opa

Minnesota is defining the power of nonviolent resistance against a militarized force that is incentivized to do harm.

They both learned German at school, I think the nickname started when mum first learned it ☺️ When gran’s memory started to go she’d often say German phrases, it stuck with her.

My mum’s pet name for her mum was Mutti 🥰

John Klassen’s books are the best children’s books! My daughter made a version for my brother a few years ago (she’d stolen/inherited his hat the year before, excellent trolling).

Yep, won’t work for us either

"I spoke to one 80-year-old woman who has been in our organisation for decades, who said it was one of the greatest experiences of her life, and the only place in her 80 years where she’s been treated as a woman with respect.”

What does this do for women's rights?

so it begins

Furious at this. TERFs and Gender Critical people are a loud, radicalized, wealthy minority, forcing groups who've done the right thing for years into horrible positions that none of them want. Stop buying Harry Potter. Fight for your trans brothers and sisters. They'll come for you next.

Devastated by this decision, which goes against the very essence of Girlguiding as an inclusive space for all girls. As a guiding parent I was so impressed with their stance before now. The ‘risk of harassment’ comes from the GC movement, not from trans members of the guiding community. Solidarity

Does he know how hard an EHCP is to come by?? The SEND process isn’t fit for purpose but scrapping it - and failing even more kids - is not the answer.

Excited for this seminar next week! There are so many barriers in HE for women/minority gender researchers. Navigating ‘traditional’ academia can be such a challenge for anyone who isn’t your ‘traditional’ academic, or who wants to prioritise anything beyond the work (including paternity leave).

My mum was a nursery teacher so she taught me with flash cards and probably a version of cueing (this was early 80s). I know she saw phonics as a big improvement when it came in. That boredom is the key though! Reading is such a joy, not just a practical skill

Oh yes, I don’t mean mixing phonics with cueing. Just that phonics testing by rote doesn’t support all kids.

Yes that’s it (and of course there are so many brilliant early years folks who will do what’s needed for each child, if given the time)

Phonics also has limits - the use of nonsense words to measure a kid’s reading ability can really trip up fluent readers, and there are those who will always struggle with the phonics system but would learn to read if a mix of methods was taught.

Delighted to share that the Open Research Games Portal by @forrt.bsky.social is now live! You can browse #Games4Research and #OpenScience and add your pedagogical feedback, even add your own #research games.

forrt.org/games/

#GameBasedLearning #GameStudies #acadmicSky #eduSky

My latest article, out now in Katina Magazine: 'How Fanfiction Can Help Us Reimagine Scholarly Publishing'

Basically: what if the next big idea for open access came from @archiveofourown.org instead of Els*vi*r? 👀 There's a thought...

Read here → katinamagazine.org/content/arti...

Andrew Wakefield, founding father of vaccine skepticism, is apparently back