Peter Mandler

It also obscures the breakdown within the RCs between applicant-led and strategic funding. Do you have any idea how that balance has shifted (for AHRC and ESRC) over the last 5-10 rather than 2-3 years? I’d want to keep an eye on that, especially as you say when they rebucket.

This depends on what you consider to have been Green baseline vote.

And actually we (the academics) spent a lot of time in the last 25 years at least trying to get them to clarify the shifting division between ‘responsive’ (now ‘curiosity-driven’) and ‘strategic’ modes, which the RCs sometimes sought to obscure.

For those interested in (or with an interest in) UK research, perhaps the clearest visualisation of the infamous UKRI 'buckets' I've seen.

'more UK 18-year-olds have applied by the January equal consideration date this year—338,940 applicants, up 4.8 per cent on last year. Much of this growth reflects demographic change....The 18-year-old application rate as of January now sits at 40.7 per cent, broadly in line with last year'. 1/3

Now it can be revealed that Kirstie Donnelly, the City & Guilds chief executive who later received a £1.74 million bonus, and Abid Ismail, chief financial officer, who received £1.2 million, provided suspect information about the financial health of the charity shortly before the sale.

Never heard of an instance like this of a charity CEO getting a £1.74m bonus. Part of a strange wider story I’ve never heard about of the sale of City & Guilds to a commercial company in Cyprus. The sale is now subject to a Charity Commission inquiry
www.thetimes.com/article/76bb...

Netflix Backs Out of Bid for Warner Bros., Paving Way for an Ellison Takeover

The richest man owns X.

The second and third richest men control Google.

The fourth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fifth richest man owns The Washington Post.

And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros.

See the problem here?

Please do.

Vitalis Temu, a Black man with short salt-and-pepper hair, speaks at a podium at an outside press conference.

Virginia State Terminates 6 Professors Without Due Process

Campus security escorted the professors—five tenured and one tenure-track—to their cars and issued no-trespass warnings. They have received no written explanation for their dismissals. https://bit.ly/46ok3jL

#EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

A wonderful piece of scholarship and picture-painting, useful for the historiography and very evocative for the sketch of the person in her many facets.

We are advertising a two-year lectureship in Modern British History at University of Cambridge, please spread the word!
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

From Cambridge History Degree to TV Career: Award-winning producer Nicola Shindler talks to Cambridge History students about storytelling, historical influences and the future of TV. Shown in conversation with Professor Helen McCarthy.

From History @cam.ac.uk to award-winning TV producer, Nicola Shindler inspired our students with her career journey.

She explored the powerful link between historical understanding, storytelling, character development and TV drama & how studying history sharpened her instinct for standout stories ⬇️

Tutorial Fellowship in History, and Associate Professorship (or Professorship) of Medieval British and European History at University of Oxford Explore an exciting academic career as a Tutorial Fellowship in History, and Associate Professorship (or Professorship) of Medieval British and European History. Don't miss out on other academic jobs....

We are hiring ....
Because John Nightingale is retiring...
for a Tutorial Fellowship in European History 400-1000...

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQP650/t...

Thank you - and for sticking with it.

Fifth lecture now online - www.history.ox.ac.uk/event/self-a... - about self-assertion, identity and rights talk from the '50s to the '70s, and clashes over it from the late '60s. Final lecture on those continuing clashes & whether neoliberalism overrode them this Thursday 5pm Exam Schools Oxford.

Former UK PM Gordon Brown is providing - voluntarily and not for the first time - information to the police about abuses of power relating to the Epstein files. As PM Brown was briefed against by people such as Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson as being ‘psychologically flawed’ ….1/

Student loan reform is coming. But not without a proper review A couple of sticking plasters have popped up this morning from opposition parties to address the ongoing debate over Plan 2 student loans.

'You can’t really fix student loans without also changing something structural about higher education – and any structural change to HE requires a comprehensive funding review.'

Ultimately, this is the inescapable bottom line. 1/2

Jason Scott-Warren?

Dr Frank Prochaska (1941-2026) - Somerville College Oxford We are deeply saddened to pass on the news of the death of Dr Frank Prochaska on Sunday 15th February, his 85th birthday. Frank was an accomplished historian of modern Britain and a valued member of t...

Frank Prochaska (1941-2026) - always amusing, often shrewd, articulate and perceptive historian of philanthropy in modern Britain. www.some.ox.ac.uk/news/dr-fran...

Race on Screen | Cambridge University Press & Assessment

Congratulations to @christinegrandy.bsky.social for the publication of Race on Screen: Audience Racism in Twentieth-Century Britain, the latest title in our Cambridge Modern British Histories series. Paperback a snip at £28. #Skystorians

'Sarah Chaytor, director of research strategy and policy at University College London, co-authored a report for the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), released today, on how to maximise the potential of public spending on research.' 1/2

Undocumented immigrants don’t vote
Trump was not “exonerated” re: Epstein
The board of peace is a huge grift
The Melania movie was a bribe
You pay the tariffs
The boat bombings are murder
The ceasefire is not a ceasefire
Ice is not targeting criminals

And on and on

Oh, the grand old duke of york
He ██████████████████
He ██████████████████
And he ██████████████████

The book is out! Race on Screen: Audience Racism in Twentieth Century Britain is on the shelves. Get yourself a 20% discount and use code GRANDY26 at www.cambridge.org/9781009650939

Fourth lecture now online - www.history.ox.ac.uk/event/state-... - on a popular language of state and economy. Next lecture this afternoon 5pm Thursday 19 Feb. in Exam Schools, if you're in Oxford, will be online next week. Topic: languages of self and society in the heyday of 'social democracy'.

Okay, this is quite outstanding from Bedford Council.

Bibliography of British and Irish History February 2026 update  - On History What’s new in BBIH?   The February 2026 update to the Bibliography of British and Irish History adds over 4,000 new publications. The new update includes books, journal articles, book chapters, and…

The Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) has recently been updated with 4000+ new references. Discover further details about this update in this On History blog buff.ly/eWSMfuT @brepols.net

I imagine it was extremely disturbing

New on H-Sci-Med-Tech:

Check out @petermandler.bsky.social (@caiuscollege.bsky.social)’s review of Margaret M. Crump’s book _ James Cowles Prichard of the Red Lodge: A Life of Science during the Age of Improvement_, pub 2025 @univnebpress.bsky.social

#hstm

Review avail @hnetreviews.bsky.social