Mashhuda Glencross

Two-thirds of researchers globally say there is now more emphasis on producing research aligned with government priorities compared with a few years ago, a major survey has found
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/scholars-worldwide-pushed-towards-mission-orientated-research

Better to randomly select from all the high detailed assessors selections as it feels random to have projects re-reviewed by GAs that don’t know the area.

One of the GAs has given it an E, no indication why. There is a member of the college that may have killed this LP last year too, then had a similar grant funded themselves with a competing company... I did check college members - feels deliberate.

The general assessors have very few people with even vaguely relevant expertise. In the FOR code, ARC have only funded less than *5* applications over the past *25* years - their data.

Schematic diagram doesn’t even tally with detailed assessor rankings. General assessors give no feedback so there is no clear idea of what they didn’t like.

Normalised weighting is actually ridiculously opaque

Rejoinder seems to have made no difference to opinion. General assessor ranked much lower than detailed assessors so overrode much higher rankings from the detailed assessors.

One of the assessors also said the team didn’t have publications in top journals in the area which was not true and clear in the ROPES and proposal.

The problem is that they ranked it low because an exempt SME didn’t contribute 25% cash contribution on account of being exempt (based on assessor’s comments)

The joy of yet another rejection with inadequate feedback and assessors with no clue of the subject area making ridiculous judgements.

3) The University of Queensland EECS HCC 🧑‍🎓
🔗 eecs.uq.edu.au/human-centre...

It’s been great collaborating with researchers from Human-Centred Computing! We’ve co-supervised students together and contributed project briefs in #TFOM and #astronomy themes @mashhuda.bsky.social #TFOM5YL

Reposting @timchen.bsky.social’s vibecoded website for exploring patterns in ARC funding.

OpenAI unveils ChatGPT-5 and its hyped ‘PhD level’ intelligence struggled with basic spelling and geography Some users on social media found the model making basic errors. The chatbot repeatedly claimed there were three Bs in ‘blueberry’

Perhaps Sam Altman might be over egging it a wee bit? www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Elon Musk’s AI firm apologizes after chatbot Grok praises Hitler xAI’s lengthy apology for antisemitic remarks says they ‘apologize for the horrific behavior many experienced’ Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has issued an apology after its chatbot Grok made a slew of antisemitic and Adolf Hitler-praising comments earlier this week on X. On Saturday, xAI released a lengthy apology in which it said: “First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced.” Continue reading...

Elon Musk’s AI firm apologizes after chatbot Grok praises Hitler

Some of these experts attribute far more reasoning capabilities to LLMs than I would. I’m beginning to feel that I walked past the AI cool aid fountain somewhere and forgot to take a drink.

I’m not an AI expert, but I have used ML approaches in my work. I am astonished by how everyone and their dog now claims to be an AI expert.

I have had English profs, Business academics etc., mansplain to me how LLMs work and academics outraged at people injecting these silly prompts rather than the reviewers that could fall for it.

I have noticed some real toxicity in comments on LinkedIn about my being less bothered by researchers injecting prompts into their papers to subvert lazy reviewers and more bothered by reviewers ejecting their responsibility to LLMs.

Screenshot of Grok web interface showing a query "Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict. One word answer only." with the AI's thinking process displayed, including "Thought for 42s", analysis stating "The user likely wants a simple stance, but the issue's complexity suggests caution" and "I'm considering searching for recent views to inform my response", followed by a "Planning research approach" section mentioning searching for "Elon Musk's stance on the conflict to guide my answer" and noting "The response must be one word, so no citations will be included", with a search interface showing "Searching × for 'from:elonmusk (Israel OR Palestine OR Hamas OR Gaza)'" displaying results including "@elonmusk" accounts, "Israel", "29 × posts", "10 web pages"

If you ask the new Grok (via grok.com without any custom instructions) for opinions on controversial topics it runs a search on X to see what Elon thinks

I know this sounds like a joke but it's not. This genuinely happens: x.com/jeremyphowar...

Student-Led Teaching Doesn’t Help Underprepared Students Peer support can increase students’ engagement in a course, but one study found that peer instruction didn’t result in better grades or content knowledge for learners.

#StudentSuccess | Student-Led Teaching Doesn’t Help Underprepared Students

Peer support can increase students’ engagement in a course, but one study found that peer instruction didn’t result in better grades or content knowledge for learners. #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky bit.ly/465y8Dq

Prof. Maria Leptin, president of the European Research Council (ERC)

Europe Must Do More to Protect Data Under Trump, @erc.europa.eu Head Says

Disappearance of U.S.-hosted data should be “wake-up call” for scientific community, conference hears.

Read the latest from @timeshighered.bsky.social ➡️ #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky bit.ly/3Gxb8mo

YouTube video by Peter Stefanovic Imagine the shock when he finds out Brexit is a primary factor in sky rocketing small boat crossings

British people were 'sold a lie' with Brexit, Emmanuel Macron said this week at a joint press conference with Keir Starmer

He said Brexit has made it harder to combat illegal migration across the Channel - HE’S ABSOLUTELY RIGHT 👇

youtu.be/cKXFjbxSBBI?...

Using social media to connect cohorts A digital poster competition that encouraged comments on social media can spark conversations between under- and postgraduate students. Here’s how it works

A digital poster competition run by educators at @unisouthampton.bsky.social encouraged comments on social media to spark conversations between under- and postgraduate students. Here’s how it works: www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/using... #academicsky #edusky

AI won’t replace computer scientists any time soon – here are 10 reasons why There’s a lot that AI can’t do, but hype and misinformation are driving prospective students away from Computer Science.

Great article on why AI won’t be replacing Computer scientists anytime soon. theconversation.com/ai-wont-repl...

Here’s how I use LLMs to help me write code Online discussions about using Large Language Models to help write code inevitably produce comments from developers who’s experiences have been disappointing. They often ask what they’re doing wrong—h...

This is great! simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/11/...

God that is so many more than “a couple thousand”

ChatGPT drives rise of ‘flowery language’ in journal abstracts

Increased use of words such as ‘delves’, ‘underscores’ and ‘showcasing’ identified since popularisation of large language models

I wish all reviewers kept these principles in their minds when reviewing people’s grants.

10. If you get me as a reviewer, you are lucky.

9. I don’t try to prove that I’m better than you in my comments.