Ninth Level Ireland

“With so much happening in the green-energy research field in our third-level institutions, Ireland is truly staking its claim as the home for green tech. With the race on to progress Ireland’s green-energy portfolio in order to meet our 2020 energy targets and to create a cleaner, smarter economy, an increasing array of researchers in universities and institutes of technology (ITs) around the island are focusing on the renewable energy space to harness Ireland’s wave, wind, solar and bioenergy resources …” (more)

[Carmel Doyle, Silicon Republic, 30 December]

“Sir, As the former head (1985-97) of what is now Bath Spa University, my recollection of the events that followed the Education Reform Acts of the late 1980s/early 1990s is different from that of Lord Howarth’s (letter, Dec 29). There was strong opposition on the part of many of the vice-chancellors of ‘chartered’ universities to the ‘upgrading’ of the polys …” (more)

[Brian L Gomes Da Costa, Times, 31 December]

“About a third of my way through Seth Grahame-Smith’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – I enthusiastically posted my approval on Facebook. To my surprise, a friend and colleague replied, registering her distaste and disappointment, having just finished the book herself …” (more)

[Christina Morin, Pue's Occurrences, 31 December]

“A lecturer in NUI Maynooth has received a CBE in Queen Elizabeth’s new year’s honours list. Leitrim-born Seamus Taylor, who lectures in social policy in the department of applied social studies in NUIM, was honoured for his work in promoting equality in British society, notably through his work in the Commission for Racial Equality and the Crown Prosecution Service …” (more)

[Carol Coulter, Irish Times, 31 December]

“A sacred cow was quietly slaughtered for Christmas. Buried last week in the very last note of Lord Mandelson’s grant letter to the Higher Education Funding Council for England there it was: a cut to the current unit of resource of £190 per student …” (more)

[Ann Mroz, Times Higher Education, 31 December]

“A little while ago I was asked by a group of students from a neighbouring school for advice on the following: they were putting together the contents for a time capsule that they were intending to bury in their school grounds, to be disinterred in 2100. They wanted to include in it a lot of photographs, some school magazines and some essays …” (more)

[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 31 December]

“Students protest against the ‘marketisation’ of higher education. A wave of student protests across Austria and Germany is voicing opposition to tuition fees and ‘English-American’-style degrees introduced under the Bologna Process, while stirring up debate about the purpose of higher education. The protests began in Austria in October …” (more)

[John Morgan, Times Higher Education, 31 December]

“Thousands of teachers could be lost to early retirement next year because of threatened changes to public service pension arrangements, a union has warned …” (more)

[Niall Murray, Irish Examiner, 31 December]

“A senior librarian at Nottingham Trent University has called for radical thinking from her peers to ensure that the ‘ebrarians’ of the future remain as central to university life as the librarians of the past. Sue McKnight, director of libraries and knowledge resources, argues in a forthcoming book, Envisioning Future Academic Library Services: Initiatives, Ideas and Challenges, that campus libraries must ‘wow’ their ‘customers’ with new services and ways of working …” (more)

[Matthew Reisz, Times Higher Education, 31 December]

“Postgraduates need good supervisors, but they also need more recognition from universities and the Government. What makes a good supervisor? Do you want a no-holds-barred answer? OK then, just between you and me, here’s my response: the good supervisor is passionate, unflinching, wary of purely instrumental value, mostly individual but partly institutional …” (more)

[Graeme Harper, Times Higher Education, 31 December]

“The Director of Public Prosecutions would not have taken a case against university students for selling condoms because courts would likely have found the contraceptive ban unconstitutional, a letter from the DPP to the attorney general reveals. The first contraceptive vending machine in the State was installed in University College Dublin, Belfield, in January 1979 by the students’ union …” (more)

[Genevieve Carbery, Irish Times, 31 December]