Jun 15 2013

What do academics want – a survey of behaviours and attitudes in UK higher education

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Ben head shot1MikeMertensLSEImpactA new survey has been undertaken which looks at the changing practices of academics in the UK. Ben Showers of Jisc and Mike Mertens of RLUK discuss three key findings of the survey which demonstrate the influence of new technologies on research, the altering perceptions of support services and the changing role of the academic library.

This article was originally published on LSE’s Impact of Social Sciences blog.

Imagine having years of rich data on how new technologies, changes in funding and other environmental factors, have an impact on research and are reflected in the attitudes and behaviours of academics. Such a body of data might be used to help critically inform new services, resources and systems to support staff and students in universities and colleges across the UK. Since 2000, universities in the US have had precisely that thanks to Ithaka S+R, who have been undertaking a survey of US academics every three years to identify changes in research processes, teaching practices, publishing and research dissemination, alongside the evolving role of the library and scholarly societies.

Two UK organisations who are helping universities respond to the changing needs of academics, Jisc and Research Libraries UK (RLUK), recognised the invaluable resource that Ithaka S+R had developed with their US faculty survey programme. Collaborating with Ithaka on a UK version of the survey was therefore a very exciting opportunity and the results represent a chance to build on a valuable source of research looking at the changing practices of academics.

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Jun 15 2013

Designing a new UK-EU relationship and how it could be achieved

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Damian-Chalmers-80x108Simon-Hix-80x108sara hobolt 80x108The Eurozone crisis has brought the EU’s division into two types of membership into relief, with the euro member states moving closer towards deeper fiscal and economic union, and the others, such as the UK, who remain in the single market with no wish to join the Eurozone, at risk of becoming ‘second class’ states. Damian Chalmers, Simon Hix and Sara Hobolt write that there is now a growing separation between the governance of the single market and the euro area. They propose new reforms which would protect the interests of all EU and non-member states in decision making, give national parliaments a role in proposing and approving EU legislation, and reform the single market to give more sectoral flexibility. All of these proposed reforms, they argue, could be made without Treaty changes.

There are now two types of membership of the European Union.  The first is the Eurozone group of states, heading towards deeper fiscal and economic union – with tight constraints on national macro-economic and welfare policies and potentially new fiscal transfer instruments at some point.  The second is a group of countries who would like to remain in the single market and its associated policies but are unlikely to join the Euro. These two groups are not – to repeat the tired metaphor – two trains on the same track go at different “speeds”.  Instead, the two trains are on different tracks heading to different destinations.

Some policy-makers at the heart of British government like to argue that what we are seeing is simply a new version of “variable geometry”, with Britain “at the top table” on some issues, namely defence and the single market, yet opting-out of other issues, such as Schengen and the Euro.  However, this conception misses the powerful dynamic at the heart of the Eurozone in the wake of the sovereign debt crisis, which is captured by the political commitment to “do whatever it takes to save the Euro”.  This commitment has so far produced the European Stability Mechanism, the Fiscal Compact, the Euro-Plus Pact, 6-Pack, and now 2-Pack of instruments to monitor and shape basic domestic macro-economic policy choices.  Building a more tightly governed economic and monetary union is now the driving force for the Eurozone.  Regulation or reform of the single market is a secondary concern.

Credit: Kaptain Kobold (Creative Commons BY NC SA)

Credit: Kaptain Kobold (Creative Commons BY NC SA)

This challenges the constitutional design of the European Union.  Two parallel decision-making processes are starting to emerge.  The single market is still governed by the Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice, with the European Council as an arena for resolving disputes.  The Euro area, meanwhile, is currently governed by the Euro Group and the European Central Bank, and in time there will be pressure for a Eurozone “Finance Minister” and for a sub-set of MEPs from Eurozone states to monitor the ECB, the Banking Union, and approve the legislative instruments governing macro-economic constraints.

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Jun 14 2013

SuperCarney to the rescue, falling real wages and living with a post-truth media: Top 5 blogs you might have missed this week

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Chris Dillow of the Stumbling and Mumbling blog explores why real wages have been falling in the UK. Over at the Mindful Money blog, Shaun Richards evaluates the impact of this on the UK economy.

Writing in The Independent, Danny Blanchflower comments on the ridiculously high expectations facing Mark Carney, the incoming governor of the Bank of England. Meanwhile, Jonathan Portes, Ann Pettifor, Brad DeLong and Frances Coppola advise the new governor on the IPPR website.

Mark_Carney

Mark Carney: facing unrealistic expectations
(credit: World Economic Forum)

Lord Norton gets an ‘Oh!’ from his colleagues at the House of Lords when remarking that the body, being composed mainly of old white men, represents well the predominant demographic opposed to gay marriage.

Simon Wren-Lewis of the Mainly Macro blog contrasts the media refrain regarding Labour’s record in power with the hard evidence, urging ‘academics to speak to truth, as loudly as they can, when it is being ignored by the media’.

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist at The Guardian that broke the story of widespread US intelligence agency surveillance, explores the heroism of whistleblowers and the threats and intimidation faced after secrets are exposed.

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Jun 14 2013

The political left and its discomfort with diversity: David Goodhart represents a longstanding current within Labour

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Leo LucassenLeo Lucassen points out that it is not only elements of the political right that are intolerant of immigration and multiculturalism, but also the political left as exemplified by David Goodhart. He argues that Goodhart, like other leftwing immigration critiques, has a rather static and homogeneous conception of national cultures and an unsubstantiated conviction that cosmopolitan elites have betrayed their natural constituency, the native white workers who are left to bear the burden of diversity.

In April this year David Goodhart published his book The British Dream: Success and Failures of Post-War Immigration. Although the title might suggest a balanced account of the pro’s and cons of immigration, it is pessimism that dominates the narrative. The author sketches what he calls ‘The progressive dilemma’ between the belief in universalism and multiculturalism on the one hand and the eroding trust, cohesion and solidarity of societies that experience mass immigration on the other. His remedy is simple: less immigration, especially of poor and culturally different immigrants, and more attention to a joint identity and the common historical national identity, even if it is largely a myth.

This very brief summary of the book might be a reason for liberals to denounce it as yet another example of intolerance coming from the (extreme) right. This, however, would fail to do justice to both the content of the book and the ideological background of the author. Goodhart’s clearly comes from the left and is director of the think tank Demos, which was closely aligned with (New) Labour and was founded by Marxism Today editor Martin Jacques. If we want to understand the root of Goodhart’s critique, it is much to convenient to label him as right wing or centrist, as Jenny Bourne did on the website of the Institute of Race Relations recently. By labelling him as a bigot, she makes the traditional mistake of turning ‘left’ and ‘right’ into moral instead of political categories. More interesting is to try to understand where this leftish discomfort with immigration and diversity comes from, how it developed since World War II, and to uncover the similarities and differences with leftish immigration pessimism in other Western European countries.

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Jun 13 2013

It’s hard to be optimistic about a reversal of the rising poverty trends any time soon

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Conor DarcyAccording to one measure from the government figures released today, an extra 300,000 children have fallen below the poverty line since last year. However, since there are various measures and methods for evaluating poverty, different pictures can be painted. Conor Darcy notes that though the absolute low income figures are concerning as is in-work poverty, the combined measures muddy the waters somewhat. But taken together, the report does suggest there’s still lots of work to be done to stem the rise of poverty.

The latest figures from the Households Below Average Income report were released this morning, giving us an updated picture of UK poverty. As it includes a range of numbers and methods of measuring poverty, we need to look at them all to get a handle on what they’re telling us. These measures are often contested and, as we’ll see, can seem confusing and contradictory. The graph below dealing with poverty among children is a good place to start though.

HBAI

The headline figure is the 2 per cent rise in children below the (purple) absolute low income line. This considers household incomes before housing costs and is set at 60 per cent of the 2010/11 median wage (the middle income of all earners which is more representative than an average). Using the 2010/11 median income gives us a baseline that doesn’t depend on how everyone else has fared this year.

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Jun 13 2013

Looking through a legal PRISM at UK and US intelligence agency surveillance

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orla-lynskeyThe uncovering of the PRISM programme has concerned many that the UK authorities are circumventing the legal framework and gathering data on its own citizens via US surveillance agencies. Orla Lynskey describes the statutory controls that exist regarding data sharing with the US and explores whether they are adequate to protect UK citizens’ privacy. She concludes that there are little safeguards and redress opportunities for non-US persons, and that EU Data Protection regulation is, at present, toothless once international data transfers have been made. On the bright side, the revelation has brought the issue of government surveillance to the fore.

Following the revelation that US intelligence agencies are engaged in widespread surveillance of internet communications using the so-called ‘PRISM’ programme, President Obama’s guarantees that PRISM ‘does not apply to US citizens and it does not apply to people living in the US’ is unlikely to reassure many on this side of the Atlantic.

PRISM gives the US National Security Agency (NSA) access to both communications content and traffic data held on servers of global internet communications heavyweights such as Google, Facebook and Apple. The PRISM revelation quickly led to the concern that the UK’s Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) was gathering data on UK citizens via PRISM thereby circumventing the protection offered by the UK legal framework. William Hague, appearing before the Commons, was quick to refute this claim describing it as ‘baseless’. While refusing to comment on the details of PRISM, he expressly stated that any data obtained by the UK from the US involving UK nationals is subject to ‘proper UK statutory controls and safeguards’. This begs the question: What are these statutory controls and are they adequate to protect UK residents from US surveillance?

PRISM_logo_(PNG)The main statutory instrument governing data gathering and surveillance in the UK is the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000. RIPA provides a legal basis for, amongst other things, the interception of communications in the UK and the acquisition and disclosure of communications traffic data. RIPA sets out a list of individuals and public bodies, including the Director of GCHQ, which can apply for both. It also sets out the conditions under which communications can be intercepted and communications data acquired. The interception of communications, which involves access to communications content, is more strictly regulated than the acquisition/disclosure of communications traffic data: communications can be intercepted for a more limited range of purposes and such interception can, in general, only be authorised by the Secretary of State.

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Jun 13 2013

New home supply will respond to the Help to Buy scheme’s boost to demand, as will second-hand supply

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John StewartMany commentators argue the government’s Help to Buy scheme will inflate a price bubble because supply will not respond to the demand boost. John Stewart explores the design of the two Help to Buy schemes in detail and their likely impact on demand and supply. He believes supply will respond to the increase in Equity Loan demand for new homes, and that the net impact of the Mortgage Guarantee scheme will be considerably less than the total number of loans granted under the scheme.

The government is clearly concerned by the economy’s failure to achieve a sustained recovery. It accepts that capital spending on infrastructure, including housing, could be an important source of growth. The two Help to Buy (HtB) schemes are intended to revive private home building and put life back into the housing market. Both schemes are designed to bridge the deposit gap, with the Equity Loan scheme also helping to make new home purchase considerably more affordable. Both are temporary three-year schemes, the Equity Loan running from April 2013, the Mortgage Guarantee from January 2014.

In his 2013 Budget speech, the Chancellor gave several reasons for launching HtB: meeting people’s aspiration to own a home, support for home builders and a “dramatic intervention to get our housing market moving”. CML data show the median first-time buyer loan-to-value (LTV) hovered close to 95% from 1982 to 1998, so 95% loans are neither new nor a threat to market stability. In its Mortgage Guarantee Scheme Outline, the Treasury says it is the “Government’s view that the current scarcity of high loan-to-value lending is primarily a cyclical issue rather than a symptom of a longer-term structural change in the mortgage market”. This should reassure Mervyn King (Sky News Interview, 19 May 2013) that HtB will not become permanent.

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Jun 12 2013

Legal aid changes would mean the denial of choice and effective representation to all those accused of crimes except the well-off

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Conor-Gearty-thumb-11The government’s proposed changes to legal aid have caused outrage amongst judges, the government’s own lawyers and the whole legal profession. Conor Gearty argues that if all this were to go through, access to justice would return to being the mirage it once was for all but the very wealthy before the establishment of legal aid by the post war Labour government.

Last week I spent an enjoyable few hours at a protest in central London, outside the Ministry of Justice. The chants were along the lines of ‘what do we want: JUSTICE and EQUALITY; when do we want it: NOW’. There were quite a lot of us – and we were all lawyers. (My picture was tweeted with a retired court of appeal judge in the background.) What brought us out onto the streets, and what has been gathering momentum among not only lawyers but the public as well, has been outrage at what the government has already done to legal aid, and what more it intends to do if it gets its way.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 has already brought to an end the availability of legal aid across a whole range of areas of law that have direct relevance to the poor. Under cover of generalised claims about opportunistic litigation, the goal has clearly been to remove the capacity for challenge to the implementation (whether lawless or not) of the coalition’s various attacks on benefits. The same legislation also withdrew state support from foreign nationals in prison who are threatened with deportation, as many are – regardless of how long they had been here and how British they are in fact. The idea behind this change was to prevent resistance to removal by showing an infringement of the right to respect for private life in the Human Rights Act (a matter on which government now also intends to legislate separately). In both these cases, the government appears close to accepting that their goal is to prevent meritorious cases getting to court, on the ground that the laws that make them meritorious (human rights legislation; equality law; the common law of procedural fairness) are not laws they like.  They have been tempted to remove the litigants rather than the laws, hoping there’ll be less fuss.

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