Higher Education Commission: postgraduate system 'failing UK economy'
"The postgraduate system in the UK's universities is failing to produce the number of highly skilled staff needed by a modern economy, a report warns.
The Higher Education Commission says the system is geared towards attracting overseas students, rather than training more UK students.
The report warns that the UK is falling behind in investing in research.
A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokeswoman said: 'We recognise there are some concerns.'
The study from the Higher Education Commission calls for urgent reform of the postgraduate sector, saying that in its present state it will cause long-term problems for the UK's economy.
Postgraduate research has become increasingly important for innovative, hi-tech industries."
(Sean Coughlan, 23 October 2012, BBC News)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Neoliberal whizz-kid: Aotearoa New Zealand PM John Key in 1987
"A 1987 video has been unearthed featuring a 25-year-old squash-playing, accountancy graduate John Key. The bright-eyed Mr Key features in an early Close-Up story called Big Dealers. The 'portrait of 80s job du jour: foreign exchange dealer', shows the now Prime Minister in 'the pit' (trading room) as a senior forex dealer. 'Forex dealing is a work hard, play hard world with an image of rich brats who wreck restaurants but always somewhere else,' says the reporter. 'I am not denying that, that has happened and I guess that will happen again in the future but I personally perform in that way,' Mr Key responded."
(Deanna Harris, 02 Sep 2010, MediaWorks TV)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Greek Crisis Explained: Nomint's animated trilogy
"The Greek Crisis explained in 3 episodes. We didn't want to have our hands tied when it came to Greek Financial Crisis. It was a joint decision to set them free, and this is what they came up with; the 'Greek Crisis Explained' Trilogy. This project was basically assigned by us to ourselves and our brief was happily clear-cut: 'Present our very own version of the Greek Crisis'. And the story goes like this; Greece, a young spoiled girl gets devoured by Dept [sic], a humongous monster. EU cannot help Greece out on its own. And when all hope is lost, IMF is brought into play..."
(Nomint)
Fig.1 "Greek Crisis Explained", CONCEPT / DIRECTION / DESIGN / ANIMATION / PRODUCTION: NOMINT nomint.gr/ Creative direction: Christos Lefakis, Yannis Konstantinidis, Direction / Story: Marilena Vatseri, Manos Gerogiannis, Christos Lefakis, Yannis Konstantinidis, Animation: Marilena Vatseri, Manos Gerogiannis, Christos Lefakis, Yannis Konstantinidis, Lead design: George Xanthos (aka Weirdink), Additional design: Manolis Mavris, Sound design: Christos Lefakis, Voiceover: Ross Douglas, Production Team: Aristotelis Michailidis, Marianna Papachristodoulou
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Lessons in participation from 'Our Budget, Our Economy'
"Efforts to improve political engagement don't come much bigger than the work done by AmericaSpeaks.org, which has set itself a mission to 'reinvigorate American democracy by engaging citizens in the public decision-making that most impacts their lives'.
One of its recent efforts was a 'national town meeting' to discuss ways of dealing with America's federal budget deficit. It saw 3,500 Americans gathered at 57 sites across the country on June 26, 2010.
Participants from a range of social and political backgrounds debated 42 options for closing the deficit (a report to Congress is available), and at the end of the day 91 per cent said they were 'very satisfied' or 'satisfied' with the tone and quality of the discussion.
And in an interesting result that shows the value of deliberation and discussion, only 15 per cent said their views were not at all influenced by others and just three per cent said they did not learn anything during the meeting."
(eDemocracyBlog.com, 7 December 2010)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Innovation Portal: supporting Scottish industry
"The purpose of the Innovation Portal is to promote and foster productive knowledge transfer between the Universities of Dundee and Abertay, the SCRI (Scottish Crop Research Institute) and Scottish industry. Its aim is to improve the competitiveness of local businesses by bringing together innovative companies with scientists, technologists and engineering experts keen to apply their expertise to the needs of industry."
(The Innovation Portal)
[1] Universities Scotland, 'Innovating our way out of recession'
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
