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The University of Edinburgh has signed an agreement to cease all use of zero-hours contracts and replace them with “fair and equitable” deals.

The policies and realities of monitoring correspondence may vary, but the ethical implications are always significant

Union uncovers extent of casualised contracts in sector

Moving to a different sphere of study can be a fruitful - and liberating - experience

Dip into surplus to improve below-inflation 1% offer, union tells sector

Academics fear thin end of wedge

Allan Johnson on the misunderstood B-sides of conference presentations

A Scottish lecturer’s union has launched an investigation into the use of zero-hours contracts by universities and colleges in Scotland

Academics claim breach of data protection rules on Rate Your Lecturer website

Data show how much work conservation biologists do outside office hours

Global project explores the paucity of female leaders in academia

How long before search committees stop assuming that the right man for the top university job is a man?

Alessandra Lopez y Royo feels that money-obsessed universities are killing off integrity, honesty and mutual support

The University and College Union is among those invited to a Labour Party summit to discuss the controversial issue of zero-hours contracts.

UEL body plans research into attainment and staffing gap

When employers were freed go global, workers worldwide wobbled, says Ursula Huws

Academic experts who can also entertain enjoy the high life on the high seas

Early results show 40% of respondents feel ignored

UCU research aims to find figure for academy alone

Graeme Wilkinson left Wales to head a private institution that was more familiar than it first appeared

For academics, greater well-being doesn’t stem from spending more time at home

University denies reneging on promise not to penalise staff over issue

A US professor who Tweeted that if overweight PhD applicants “didn’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs” then they “won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation” has been formally censured by his university.

A legal challenge has been launched over law changes that unions claim make it easier to remove staff on fixed-term contracts.

Awards will go to arts, humanities and social science departments that hire and support women

Wikipedia ‘edit-a-thon’ bolsters profile of women who changed science

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, Gerald Kauvar and E. Grady Bogue on forced departures and how to avoid them

Matthew Reisz on how women walk the line between home and office

Lecturer was told he had ‘no future’ at Aberdeen if he continued battle

By Colleen Flaherty, for

A strike ballot is opening at the University of Liverpool over plans to force about 2,800 non-academic staff to accept revised terms and conditions

The situation of the lettori - the British and other foreign lecturers working in Italian universities - has been dealt a blow by a new court ruling.

A protester has been arrested for allegedly writing in chalk on a university building during a demonstration in support of outsourced cleaners.

Students will demand ‘full-time professionals’, it is claimed, but others say the contracts will increase

Outsourced cleaners from Latin America have picketed a London university over calls to have them put on the institution’s payroll.

More than 3,000 higher education staff were made redundant as the sector prepared for the introduction of £9,000 tuition fees, a new study says.

Union passes motion of no confidence in University of Northampton’s restructuring exercise

Six hundred sign letter calling for return to negotiations

A Tweet sent by a University of New Mexico psychologist, which suggested that obese people do not have the willpower to complete a PhD, was not, as its author had claimed, “part of a research project”, the institution has concluded.

Applicant takes Kent to tribunal over doctorate criterion

Christopher Bigsby loved Aberystwyth, despite the respiratory hazards

UCU criticises ‘gun to head’ of 2,800 non-academic staff

Dame Julia King explains how her institution is tackling gender inequality

Staff at the University of Liverpool will ballot for strike action over plans to alter employees’ terms and conditions.

The University of Liverpool has been accused of “putting a gun to the head” of almost 3,000 staff who a union says face losing their jobs unless they accept altered working terms and conditions

Founder Michael Bulman digs in as academics expound on offering’s weaknesses

When toddler-wrangling there’s no time to procrastinate, John Kaag discovers

Just one in 10 at the grade is female at some institutions, Hesa shows

Cuts to admin staff will harm brand, say Cass Business School academics

Scholars go hungry as a result of casualisation, congress hears

Academics and others discuss a typical working week

The University of Salford has confirmed plans to close virtually all courses in modern languages, politics and contemporary history and shut down an entire school “to secure the future of the university” after seeing falling student demand.

In the US, the Rate My Professors website has been used by students to dish out a “public scolding” to their lecturers – and now the UK has its own equivalent, possibly bringing a shiver of dread to academics and universities.

Lecturers in the University and College Union have moved a step closer to taking industrial action after the union decided to urge members to reject a 1 per cent pay offer

G. R. Evans’ rallying cry: scholars, do the spadework to defend the sector

Call to put differences aside, ahead of UCU Congress in Brighton

Decisions based on gossip and favouritism make the scholarly job market unmeritocratic

Staff in higher education are being urged to reject a “disappointing” 1 per cent final pay offer by universities.

Cut on cards as union looks to live within its means

Glass ceiling remains in place for female academics. Jack Grove reports