Gordon Brown Kills UK Department of Trade and Industry Creates Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.    (30/06/07)

   Britain's new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown in his revamping of UK ministries has done away with the Department of Trade  and Industry and created  the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS).  [More]

Bob Park's What's New Twenty-three Today.    (30/06/07) [More]

A little Spanish Province has Become One of the World's Wind-energy Giants.    (28/06/07)

    Navarre's most recent energy plan, released in May, aims to increase the proportion from wind power to more than 75% by 2010. [A wind power chart]

President Sarkozy vs the Students Round One.     (27/06/07)

    If French President Nicolas Sarkozy thought the dog days of summer would allow his legislation to revamp and resurrect France's decaying higher education system slide quietly through to enactment he has been disabused. [More] 

Prof. Friedemann Mattern Has His Say on Bibliometric Evaluation Regarding Computer Science.    (25/06/07)

    Friedemann Mattern is  professor of computer science in the Department of Computer Science, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). His cautionary views are worthy of consideration beyond computer science. [More]

India's Prime Minister Calls for the Nation to Have 30 World-Class Universities.    (23/06/07)

    Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh addressing faculty and students of the University of Mumbai on the occasion of its 150^th anniversary has called for 30 world-class universities to be established across his nation. [More]

Science Editor-in-Chief to Retire.    (22/06/07)

    He's been at the helm for seven years, feisty on the one hand but writing a mea culpa when required on the other. [More]

French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to Present Preliminary Draft, "Organisation of the New University".    (22/06/07)

    The draft legislation is to be presented to the council of ministers on June 27. [More]

Four Short Comments on the Local Scene.    (20/06/07)

    Milanda Rout and Brendan O'Keefe; Simon Marginson; Steve Burrell, and Deborah Smith. [More]

John Marburger, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States Give the Keynote Address to the 2007 AAAS Policy Forum.    (19/06/07)

   TFW apologises for being slow off the mark, Dr Marburger gave his keynote address at the beginning of May this year but it is of sufficient international interest for us to reprint excerpts. [More]

FASTS' Analyses the "Changing Profile of Australian Expenditure on  R&D between 1996/7 and 2004/5 and Comes up With Some Surprises.    (19/06/07)

    "Would a political party be credible if it promised to increase university expenditure on R&D by 82% in cultural studies and 72% in tourism over the next 4 years but limit physics and mathematics to 17% and cut mechanical and industrial engineering by 16%?" [More]

“The Australian Government... will investigate... a decline in the quality of the content and rigour in the teaching of geography in our schools,” Julie Bishop.    (18/06/07)

    The good news is, it'll be done on the cheap. [More]

University Research Infrastructure: Sydney University Vice-Chancellor Gavin Brown Makes a Point.    (17/06/07)

    In a little over a year the Vice-Chancellor of The University of Sydney will retire from the fray. [More]

Pluto Barrackers Take Another Hit.    (15/06/07)

    In August 2006 the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet. [More]

Eight Cornell Graduate Students Write to Nature on Their Effort to Create a "State of the Planet Course".    (14/06/07)

    "If we are to achieve global sustainability, society needs broadly educated citizens making informed decisions about the resources they consume, the leaders they vote for, and the lives they live." [More]

According to Clive Hamilton Generous Endowments to Australian Universities by the Fossil Fuel Lobby Could be a Double-edged Sword.    (14/06/07) [More]

Julie Bishop Has a Lesson on "Never Work With Children".    (14/06/07)

    The Minister for Education, Science and Training's baptism of sharing a recording studio with three bright teenagers. [More]

What Would You Like to do With $11.9 Billion?     Endow a New University Perhaps?    (08/06/07)

    Apparently the answer is "yes" if you're the ruler of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. [More]

The Lead Editorial in Today's Australian: "Time to reform higher education".    (07/06/07)

    Although neither the Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, or Labor's Shadow Minister for Education and Training, Steven Smith, were sufficiently interested to attend Group of Eight Chair, Glyn Davis' address to the National Press Club yesterday, Rupert Murdoch's Australian considered it important enough to make it the focus of its lead editorial today. [More]

Nature About to Launch Two New and Freely Accessible Web Sites.    (07/06/07)

    The Journal Nature has announced "two websites to be launched this week: Nature Reports Climate Change and Nature Reports Stem Cells. Aimed at researchers and at anyone else who is interested. [More]

A Message from British Academe.    (06/06/07)

    Beware the poison chalice. [More]

The Current Policy Framework for Australia's Higher Education Sector is Beyond Patching and Must be Replaced -- So Says the Group of Eight.    (06/06/07)

    In a far-reaching and audacious sixty-seven page discussion paper, Seizing the opportunities: Designing new policy architecture for higher education and university research the Group of Eight "offers for discussion a new policy design for higher education and university research in Australia". [More]

Britain's University and College Union to Hold Year-long Debate Over Boycotting Work with Israeli Universities.    (05/06/07)

    On May 31 The Guardian reported, "Delegates at the first conference of the new University and College Union in Bournemouth voted by 158 to 99 for 'a comprehensive and consistent boycott' of all Israeli academic institutions. [More]

Seven of the Group of Eight Amassed a Combined Surplus for the Year of $472.6 Million.    (05/06/07)

    It's wonderful how certain individuals are predicable to a fault, and the Minister for Education, Science and Training must come close to the top of the list. [More]

Anthropogenic Global Warming and President Bush's Clayton's Solution.    (02/06/07) [More]

Science Reports Major U.S. Research Universities are Working to Interest and Prepare Good Science Students to Go Into Primary and Secondary School Teaching.    (01/06/07)

    The June 1 issue of the journal Science features a News Focus article, "Preparing Teachers: A New Twist on Training Teachers" by Jeffrey Mervis. [More]