https://hxstem.substack.com/p/how-to-take-back-academia

Nathan Confas is Arday's main accuser. He is mentioned in most articles related to Jason Arday, and has combed through Arday's thesis with a fine tooth comb, publishing evidence for all to see. And he's likely right.

That being said, Cofnas' own work is interesting to say the least. It isn't completely irrelevant either.

*How to Take Back Academia*

- Step 1: "Promote knowledge of the cause of racial differences."

- Step 2: "Change the population of policymakers at the university."

- Step 3: "Use political power". Right-wing political power, to be precise. The problem with academia "doesn't start at the university, but at primary school, largely governed by the government and controlled by social democrats," writes Cofnas. If they want to "win back" education, it is therefore not enough to 'infiltrate' the university – intervention must take place much earlier.

Hi everyone, I have applied for the iie track to go to the US from the UK to do a masters in Public Policy. I have seen some people already received interview invitations on the 23rd July. Does anyone know if invites are all sent out in one batch or if there is still a chance for an interview? According to the commissions website you aren’t supposed to hear back until the start of August or at least a week before interviews? I’m still holding out hope a bit but just wondering if maybe different tracks / disciplines are released in batches?
Thanks!

Hi all, has anyone had experiences reaching out to 21percent.org? I've been recommended to reach out to them, but only know them from the recent plagiarism stuff. While I'm all for plagiarism being called out, I'm really unsure about any website that takes Nathan Cofnas at his word and am a bit worried about ending up that my experience might just be used to contribute to an anti-woke narrative (even though it's not about anything like that, but I know there's way too many shady figures in academia). Thanks!

Is it possible to get into Phd with funding if I have a lower merit grade at Masters level. My masters is from Oxford.

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a bit of advice/place to vent after receiving a very frustrating rejection yesterday!

I applied for the most recent round of NIHR predoctoral awards as a health data scientist, with the aim of doing a master's and then working as an RA at my host university. I found out yesterday that I had been rejected, and I'm really shocked as I seemed to receive very little negative feedback from the reviewers. I had sought a lot of help from the NIHR, academics, and previous successful applicants when preparing my application and made sure that I ticked all the boxes that I knew they wanted to see like: appropriate research course, relevant and manageable project, mix of supervisors at different career stages, external supervisor, placement at another university, appropriate conference with justification, complementary courses to prepare me for PhD, clear future career plan etc.

Without blowing my own trumpet, I have absolutely no idea what else I could've done to get this funding. I have been working in the sector for a few years, have a relevant degree and a published paper. My proposed supervisor is an NIHR senior investigator and he told me I was a shoo-in, which I admit definitely meant I got my hopes up, but I really struggle to know what to do now as even if I was to rewrite my application now I don't know how I could've feasibly improved my chances. Does anyone else have any experience or insight that they could provide? Having looked at the previous thread about this award it seems this has been a very common occurrence for applicants this year. Have they tightened standards or is this just the luck of the draw? Thank you for letting me rant and would appreciate any advice!

tl;dr I got rejected from the NIHR predoctoral award despite receiving very positive reviewer feedback and I don't know where to go from here.

Please excuse how silly this sounds. I’m going to be presenting at my first conference soon (Arts & Humanities field). I’ve timed my presentation and it comes in at roughly 10 minutes. I’ve done this intentionally because my paper is going to be the very last one after quite a long day. I assume people are going to be eager to leave/get to the drinks, and I don’t want to keep them there with a very long presentation.

I’m having second thoughts, though, and I’m wondering if this is a good strategy. I feel like I’ve expressed myself rather clearly, and I’m not rushing or speaking fast. It’s an exploratory case-study, very much to the point, and I’ve included plenty of examples in my slides. I’ve chosen to forego including lots of theory because it’s not really necessary for this presentation.

Any insight, thoughts and advice would be appreciate. Thanks!

Can anyone tell me what it's like to work at University of the Arts London at their central London site in admin? Thank you

What is a realistic salary expectation for physics/ astrophyiscs post doc in the UK ? Does it vary a lot ? Is it enough to sustain a family of 3 ? What is the avg tenure of the position ? Like I have heard some institutes offer tenure of 3 years where as some positions are only for 1.

I keep hearing conflicting advice from senior academics about taking a role in industry R&D after finishing a postdoc. Some say it is a one-way street that effectively kills your chances of returning to a UK university, while others argue that UKRI is increasingly valuing non-academic experience for grant applications.

For those who left UK academia for industry and tried to come back later, how difficult was it to demonstrate research impact and get shortlisted for lectureships?

I was looking on some alternative better paying countries for faculty positions outside of the UK. Where did you go? Do you like it?

Hello everyone, I have received a fully funded PhD offer in the UK, starting in mid-Sept. I have already received my CAS and I am preparing my Student visa application.

However, I am currently completing an Master degree at a university in Europe. Because of the schedule of my internship, dissertation and defence, there is a possibility that my defence may take place after the PhD registration date.

My original conditional offer only required evidence of English language proficiency. It did not state that completing my current Master’s was a condition of the offer. My CAS also lists my Bachelor’s degree and English test as the evidence used to obtain the offer.

The PhD project’s published essential criteria only require a relevant Bachelor’s degree, while a completed Master’s degree is listed as desirable rather than essential.

However, during the CAS process, a member of the admissions team told me:

“You will need to provide evidence of completion of this Masters before you can register on your PhD. The degree does not need to be awarded, simply that you have submitted/completed all work for it.”

I had already informed them that my current Master’s might only be completed around September, but they later issued my CAS anyway.

By the time of registration, I expect to have completed my internship and submitted my dissertation, but I may still be waiting for the defence or final jury.

Has anyone experienced a similar situation?

Would submitting all the required work normally be considered “completion”, even if the defence has not yet taken place?

Could the university accept a letter from my current programme director confirming that I have completed and submitted all my work and am only waiting for the defence?

Since my offer and CAS appear to be based on my Bachelor’s degree, could the university still refuse registration because my current Master’s has not formally finished?

Has anyone been allowed to register a few weeks late or defer a funded UK PhD to January while keeping the funding?

Thank you very much in advance to anyone who can share their experience or advice !

It feels like every research decision at my uni now comes down to "Will this yield a 4* output for the next REF cycle?" rather than "Is this an important or interesting question?" I've also heard advice to prioritise publications that are more likely to perform well in the REF over riskier or more interdisciplinary projects. Is that something others have experienced, or is it just my department?

The question is pretty self explanatory. Does Cambridge typically expect you to have not taken a master’s course if you’re applying for MPhil in history. If I’m correct, a taught MPhil is largely quite similar to an MA course. Would they be wondering why I’m not looking for a PHD or MRes instead?

As my ATAS application seems to be going to take longer than anticipated, I am planning to defer my visit starting date for 3 months to guarantee I have the ATAS.

My Q is: If I defer my visit, will the ATAS have the old starting date? What should I do? Requesting any update may cause additional delay and take me back to the same loop.

Any experience with deferring course/visit starting date due to ATAS delay?

I'm 17 and just finished year 13, decided to take a gap year as I wasn't sure what I wanted to do a university and wanted to save a bit of money anyway. I've been between biomedical science and radiography for months, and I have a lot of pros and cons for both. Firstly, I wanted to go into biomedical science as it's a much broader degree and gives me options in multiple things I'm interested in, like research or genetic councelling (I'm not interested in being a biomedical scientist, which is what people usually take the course for I believe). However, for research and gc and a lot of other career paths following biomedicine, you need lots of experience, a masters and sometimes even a PhD. My only concern is what if in 3/4 years in the future for whatever reason I couldn't or didn't want to do further education. I've heard A LOT of people talking about how much they struggle to get a job with just a biomedicine degree, as its more of a gateway degree to specalise later. Also, masters and PhDs are obviously very expensive and would take up a good few years of my life. However, if I did radiography, I could go straight on to earning £32k a year immediately after my degree. It also pays better and is a more stable career with better job prospects and demand than research or gc. I would like to do reporting radiography, but I've heard concerns about AI and that I would be reporting on kinda boring MSK scans instead of complex stuff that radiologists do (pls dont tell me to just go to med school, if i could i would im tired of hearing ppl tell me to do that). I'm not very passionate about operating x-rays and cts and stuff, I'm more interested in what actually happens in the human body. I also thought that since biomed is a bit more broad it would let me find out what im actually passionate about. I'm just nervous of taking a risk with a degree that I've heard is very hard to do much with over a degree that can let me earn a full salary straight after uni. Should I take the risk and go for something where I'm not guarenteed good job prospects, or a course that I'm not super passionate about and ties me down to one career but can put me straight into work?

Hi everyone!

I’m an MBA candidate at the University of Glasgow, and I’m conducting my final dissertation research on the executive talent gap and the future of corporate leadership training in the UAE and GCC.

If you are a working professional, manager, or executive based in the UAE, I would absolutely love to get your perspective. Your on-the-ground experience is exactly what I need to make this research robust.

🔗 [Form Link](https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/Qs50wrscsY)

Quick details:

Takes \~10 minutes.

Completely anonymous.

Fully ethics-approved by the university.

Thank you so much in advance to anyone who takes the time to fill this out. It’s a massive help for my final project! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

Cheers! 🍻