The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Teaching has taken place at Oxford since 1096. Oxford has the largest volume of world-leading research in the country, rating top in the REF power rankings published by Research Fortnight. Oxford’s research involves more than 70 departments, almost 1,800 academic staff, more than 5,000 research and research support staff, and more than 5,600 graduate research students. The University has 38 independent colleges to which undergraduate and graduate students belong. Oxford has the highest research income from external sponsors of any UK university: £478.3m in 2013/14. The University has pioneered the successful commercial exploitation of academic research and invention, creating more than 100 companies, and files more patents each year than any other UK university.
Although the broader economy might be starting to look up, the prospects for social mobility in the UK are not. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has just released its State of the Nation…
The bright lights of the city don’t make it as far as the farm.
kainet
The quality of rural internet access in the UK, or lack of it, has long been a bone of contention. The government says “fast, reliable broadband” is essential, but the disparity between urban and rural…
One of medicine’s greatest innovations in the 20th century was the development of antibiotics. It transformed our ability to combat disease. But medicine in the 21st century is rethinking its relationship…
We all know that exercise is good for our bodies, but current research is revealing that it is also good for our brains. Exercise has been shown to boost executive functions such as planning, working memory…
The 2014 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was awarded to three neuroscientists for their pioneering work on the brain’s “inner GPS system”. Over the course of four decades, they revealed that a…
As debates rage about the best way to organise teacher training and whether teachers should be qualified at all, the findings of the ongoing Carter Review of Initial Teacher Training will be closely scrutinised…
Building resilience, one yacht at a time.
Eyesplash - let's feel the heat
In a world where too many go to bed hungry, it comes as a shock to realise that more than half the world’s food production is left to rot, lost in transit, thrown out, or otherwise wasted. This loss is…
A few doors down from my house, a man is selling drugs. He has herbs to smoke that could leave me happy and stoned and various white powders to ingest that could keep me partying all night. All this would…
Going, going, gone: wildlife like the loris are disappearing.
N. A. Naseer
Full marks to colleagues at the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London for the Living Planet Report 2014 and its headline message which one hopes ought to shock the world out of its complacency…
Biological brains are unlikely to be the final stage of intelligence. Machines already have superhuman strength, speed and stamina – and one day they will have superhuman intelligence. The only reasons…
Mind the gap.
Teaching via Shutterstock/michaeljung
It doesn’t matter if a school is outstanding or struggling, or if the majority of pupils are well-off or not – it’s likely that there will be a gap between how well poorer pupils perform compared to their…
Each of the 125 leaders attending the New York climate summit this week has been given four minutes to speak to the world. They (or their aides) may well have dipped into the climate literature to add…
It is a cruel world out there, particularly for young animals born into social groups where infanticide occurs. This dark side of evolution is revealed when adults – often males – kill offspring to promote…
Standing on a stage in San Francisco in early 2010, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that as internet users had become more comfortable sharing their lives online, privacy was no longer a “social…
Certain genes control lifespan.
Older hands by Shutterstock
Nothing is more certain in life than death. As we age, we become much more susceptible to major diseases like cancer and heart disease because the mechanisms that help prevent them earlier in life start…
Who owns the university after the crash?
simononly
By international standards, British universities have extraordinarily high levels of autonomy. They control all of their assets, they employ their own staff, renew their own leadership and governors and…
Critical mass of editors could help solve the puzzle.
bastique
The geography of knowledge has always been uneven. Some people and places have always been more visible and had more voices than others. But the internet seemed to promise something different: a greater…
Accurate, impartial and ethical journalism is still possible – and can even be easier – in the faster online news cycle.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
In the digital age, one of the most complex challenges for media outlets is how to re-shape the editorial responsibilities of journalism itself. Are the hallmarks of good journalism – accuracy, independence…
The current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has emerged rapidly and evolved with alarming ease. An unprecedented number of lives have been lost and WHO predictions are that the virus will infect in excess…
Social and digital media perform a function that is humanising by connecting people and allowing freedom of expression.
Icons from Shutterstock
Is social media really delivering on its promise of democratising communication? Or have we just replaced one model that privileges those with power for another? Dr Andrea Carson speaks with Professor…
Head of Policy Engagement, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford and Fellow in Environmental Change, Reuben College, University of Oxford, University of Oxford