Arne Hintz Cardiff University The uncertainties of the post-Brexit-Referendum period have concerned, among others, a major legislative project that is currently developed – the Investigatory Powers Bill. The Bill is a comprehensive new legal framework for the surveillance powers of British security agencies, and as such, it has significant implications for civil rights and academic …Continue Reading

Barry Richards Bournemouth University A number of my academic colleagues and friends are worried about Prevent. Amongst MeCCSA members there is probably quite a high level of worry. At the end of last year, as universities were establishing policies and procedures to meet the new Prevent requirements, there was a flurry of emails to the …Continue Reading

Milly Williamson University of Brunel Prevent Violent Extremism (PVE) was first introduced in 2006 by the Blair government, which, after having plunged the UK into an illegal war in Iraq in 2003, dealt with what some members of the Home Office considered to be the likely consequences of that disastrous invasion, by developing a policy …Continue Reading

Rachel Cohen & Jo Littler City University London Universities pride themselves as being progressive institutions. Yet the pay penalty for female academics is currently an average of £6,103. In other words, female academics are paid are paid just 87% of what male academics are paid. At City University London where we work, the professorial pay difference is …Continue Reading

Lucy Bennett & Jenny Kidd Cardiff University In 2015 we were approached by the Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) in the UK to carry out a small research project for the Higher Education Academy (HEA). The project, ‘Teaching and Learning Issues in the Discipline’, was a transdisciplinary investigation into challenges facing Higher Education …Continue Reading

Abigail Gardner University of Gloucestershire Once upon a time there was a King and his advisors who invented a game for their most illustrious scholars and teachers to play. The game was called TEF and it was new and uncalled for. They told the scholars they had to play the game, that it would get …Continue Reading