Research blog

The process leading to OWRI involved discussions over the legacy of the 5 national Language Based-Area Studies Centres which were co-supported by the ESRC and the AHRC from 2005 to 2016. These centres were focused on the languages traditionally associated with Area...

Scholars in the humanities have for several decades now been expected to justify their value in the face of a neoliberal, market-led approach to higher education, dating back to the 1980s, but having a particularly acute effect in the current climate of fiscal...

In its call for an Open World Research Initiative (OWRI), the AHRC invited proposals for a “new and exciting vision for languages research in response to the challenges and opportunities presented by a globalised research environment and multi-lingual world”. The...

The key objective of the Open World Research Initiative (OWRI) is for Modern Languages (ML) to become a more powerful, resilient and sustainable sector within UK higher education and research. I say ‘sector’ rather than ‘discipline’ because ML are not what is...

Thanks to Steve and Yaron for this powerful analysis and proposal for long-term change. There’ll be many wanting to take part in the debate started here, not least those (many) who have already designed transnationally focused courses which do effectively undo the...

Recent measures taken at Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester and elsewhere, show the unprecedented pressures that UK universities are facing. Even the Russell Group is affected by a rapidly changing external environment, with serious implications for an already...

With input from Julie Curtis The world is perpetually ravaged by conflicts, some unfolding within single states, others taking an inter-state form. Public knowledge of these conflicts is often limited to their origins, and to the state of play between the antagonists....