A year of war on the eastern borders of Europe. A cost of living crisis. Here in the UK, public services on their knees after a decade of dismantling. So why talk about universities, and the role they can play in their communities? The short answer is because they are there, and they last. They […]
A host of universities now claim to be ‘civic’. But what does that really mean, and how can we tell? Over the past year, I have been part of a team at Sheffield Hallam University working to answer these questions. We have been exploring the idea of a ‘civic index’, following on from the Civic University Commission’s […]
I tend not to have a lot of contact with the police. So when they come into your life twice in a week, you sit up and pay attention. The first time was in the early hours of Sunday morning, when we woke to discover our home had been broken into, the car keys taken […]
Julian Dobson 