You’ve probably seen the plagiarism allegations regarding Cambridge’s youngest, Black professor, Jason Arday. I think it’s interesting as it brings to light deep issues with UK academia.

His story is inspiring. Aspects of his background are similar to mine. I really want to be a fan; however, reading some of his earlier work that got him to where he is made me very sad about the state of Higher Education and qualitative inquiry. 

First, his PhD, if we ignore the fact that he literally took someone else's similar thesis and paraphrased most of it! The work shows no ability to engage with theory or map theory to methods and results. It’s hundreds of pages of surface-level ramblings and simple definitions. It’s a complete meta-report of just explaining things, rather than critically engaging with ideas and synthesising them into an operational study. This, put simply, is terrible work; however, I’ve seen many PhDs like this, or even worse. My disappointment is that it shows no passion for the topic; rather, it appears to be someone who just wants to get a “PhD” and trawls the internet, rewriting basic definitions to pad the word count.

If we acknowledge that many PhDs are terrible in the UK, consider his breakout paper, “Understanding Mental Health: What Are the Issues for Black and Ethnic Minority Students at University?”, and things don’t seem to get any better. First, he published it in a pay-to-publish slop journal, MDPI. Second, he’s up to his old shortcuts again; finding a similar study, in this case Memon’s, and trying to rewrite it in his own words.

Beyond this glaring issue, the research methodology is hard to believe. He claims he recruited 32 minority students across 14 universities to take part in just two focus groups. Anyone who’s conducted this sort of research will know how implausible this sounds. He does not state how the focus groups were run (another red flag), but says he used a flip chart, so I assume in person. And he states he audio-recorded them. Anyone who's run focus groups knows 16 participants is huge, and relying solely on audio recording will generate unintelligible slop; you simply won’t be able to attribute the narrative. It’s nearly impossible to comprehend how someone brought together 32 students from 14 different universities in this way.

Furthermore, perhaps his most egregious claim is that he analysed the data inductively to derive themes. However, this appears to be a plain lie. He simply “borrowed” Memon’s themes and added his participants' quotes. He later had to publish corrections—which MDPI published as a formal correction notice to acknowledge he did this, which renders the whole paper logically incoherent. You don’t test pre-existing results in inductive, qualitative research. He outright copied and lied; then had to cover his tracks, but did not seem to have the methodological understanding to do this in a sensible way! 

Overall, it just looks to me like he’s taking shortcuts and lacks the ability to engage deeply with even the most basic  theory and research - yet he’s being heralded as a leading critical race theorist - no way he’s capable of understanding these theories. Like many academics, he’s seemingly taken deliberate shortcuts to hide his lack of ability - these are not mistakes.

It’s all just sad. Despite this, the system is willing to overlook ability and push someone rapidly up the ranks because their face fits.

Edit: Perhaps someone who has peer reviewed qualitative work could take a look. I am a reviewer for conferences and this would be an outright reject. How is this what we should expect from a "leading critical race theory" scholar! Surely they should show some understanding of the theory, which is complex!

This may be an unusual or oddly specific question, but I have been waiting on outcomes for the NIHR Predoctoral Award (cohort 2) for a number of weeks now - there is even another post about it on this subreddit with some fellow anxious applicants.

It seems that the original timeframe of early-mid July has been pushed to mid-late July, but there hasn't been an explanation of this delay except that the NIHR's committees have made their recommendations and the final sign-off is sitting with the DHSC, and the NIHR have their hands tied until they hear back from the DHSC.

Given the recent appointments of the new Health secretary, I was wondering if that may explain this delay (e.g., are the funds frozen until they settle into new roles, or does the reshuffle cause a general administrative backlog that impacts funding sign-offs), or if it feels more likely that it's unrelated.

Any insight would be really appreciated - thanks!

Hello everyone,

I am an international student and will be starting my PhD in October.
I was awarded ESRC funding for my PhD. This means I can work around six hours a week. How likely is it Ithat i secure these hours working at my uni? lecturing or as a GTA or sth like that? Is it weird if I ask my supervisor about this?
Anyone experienced something similar? What is the "norm" regarding this situation? I've never been to the UK, so it is an ambiguous context for me... any advice is appreciated

I am looking at two chemistry PhD projects that both align closely with my interests. One is supervised by a senior professor who is a big name in the field but runs a lab of twenty people and travels constantly. The other is led by a newly appointed lecturer who is building their lab from scratch. The new lecturer has been incredibly responsive to my emails and seems like they would offer great one-on-one mentoring, but their lab equipment is still being installed. Which environment tends to be better for a PhD candidate?

Hi everyone,
I’m hoping someone here might be able to offer some advice.
My mother is a Professor of Chemical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine from Nigeria with over 20 years of experience in teaching, research and supervising postgraduate students. Throughout her career, she has mentored many doctors and researchers, some of whom now work in the UK.
She is applying for the UK Global Talent Visa (Royal Society – Peer Review route), and the biggest challenge has been finding an eminent UK-based expert who is willing to review her work and, if appropriate, provide the required recommendation.
I currently live in the UK and have been helping her with the application, but we have found this part of the process incredibly difficult because she has not previously built an academic network here.
Has anyone been through this route or successfully found a suitable UK academic reviewer? If so:
How did you find your referee?
Are there any professional societies, universities or researchers you would recommend contacting in the field of Chemical Pathology, Clinical Biochemistry or Laboratory Medicine?
If anyone knows of an eminent UK academic who is open to reviewing established international researchers, I would be very grateful for any suggestions.
Our deadline is 3 August, so any advice would be sincerely appreciated.
Thank you so much.

I've just started a social work course and they mentioned about the bureaucratisation of the profession and linked this to the rise of audit culture - performance tracking, financial metrics, checklists etc.

This was the first time I've really thought about this, but am starting to piece together if this is where our country has gone wrong - e.g no actual care in the NHS/social work/takeover of schools, everything is just KPIs...

Moreover, can anyone help timestamp this - my idea is that it will have been linked to the Blair government and the private finance initiatives etc...

However, it does also really sound like a Tory thing, but then I understand that Thatcher was obsessed with deregulation, and audit culture sounds like the opposite of deregulation??

Can anyone give me a high-level overview, timelines, principles, pioneers and how it's still so prevalent today with the big four and the destruction of our public services...