When British academic Matthew Hedges was jailed in the United Arab Emirates last year on spying charges, he joined a long list of scholars from around the world who have been targeted and prosecuted for simply carrying out their research. During his detainment, Hedges was held in solitary confinement, force-fed drugs and battled depression, along with thoughts of self-harm and suicide.
There have been hundreds of similar cases, and while Hedge’s imprisonment prominently featured in the UK media, the wider ramifications for the research community have been largely overlooked. Hedges writes about why his time in the UAE shows how bureaucracy-led universities are not equipping their students and staff with the appropriate skills and competencies needed to undertake their job in today’s world.
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Matthew Hedges with his wife Daniela Tejada.
Matthew Hedges, Durham University
As I found, academics engaging in fieldwork research are in a particularly vulnerable position.
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Politics + Society
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Arnab Bhattacharjee, Heriot-Watt University; Mark Schaffer, Heriot-Watt University
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer win the Nobel Prize for Economics 'for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty'.
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Kerstin Carlson, University of Southern Denmark
Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria may force Western states to finally address what to do with adherents of Islamic State. Here are the options.
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Health + Medicine
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Carlos Riumallo Herl, Erasmus University Rotterdam; David Canning, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Mark A. Collinson, University of the Witwatersrand
It's evident from research that while health influences economic well-being, the inverse is also true, economic well-being influences health.
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Karoline Kuchenbaecker, UCL; Evangelos Vassos, King's College London; Roseann Peterson, Virginia Commonwealth University
Genome-wide association studies are more like genome white association studies.
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En français
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Jean-Michel Servet, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
Les expérimentations menées par les économistes comme Esther Duflo, lauréate du « Nobel » 2019, ne questionnent jamais l’organisation néolibérale dans laquelle ils évoluent.
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Cécile Martha, Aix-Marseille Université (AMU); Laurent Grélot, Aix-Marseille Université (AMU)
Marcher sur la Lune ou séjourner dans la station spatiale internationale reste une activité dangereuse. Qu’est-ce qui motive les astronautes à risquer leur vie ? Que trouvent-ils si loin de la Terre ?
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