Recent Postings

Covid-19 Will Change Everything. Unless, Of Course, It Really Changes Nothing Much At All.

The Covid-19 Pandemic has led to a massive global lockdown.  In most countries all but ‘essential’ businesses are shuttered or moved totally online and governments have stepped in to take onto their books the huge costs of keeping businesses solvent […]

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Imagine If It Was Covid-99 And Not Covid-19

These are difficult and trying times.  People are ill. People are suffering and dying.  The press and others pile concerns and complaints on government and corporations for their responses, or lack of response.  Yet, what is amazing is how orderly […]

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Let’s Stop the Brexit Impasse with a Single Preference Ordered Vote

Let’s Stop the Brexit Impasse with a Single Preference Ordered Vote

Anyone who has been alive and awake for anytime in the last several weeks will know the agony of the sequence of Parliamentary votes for the various Brexit alternatives.  I suspect that most people are, at one-and-the-same time, fascinated – […]

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What is Interdisciplinarity?  And Do We Need It?

What is Interdisciplinarity? And Do We Need It?

In the last decade, we have seen an increasing call for more interdisciplinary research.  This call has pervaded funding agencies – some of which now explicitly require ‘interdisciplinary’ teams in many funding proposals – journals, faculty hiring and promotion, and […]

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Academic Ambition

In a discussion related to a Strategic Review of my school’s research function, the issue of individual and organizational ambition arose.  I thought this was an interesting discussion and think it reflects well on the key to the research strategy […]

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Now That You Have Brexit, Prepare for Brexodus

Now That You Have Brexit, Prepare for Brexodus

As a foreigner living in the UK, the move to Brexit has been something of an eye-opener. Nearly three decades ago, I wrote a book that was deeply skeptical about the single market programme.  Entitled, European Markets After 1992, it […]

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BREXIT and Stern: Two Nails in the Coffin of British Academe

BREXIT and Stern: Two Nails in the Coffin of British Academe

The last few months have clearly been trying on the nerves and confidence of many British academics.  The vote for Brexit, and the divide it revealed between younger and more well-educated voters and those older and less well-educated, has reverberated […]

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The Careless Consumer

A recent article for the Royal Society of Arts.  The article goes over the psychology of ‘ethical’ consumption, in particular the lack of alignment between ethics and natural behaviors.  It needs to be viewed in pdf format.  Download the article […]

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Why Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaigns Could Do more Harm Than Good

The Guardian’s Leave It In the Ground campaign names and shames the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation for not divesting their holdings in fossil fuel companies.  Editor Alan Rusbridger launched the project by declaring the case for the divestment […]

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Individual Social Responsibility: Why We Don’t Act in Line With What We Say

Just over 15 years ago, I was working with a global NGO helping them to engage with multinational corporations (MNCs). As part of this activity, I ran workshops in which MNC managers interacted with NGO managers on matters of mutual […]

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