Hong Kong was really great, but Australia feels like home. #Holibobs

Yes, pretty much agrees with everything I was saying when it came out. I've talked directly to CRUK about how it's incentivising the wrong things and is unlikely to have the effect they want, but I'm not sure it will do any good.

As @drbeth.bsky.social & I discussed, CRUK's amendment is... unwelcome. Providing £ for (A)PCs was always a fool's game that assumed rationality of people under capitalism & markets.

Sam's 100% right. It highlights the distance between funder approaches & academic pressures vis-a-vis prestige etc.

💯I never feel like I'm doing enough, making enough impact, writing enough, speaking enough, thinking enough. It doesn't matter how many people say I am.

Thanks Pete. I think that will help!

Anyone know of a switch I can install in my brain so I can go on holiday and not think about work?

It's not fun is it?

If the policy had been pitched in the right way, had been consulted on, had a bit of nuance to it, I would have been it's biggest champion...which I think is why I'm so angry.

This week I just feel like maybe I shouldn't bother caring. You work for 10 years on making things better and then sudden policy changes pull the rug out from under you.

Whilst it's a particular policy for me, it might be a different policy for you. It's going around.

BMJ reporting that government has said that 1000 extra training posts for resident doctors will no longer be available from this April. Stupid. Impact of resident doctors on patient care and healthcare system make it essential to provide adequate training posts for them
www.bmj.com/content/393/...

Gin Lane, a drawing by Hogarth. Lots of debauchery.

Ah, Saturday on a double bank holiday weekend. West Street in Sheffield always reminds me a bit of Gin Lane 😬

That does sound good!

I just had a toasted mini egg and creme egg sandwich bc it's Good Friday. And I'm not even sorry.

OMG, why am I arguing with someone on LinkedIn. Never worth it. Did I not learn my twitter lessons properly?

I keep thinking about the fact that someone asked if I'd gone to the "Leading introverts as an introvert" session as an extrovert spy 😂

I really don't think the people who knew me in high school would even recognise adult Beth!

Tbf it's already starting to happen under a Labour government. Huge recent case in a Greater Manchester school library.

What a wonderful women. She's going in the book 😉

World ends?

Just had an email reminding me that a deal for a perpetual access collection we subscribe to will end on 30 June 2114.

You know, I suspect someone else will have to worry about that!

Haha, well so is my barber. But I mostly mean folks in scholarly communications 😉

I have 100% failed to not work today. Well done Beth.

At least everyone in the UK is off for a few days now.

Very proud of the work I did pushing forward EDI while in STEM, glad there are still brilliant people like Alex continuing the fight.

A DNA archive critical to identifying missing migrants has itself gone missing - High Country News A key database of migrant DNA has gone missing, after the organization that started it shut down.

Can't think of a much starker example of why research must be 'sustainable' and have plans in place for archiving etc. www.hcn.org/issues/58-4/...

Right, written some emails, had a zoom call. Now I'm going to the gym bc I'm meant to be on annual leave.
#FFS

I think it's a completely wrong footed step. They've withdrawn funding without discouraging publishing in gold/hybrid. It will just mean that researchers/ institutions have to fund it elsewhere.

They could have made a serious Green/Diamond/preprint based policy. They didn't.

This isn't an OA policy update. Its a budget policy update.

I've written a LinkedIn post, but essentially-if they dont want to pay for OA why not say only Green & Diamond count? They've still got Gold/hybrid as route 1.

CRUK are refusing to pay, while still buying into the paid for landscape. The financial burden just shifts to researchers & institutions.

Keep thinking if CRUK had released their policy last week we could have all thrashed it out at #UKSG2026 - but now we're all back on our own...

Many thanks to CRUK for destroying my day off. Excellent stuff. So happy.

Home from Scotland. What a marvelous few days (as always). Thanks folks. #UKSG2026