University management scams Part 1: Recruitment agencies

At least these gigantic brains running universities handle their own hiring, right?

No. It’s outsourced at scale

Manchester University spent nearly £20m on external recruiters in one year

This is part of @engelmal.bsky.social and J. Andrew Mendelsohn's fabulous special issue.

Please read and share and enjoy and discuss and cherish my long-gestating article in @histhum.bsky.social:

‘A treatise on all the bad habits of mankind’: Major Greenwood and the political economy of epidemiology in early 20th-century Britain

doi.org/10.1177/0952...

How Zimbabwe Walked Away from a $367 Million U.S. Health Deal — Global Health Unfiltered On February 25, 2026, the U.S. Embassy in Harare issued a terse, four-sentence statement confirming what Zimbabwean officials had already made clear weeks earlier: the United States would begin windin...

Following the dissolution of USAID what is emerging to replace it are exploitative one-sided deals proposing the exchange of aid dollars for sensitive health data, lack of reciprocal benefit and agreements that bypass multilateral frameworks.
www.globalhealthunfiltered.com/blog/jn2u6d5...

Beyond the Demographic and Health Survey: on the past and future of population health surveillance The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) programme was paused at the start of 2025 following deep cuts to the United States’ Agency for International Development (USAID). Since the middle of the 1980s,...

Plzzz take a look at our new @bmj.com commentary on the Demographic and Health Survey, its history, the sudden end of #USAID financing, and the possible futures of population health surveillance.

gh.bmj.com/content/11/2...

Topics Please see below for a non-exhaustive list of suggested topics; we particularly welcome contributions that make contact with this year's conference theme: Ground Truth and Validity. While the notion of measurement validity is comparatively familiar, ground truth may need more of an introduction. The concept of ground truth has origins in remote sensing, where it is used to contrast the outcomes of a near or ground level measurement with outcomes of a remotely sensed measurement. From these origins, the concept has now moved to a wider use, particularly in machine learning contexts, where it denotes data assumed to be true, which can then be used to calibrate and validate machine learning data. The time seems ripe for a more careful investigation from a measurement perspective of the concept of ground truth-both in its original understanding and in its more metaphorical use. Measurement and Simulation • Connections between measuring and simulating • Can simulation substitute for measurement? Measurement and Data Science

Measurement and Data Science • Measurement and data quality • Measurement and data analysis • Measurement and Al Models in Measurement • The role of models in measurement • The role of models in justifying measurement results • Models, intersubjectivity, objectivity, validation Models of Measurement • The general structure of the measurement process • The structure of measurement in social and human sciences • Transduction and calibration in measurement • History of the conception of the structure of measurement History, Philosophy and Sociology of Measurement

The structure of measurement in social and human sciences • Transduction and calibration in measurement • History of the conception of the structure of measurement History, Philosophy and Sociology of Measurement • Exploration across sciences with diverse philosophical perspectives • New quantification and measurement approaches • Epistemological and metaphysical approaches to measurement Measurement Applications and their conceptual foundations in any area of science • Life & Health Sciences

CFP: Society for the Study of Measurement will be held at the University of Edinburgh
June 22-25, 2026. Submit proposals for papers, symposia, & poster on any topics in the theory, history, philosophy, & application of measurement by January 15, 2026 app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/80364...
#HPS

Enemies, Comrades, and The Counterrevolutionary Logic of Cisness - Historical Materialism Nat Raha and Mijke van der Drift, Trans femme futures: Abolitionist ethics for transfeminist worlds. Pluto Press, 2024.  Sophie Lewis, Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses against Liber...

I reviewed two fantastic books by @reproutopia.bsky.social , @fullnommunism.bsky.social and Mijke Van Der Drift for @histmat.bsky.social - reflecting on tolerable levels of dissonance in comradely feminisms: www.historicalmaterialism.org/enemies-comr...

Architecture for Anatomy: History, Affect, and the Material Reproduction of the Body in Two Medical School Buildings - John Nott, 2023 Medical schools are among the most important spaces for the history of the body. It is here that students come to know the anatomical bodies of their future pat...

ICYMI: John Nott, 'Architecture for Anatomy: History, Affect, and the Material Reproduction of the Body in Two Medical School Buildings'. (Open Access) journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Economical epidemiology, pathological populations, and the long history of the Demographic and Health Survey This article examines the history of population health surveillance in modern Africa, considering the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) programme as a bridge between twentieth and twenty-first ce...

New article in Global Public Health, fresh out of the @epidemy.org:

'Economical epidemiology, pathological populations, and the long history of the Demographic and Health Survey.'

Please share!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

First paper in @epidemy.org's Data & Disease Special Issue in Medical History out now, recommend a read (don't think Cal is here on Bsky but sent my congrats elsewhere) #histmed
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Between Feast and Famine Ghana’s twentieth century was one of dramatic political, economic, and environmental change. Sparked initially by the impositions of colonial rule, these transformations had significant, if rarely uni...

Congratulations to John Nott! His #OpenAccess book Between Feast and Famine published today. Read and download free at: bit.ly/3WBLTEh #Ghana #Africa #Health #Food #ColonialHistory

Between Feast and Famine Ghana’s twentieth century was one of dramatic political, economic, and environmental change. Sparked initially by the impositions of colonial rule, these transformations had significant, if rarely uni...

My book 'Between Feast and Famine: Food, Health and the History of Ghana's Long Twentieth Century' is out today with UCL Press! This also means its fully open access and fully free to read and share and discuss with your friends and family.

uclpress.co.uk/book/between...

Delighted to share our seminar programme for Spring 2025!

#STS

The National Archives christmas tree

I love that the presents are archive boxes (IR 40 series, to be exact)

That’s how I think about archive boxes

Dire Financial Straits at UoE? NO! — UCU Edinburgh Are things really as bad as they say? Find out the truth behind the numbers!

A reminder to join your union...

www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/2eppzf7...