Yes, subject to confirmation next month. 'The European Commission has voted to remove all printed products, including books, journals, newspapers and magazines – from the scope of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). The amendment passed with 449 votes in favour, 202 against. '

Absolutely. The fact that this is in any sense ‘news’ in 2025 is I guess a healthy reminder of how little most researchers actually engage with the structures and processes of schol comm. Or ever have done. Ours is a minority obsession, always.

Mind you, that’s a variant of what David Sweeney used to imply. Less research, but all of it open…which around the time of Finch etc was quite a common funder view.

Doesn’t Tony Grafton have something to say about this somewhere, in the context of early modern learning? Sorry but can’t remember exactly where: I heard him talking about this issue many years ago now

Always important to remember how much the original Coalition was a very specifically EU initiative (and how important are e.g. RELX and Springer as European economic agents). Recent changes in emphasis have been a sign of impotence, ultimately, and not the converse. But let’s see what happens next..

A good and powerful piece although tbh I have lost count of the number of times I have been told that a revolution in schol comm is coming. The UK is often presumed to have far greater global heft with the likes of RELX and Springer than it really does - see e.g. latest SN numbers announced today.

Yep. It was always a quasi-governmental project with specific EU purposes and motivations in mind (and of course within the EU RELX and Springer etc remain major economic agents). The shift towards Diamond OA & AHSS was a sign of weakness ultimately, given the original ambitions of the Coalition...

St Anne’s College Oxford and then taught English at St Paul’s Girls and Oxford High.

He is. Many thanks R

Our little terrier Ivan has been shivering on the sofa for 30 minutes during the big civic Cambridge display - about a KM away. Calming down now…

Cathy O N went on to teach English at St Paul’s and Oxford High and amongst many other distinctions used to have Olivia Newton John as a babysitter. Network of Aussie academic families in Cambridge…

Totally accept and get that but I still think the politics of all this are vv complex. HE as a set of networks and financial commitments is massively misunderstood by those not immediately impacted and the wider media is always (oddly) disengaged. Utter lack of interest in e.g. current redundancies.

True. But ‘politicians’ carry a lot here. Don’t you mean ‘the electorate’ more generally? I know that public views of HE are often at best confused…but would e.g. removal of the triple lock to help support students find popular support? A genuine question.

Very pleased to see that you have now been promoted to ‘world’s foremost expert’ status 🤗

Mind you, there was a time when this almost UKRI policy too. Less research, but all of it Open Access, was pretty much the message at points in the 2010s...