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The U.K. Government is making great progress in dealing with animal rights extremism, thereby considerably reducing the risks for institutions that are open and more ethical about their animal research.

An internal report produced by British American Tobacco on the attitudes of UK universities identified six institutions which had privately indicated that they would be prepared to break their own ethical funding policies and accept funding from the tobacco industry. The six named institutions were Sunderland, Ulster, Dundee, Sheffield Hallam and Oxford universities and University College London. The report, which was written in September 2000, has been released along with millions of other documents in the wake of legal case in the US.

Research conducted by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that 67 universities in the UK have substantial investments in six leading arms companies. The CAAT hopes that its research will bring increased scrutiny on university investments and provide added incentives for the sort of ethical investment campaign that caused the University of East Anglia to divest its arms company investments in 2001.

Advice is provide for academics on how to deal with the ethical issues involved when conducting research into sensitive issues. Tips include making sure that you undertake sufficient preparation, starting thinking about the ethical issues early on and keep thinking about them, making sure that you know about freedom of information and data protection, making sure that you have support systems in place for yourself and your research participants, and trying to imagine how your result could be misused.

The Association of Colleges is to publish a Charter for Excellence in International Education and Training. The charter will commit educational institutions in the UK who want to operate in the international education market to ethical recruitment of foreign students.

Universities that conduct research in controversial fields, such as animal research, need to respond publicly to the accusations of extremists if they want to combat intimidation and get the weight of public opinion behind them. By failing to respond to the extremists the universities are, in effect, giving in to them, leaving their academics to survive without a culture of support.

Dr. Stefano Harney, a reader in strategy and director of global learning at the School of Business and Management, University of London, has partly blamed educational institutions and business schools for the present financial crisis. He reiterates that teaching focused on solving of minor solutions rather than social and political questions and largely ignoring ethical and social issues.

The time-consuming National Student Survey as a breeding ground for cynicism and corruption is discussed. Most universities put relentless pressure and offer material rewards to students to provide positive answers to this survey thereby wasting precious time and resources that should be devoted to teaching and research.

The tradition of using covert techniques for research is in danger of being 'submerged' as academics and institutions over-react to increased concerns about ethics in research, according to David Calvey, senior sociology lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. Dr Calvey feels there is a need for more dicussion on the role of covert research.

Aubrey Blumsohn, senior lecturer at Sheffield University's Bone Metabolism Research Unit and whistleblower about the conduct of a Sheffield University study with Procter & Gamble, drug company, into the company's osteoporosis drug Actonel, has rejected a UKPd145,000 payoff from the university which would have effectively gagged him from talking about the issue. Blumsohn states that accepting the gagging clause and returning the research data would have compromised debate about the issue.

An analysis of the conflicts of interest medical researchers working at universities face when conducting research that is financially supported by the private sector. It is argued that, in order to prevent society's trust in scientists being completely eroded, all aspects of the research process need to be made transparent so that the real level of research independence can be fully ascertained.

The Russell Group of research-intensive universities in the UK are to introduce a new 'code of practice on good research governance' for researchers, which will enable them to hold researchers to account for malpractice and mistakes. The code, which is designed as a checklist of potential problem areas universities should be aware of, covers issues ranging from plagiarism and falsification of research results to intellectual property rights.

Academics in the UK have helped create the 'Ethics Matters' booklet, the world's first ethics guide for universities. The guide, produced in a joint project between the Council for Industry and Higher Education and the Institute for Business Ethics, addresses a number of potential ethical problems and dilemmas that university administrators could face.

Academics at Leeds University have launched the 'Ideas: Inter-Disciplinary Ethics across Subject Disciplines' project at its Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. The project will see the discussion of ethics built into all student courses amid a growing national call for there to be a more explicit ethical aspect to higher education.

Bill Hayton, manager of the BBC World Service's 12 European language services, has accused the London School of Economics (LSE) of a 'conflict of interests' over its connections to Spiro Latsis, a Greek business magnate. Hayton claims that he was prevented from asking questions that related to Latsis, who is a member of the LSE's board of governors as well as funding its contemporary Greek studies centre, at a public lecture hosted by the LSE.

Universities and colleges in the UK need to be businesslike to succeed in the modern marketplace, however, it is also crucial that universities deal with the ethical issues that could arise from being involved in business and produce ethical codes. In order to help universities think about ethical issues, the Council for Industry and Higher Education, with the Higher Education Funding Council for England's support, is developing a guide for higher education institutions wishing to adopt a consistent approach to ethical issues.

An analysis of the threats that academic freedom faces is made in the light of the condemnation of the decision by Glasgow University to award a PhD to Richard Yuill, whose doctoral thesis described the 'positive' experiences of minors who had been involved in sexual contact with adults. It is contended that universities need to strongly defend the principal of academic freedom if research into difficult and troublesome areas is not to be watered down or abandoned altogether.

The chancellor of Oxford and Newcastle universities argues that universities must stand firm against intimidation, especially the violent intimidation employed by some in the animal rights debate, and be more open about their business links if they are to continue to offer a high level of scholarship. It is contended that if universities fail to stand up for themselves then they will be bowing down to the enemies of science and that if they are not open about their business links, then people will always be suspicious about what research work is being done and why.

University vice-chancellors and influential academics should be just as prepared as church leaders to take a public stand on moral issues and oppose policies that call into question the 'fundamental values' of higher education, according to a report produced by the Council for Industry and Higher Education. The report also argues that all higher education institutions should have a code of ethics, as well a building ethical, moral and social dimensions into all of their courses.

Fresh controversy over the commercial links of universities in the United Kingdom has erupted following complaints from staff in business schools that there is a growing threat to their independence and comments from Gordon Graham, leading philosopher and regius professor of moral philosophy at Aberdeen University, that academics should not be frightened of taking 'dirty' or tainted money to fund their research. The controversy sheds further light on the crisis of identity felt by many academics who feel caught between demands to attract corporate sponsorship in order to bolster tight university budgets and their own desire for free inquiry.

The current vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne argues that universities need to reclaim their role as instillers of values as well as being imparters of knowledge if they are not to risk producing some of the great idiots savants of history: sophisticated barbarians who possess terrifying knowledge and power but who are bereft of the guiding wisdom and values to use their abilities justly, prudently and wisely. It is argued that universities have profound obligations to discharge and that as essentially international institutions that are dedicated to the universality of truth, they are guilty of failing morally if they are unmoved by a sense of global educational responsibility.

All students should learn about ethics while they are at university, both through the curriculum and through extracurricular activities, in order to help them in both their public and private lives. It is argued that, if they do their job properly, universities can help students develop their character, enabling them to take on the ethical challenges and pressures they will face later in life.

This article examines the ethical aspects of academic celebrity, focusing on how scholars are increasingly courting media coverage of their work. Topics include how universities are supporting celebrity academics in order to attract more students.

The author argues that Cambridge University's plans to copyright all the work produced by academic faculty that is outside of the 'normal academic forms of publication' infringes on academic freedom. Topics include intellectual property rights, incentives for scientists, and the ethical aspects of publicly versus privately funded research.

Issues relating to claims that research had been going ahead at Staffordshire University without proper scrutiny or approval are examined in the light of a statement issued by the university that it had issued tough new rules on research ethics.

Middlesex University has turned down a chance to collaborate with Touro College in New York because of the latter's 'Jewishness'. Ken Goulding, vice-chancellor of Middlesex, wrote to Touro explaining that Middlesex was unlikely ever to enter into a partnership with Touro as a result of the concerns of colleagues regarding the Jewishness of the college and its academic provision. Goulding has expressed regret that his comments were misconstrued and that they in fact related to concerns about gender segregation in some of the teaching at Touro.