Hetan Shah

@hetanshah

Chief Executive, The British Academy Chair, Our World in Data Board, National Audit Office Visiting Professor in Practice, LSE Visiting Professor, Kings College London Fellow, Birkbeck College Views my own

1,500 Following20,757 Followers30,204 Posts

Website Website Website Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and hetanshah.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 27d

‘The report warns that the decline in mixed contracts “weakens the traditional teaching-research nexus”—the idea that teaching and research are mutually reinforcing activities.’ www.researchprofessional.com/news-article...

British Academy urges
'intervention' over slowing academic pipeline
By Isaac Barbosa
15th July 2026
Photo of people around a table

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 27d

Our third briefing looks at staff trends in relation to undergrad numbers in areas we had previously identified as shrinking - languages; smaller subjects such as Linguistics, Anthropology, Classics, Theology and Religious Studies; and provision in Wales www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r...

The British Academy
Mapping SHAPE academic staff briefing:
Staff numbers are falling in some cold spot areas

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 27d

In perhaps our most devastating briefing we find early career staff in the humanities as a whole have declined by 20% since 2016/17. Between 23/24 and 24/25 early career staff across all SHAPE subject areas fell by 6%, (from 52,795 to 49,410 FPE). That is the pipeline for our disciplines

The British Academy
Mapping SHAPE academic staff briefing:
Pathways for early career
SHAPE
academics are in decline

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 27d

We’ve crunched the data and it shows teaching only staff in social science, humanities and arts went from 34% in 2012/13 to 42% by 24/25 and that this has been concentrated at early and mid career level www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r...

The British Academy
Mapping SHAPE academic staff briefing:
Rise of teaching only contracts has reshaped the UK's academic workforce

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 27d

It seems price does matter when it comes to AI: Chinese models have overtaken US models in token consumption this year www.ft.com/content/9c8f...

Chinese models have overtaken their
US counterparts this year
Weekly usage in 2026 of top nine models on OpenRouter (tn tokens)

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 27d

‘The number of ships hit in the timeframe has surpassed that of even the Iran-Iraq tanker wars in the 1980s’ Ukraine disrupting Russian fuel and ammunition supply chains www.ft.com/content/6d5e...

Ukraine said it has hit more than 110
Russian vessels in nine days in the Sea of Azov, making it one of the most
concentrated series of attacks on shipping ever to take place.

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 28d

Good commentary here from Justine Greening

Justine Greening, the former Conservative education secretary who made social mobility in education a priority while in office, said: "Having a range of university courses accessible to a wide range of students from all backgrounds is essential for social mobility, especially for students now staying closer to home to do their degree, due to cost of living pressures.
"While courses respond to changing student demand, universities need to take real care that cuts avoid having a
detrimental impact on choices for students from more deprived backgrounds."

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 28d

So a key question now is whether the new @andyburnham.bsky.social led administration will take the higher education funding crisis seriously as a threat to his aspirations around regional growth and skills…

"Universities will be central to achieving the regional growth aspirations of our new prime minister, but they are suffering a major financial emergency," Shah said.
"The result is greater inequalities, fewer opportunities for students and the gradual erosion of the world-leading research our economy, democracy and global standing rely on.
«The alarm bells are ringing, and policymakers should treat these findings as a wake-up call before more lasting damage is done."

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 28d

‘The subjects with the biggest staff cuts were social work (-9%), English and classics (both -8%), anthropology (-7%) and linguistics (-6%)… Education and social work together had nearly 1,000 job losses, English 440, media and journalism 235, performing arts 230, languages 225 and law 215.’

Graph showing size of staff cuts by subjects

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· 29d

‘War is becoming less instrumental in settling disputes, more prolonged, and more intractable.’ Read the latest paper from our Global (Dis)Order programme which explores how technology is changing the nature of war www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/62...

The British
Academy
CARNEGIE
ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE
Global (DisOrder international policy programme
The democratisation and diversification of war
Reflections on the effects of technological change and normative retrenchment on the character of contemporary war
Mats Berdal, King's College London

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 12

Found this interesting on Burnham’s focus on the ‘unaccountable state’. It’s fair to flag as it’s easy to feel modern society is Kafkaesque. But curious how he’ll rise to the challenge of it. Devolution can help a bit but only a bit… 🧵 www.thetimes.com/article/1167...

"One of the big problems now,"
Burnham told me before his election, "is the unaccountable state ... Everything through arm's-length bodies. Everything pushed outside of democratic oversight: academies trusts, the Environment Agency. Private agencies, water. It's a bigger issue than gets spoken about.
There's an unaccountable bureaucracy."
He spoke of the death of Awaab Ishak, the two-year-old who died in a mould-ridden Rochdale flat owned by a housing association that had kicked the local councillors off its board as soon as David Cameron's government gave it the power to do so. Hence, by the way, why

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 12

Super interesting - whilst absolute numbers of those suffering dementia are rising due to ageing populations, this analysis suggests in the US dementia rates have been steadily declining with each cohort. So there are things we are doing right that can help economist.com/briefing/202...

Cognitive coup
United States, % with dementia by age
Selected birth cohorts

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 11

Also a choice quote from David Spiegelhalter!

. "This story reflects our experience that a major driver of coincidences and serendipity is when people who don't know each other start talking," Spiegelhalter said.
"That's why coincidences never happen to me: I don't talk to anyone."

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 11

We will miss Bonnie Tyler ❤️🔥

Her "most outrageous" act occurred during an interview in Denmark when, convinced her big 198os hair was a wig, a rock critic gave it a painful yank. "I was so angry I grabbed him by the balls and said: "Are yours real?' My mother would have really told me off for that."

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 11

I do love seeing how countries change their inflation baskets as a chance to do some cod psychology on the temperament of a nation. This is Japan where tights, stockings and ties are out, and pet insurance, pineapples and protein powder are in www.ft.com/content/af8a...

For the first time since 1948, the tie will no longer appear on the list of 589 goods used to calculate Japan's consumer price index, a gauge of public spending behaviour that is updated every five years to reflect underlying shifts of modern life.

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 11

That’s from the World Economic Forum who have held various governance initiatives such as this Global Future Council on Good Governance…

WØRLD
ECONOMIC
FORUM
Global Future
Çouncils
Network of Global Future
Councils
Global Future Council on Good Governance

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 11

Er what now?

The trustees are also considering plans to change longstanding bylaws, including provisions that currently allow Schwab to appoint a family member to the WEF board.

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 11

At least the debates about her ‘woke’ version of the Odyssey is getting people to understand the complexity of translation. Whatever gets you there, she says

The silver lining, she believes, is that the argument has at least encouraged people to reflect on the difficult - and creative - role of a translator. "So many people who are primarily anglophone don't think about translation and how impossible it is. So if the ridiculous gender stuff got you there it's fine.

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 11

She is asked if Trump identifies more with Achilles or Odysseus. She says he is Agamemnon!

baklava and a strong black coffee for me, I ask which of Homer's heroes the US
president might identify with? The warrior Achilles? Or the wily Odysseus?
Wilson does not miss a beat. "He [Trump] definitely wants to live for ever, which Achilles chooses not to, as does Odysseus." For her there is only one Greek hero with Trump's qualities: Agamemnon, the proud and petulant supreme leader of the Greeks besieging Troy, who expected his allies to bring tribute at every turn - and lost his temper when they did not.
"Trump is more of an Agamemnon character. He's amassing wealth as well as social influence... In his mind if he ever makes a mistake it was Zeus's fault, not his."

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 11

This week classicist @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social has Lunch with the FT. She is criticised by trolls for an alleged ‘woke’ translation of the Odyssey and I love she deals with them by suggesting they read the original in Greek ❤️🤣 www.ft.com/content/3edb...

The countdown to Nolan's film has led to a new online onslaught. Wilson left X a long time ago "because it was full of discourse about the western canon and masculinity and how people like me have destroyed it all". She tartly urges her trolls to read the original in Greek. For now, though, she is

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 10

Sobering to see in one chart how June temperature records have been broken this year in so many European countries www.ft.com/content/5f06...

June temperature records tumble across
Europe

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 9

‘Russia’s fuel crisis has brought the war home to more people than ever before. The shortages directly affect some 50mn Russians, or 35 per cent of the population, according to an FT analysis’ www.ft.com/content/954c...

The pressure began in May, when Ukraine significantly stepped up its drone campaign against Russian oil infrastructure. It has now hit Russia's 10 biggest refineries, including the largest one at Omsk -
2,500km from the front line and accounting for about 7 per cent of the country's refining capacity - on Monday.
"There are simply many more drones at one target now than before, physically punching through the defences, like a medieval cavalry wedge," said a senior Russian energy executive. "The defences that used to work cannot sustain such pressure. This is the new normal."

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 9

We’ve published a great new paper on the role of hypocrisy in international relations. TL:DR don’t claim moral superiority if you can’t live up to it. Part of our Global (Dis)Order programme with @carnegieendowment.org www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/62...

The
British
Academy
CARNEGIE
ENDOWMENT FOR
INTERNATIONAL PEACE
Global (Dis)Order
international policy programme
The costs of moral pretence: how hypocrisy undermines international
order
Matias Spektor, Fundação Getúlio Vargas

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 9

Sources of UK soft power have been taken for granted or ‘actively squandered’ over the last decade

Soft power runs short
The UK has traditionally drawn its soft power from sources as diverse as Britain's cultural exports and its reputation for upholding democratic values, as well as the country's seat at the table in forums setting worldwide rules and standards.
But in the past 10 years, this too has been in relative decline, with aspects of British influence taken for granted - if not actively squandered - by successive governments.
Tighter visa restrictions have led to a fall in the number of overseas postgraduate researchers coming to the UK, while cash-strapped British universities have closed courses and reduced staff.

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 9

Big read from @lucyfisher.ft.com & Charles Clover on the weakening of UK’s hard and soft power. Soundings from diplomats show ‘not only has much of the country’s military firepower withered but its image across the world is also much diminished’ www.ft.com/content/17eb...

Graph showing UK armed forces have halved in size since the end of the Cold War

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 4

The Guardian should replace its ‘Dining across the divide’ feature with one which updates us on whether the couple from last month’s ’You be the judge’ column are still together. Who’s with me?

LIFESTYLE
ADVICE
You be the judge
Should my girlfriend stop leaving piles of her hair and nails around the flat?
Interviews: Georgina Lawton

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 4

Wonderful line from Esther Freud in this interview www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

What does love feel like?
Safety or alarm, I can never decide which.

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 4

Existing Ministers who have done little on devolution until now suddenly showing an interest!

"However, they have recently been joined by a number of ministers seeking to present themselves as those seeking to give up powers held by their departments but who have made little or no effort to do so up till now...I just hope they have the zeal of a convert if they do indeed remain in government," he added.
One MP said it is "proof positive that shame is not a requirement for high office"

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 3

Why it matters that @andyburnham.bsky.social is an English Lit graduate. Thoughtful piece from @tanjilrashid.bsky.social magazine.newstatesman.com/2026/07/01/a...

one of Burnham's favourites: "My father still reads the dictionary every day. He says your life depends on your power to master words."
The words, originally Arthur Scargill's, recall a working-class culture of literary emancipation. Labour was once steeped in it: a culture of subscription libraries, talks at the Workers' Educational Association and shelves creaking beneath the ever-voluminous John Ruskin (the Victorian art critic was the writer most read by the first batch of Labour MPs). So many politicians on the left were formed by this tradition.
The degree-less James Callaghan was as partial to poems as Burnham. His favourite was Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" - the poem with which Burnham's beloved "V.", set in a ruined Leeds cemetery, is in fiery dialogue.
Middlemarch, Burnham's favourite novel, also gestures to that old-school inheritance.
It's amazing, in 2026, to have a leader in contact with this rich proletarian tradition.

Hetan Shah@hetanshah· Jul 3

Wowsers. Even though causality is always complex, that’s a big effect. From @soumayakeynes.ft.com column on the interactions between weight and the labour market www.ft.com/content/a7a9...