The Open University

The environmental costs of Trump’s wall

13 February 2017

It looks like Donald Trump’s “great, great wall” is actually going to happen. Its likely impact on human society has been well-noted, but in the longer-term a barrier across an entire continent will also have severe ecological consequences. The US-Mexico border is around 1,900 miles (3,100 km) long and some of it has already been […]

Four ways Britain could guarantee the right to remain for EU citizens after Brexit

12 February 2017

During the second reading of the bill that will give the government the go-ahead to trigger Britain’s exit from the European Union, MPs had a chance to safeguard the rights of EU citizens after Brexit. An amendment, tabled by Labour MP Harriet Harman, would have forced the government to preserve the current residence rights of […]

OU celebrates impact of women in science

10 February 2017

Nations throughout the world will be celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2017 tomorrow (11 February 2017). Established by the United Nations (UN) in 2016, the occasion celebrates women and girls in science, and aims to eliminate gender inequality in academia, education, and industry. In honour of this, we are celebrating the achievements […]

Open University VC announces need for change

9 February 2017

The Open University has started a root and branch review of its work to ensure it is fit to face the growing challenges of the future. The University’s traditional market – part-time higher education – is under threat from a decline in student numbers and potential competition from new providers. The Higher Education and Research […]

The language of call centres and why it can “offend the ears”

9 February 2017

Most of us dread dealing with them, but call centres are hard to avoid as an increasingly widespread aspect of modern life. Now a new study from The Open University, published in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, has opened up the world of call centres and examined how pressurized call centre agents take short cuts to […]

Romania protests: what caused the biggest uprising since the fall of communism?

8 February 2017

Romania recently saw the largest demonstrations on its streets since the fall of communism. On February 5, more than half a million people took part in protests across the country. The marches came in response to an emergency decree passed by the recently elected PSD-ALDE government – a coalition of the PSD (Social Democratic Party) […]

Aerial view of housing estate. Image: Thinkstock

Housing White Paper: affordability problem will not change, says OU expert

7 February 2017

Lecturer in Economics, Alan Shipman, comments on the Government’s Housing White Paper, published on Tuesday 7 February 2017: Earnings have risen too slowly “The Housing White Paper pinpoints the main problem – that average house prices have risen to eight times earnings, this ratio doubling in some areas since 1997 – then addresses the wrong […]

Bercow should see and speak only as directed by MPs: New Speaker of the House of Commons needed, says OU expert

7 February 2017

Reader in Government, Richard Heffernan, argues that John Bercow has overstepped the mark with his comments on Donald Trump. Highly political and too public a speakership “First elected as a Conservative MP in 1997, being reelected as such in 2001 and 2005, John Bercow becoming Speaker in 2009, ceased being a Conservative. It has long […]

Religious literary report receives OU input in Parliament

3 February 2017

The importance of religious literacy in a post-Brexit world was the topic of an All Party Parliamentary Group debate recently, with contributions from The Open University. As the Brexit debate continued to draw heated exchanges in the Commons chamber on Tuesday 31 January, John Wolffe (Professor of Religious History and Associate Dean for Research Scholarship […]

Truthiness and alternative facts: meaning is a moveable feast

31 January 2017

Sales of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four have apparently surged since Kellyanne Conway introduced the phrase “alternative facts” into public discourse. For many, the term is reminiscent of Orwell’s dystopian Newspeak, the imaginary language used by the novel’s totalitarian government to control the way the population thinks. It also allows for the doublethink of the slogans […]

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