Leading academics have launched a campaign to protect UK academic freedoms, scholars and students in the face of intensifying internationalisation. They say universities should be more accountable to staff and students when it comes to the partnerships they enter into. They have created a  model code of conduct  and are seeking buy-in from the British education community – universities and education institutions as well as Governments and the bodies they work with.

After three years at the helm of the School of Advanced Study, University of London, Professor Rick Rylance has decided to step down as dean and retire at the end of September. In a message to the School’s staff, he thanked everyone for their support. “I’ve really enjoyed my time with you as dean and before that as director of the Institute of English Studies,” he wrote. “It has been creative, rewarding, and above all special, as SAS is. As ever this is mainly due to the quality of the people among whom one works.”

The Layers of London website , which peels back the capital’s story with maps and local data to enrich public understanding of the past, has released a new map revealing the slave owners of 19th-century London . 

Professor Jill Kraye, Emeritus Professor of the History of Renaissance Philosophy and former Librarian at the Warburg Institute in the School of Advanced Study, University of London, has been awarded the Serena Medal by the British Academy for her scholarship on Renaissance philosophy and humanism and the later European influence of classical philosophy.