A leading research-intensive university, the University of Birmingham is a vibrant, global community and an internationally-renowned institution, in the top 20 in the UK and 100 globally. With approximately 28,000 students and 6,000 members of staff, its work brings people from more than 150 countries to Birmingham.
The University of Birmingham has been challenging and developing great minds for more than a century. Characterised by a tradition of innovation, research at Birmingham has broken new ground, pushed forward the boundaries of knowledge and made an impact on people’s lives.
We continue this tradition today and have ambitions for a future that will embed our work and recognition of the Birmingham name on the international stage.
Universities are never complete. They develop as new challenges and opportunities occur. At the University of Birmingham we innovate, we push the frontiers of understanding; we ask new research questions, we turn theory through experiment into practice – because that’s what great universities do.
The issue of teaching character, which until now has mainly been debated within the ivory towers of academia, is suddenly all the rage in policy circles in the UK, in the wake of the report by the All-Party…
Cancer targets young and old.
National Cancer Institute
In spite of a major drive to develop targeted drugs to “personalise” cancer treatments, children with cancer still have to put up with drugs that have remained largely unchanged for decades. Currently…
James Dyson’s decision to fund a robotics laboratory at Imperial College London may not lead to the super advanced robot friends of our dreams, but what he has planned could make robotic domestic appliances…
We don’t like human meat, said dino.
davidberkowitz
Despite lack of evidence or logic, some people would like kids to be taught as fact that the Earth was created by a supernatural being some 6,000 years ago. That is the case put forth by Christian Schools…
A militiaman on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq where al-Qaeda controls large swaths of territory.
AP Photo
In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama noted that the threat from al-Qaeda had evolved with affiliates of the terror group taking root in places as diverse as Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and…
HMP Oakwood, the vanguard of British carceral design.
John M/Creative Commons.
In the first few weeks of 2014, private security company G4S has repeatedly had to deny reports of full-scale riots at the UK’s newest prison, HMP Oakwood, near Wolverhampton. The prison has experienced…
Quality education is still not for all.
Chris Radburn/PA Wire/Press Association Images
Akshat Rathi, The Conversation and Gemma Ware, The Conversation
Immigrant students and those from poor backgrounds living in developed countries are being failed by the school system and face a high risk of marginalisation, according to a UNESCO report. Data from the…
English and French clubs are sprinting away from the rest.
Joe Giddens/PA
The Heineken Cup, European rugby union’s premier competition, faces an uncertain future. English clubs continue to woo teams from France and Wales into a rival competition, with promises of increased revenue…
Ugandan troops being trained by US Army instructors in 2008.
US Dept of Defense
As the rival factions in the current conflict in South Sudan are about to sign a ceasefire deal in Addis Ababa, concerns remain that Uganda’s military intervention in the South Sudanese civil war continue…
You can now pay your university tuition in Bitcoin.
zcopley
Cumbria University is to allow some students to pay their tuition fees in bitcoin, the digital currency hitherto more associated with drugs and guns. But target students probably don’t already have ready…
I’ll be right with you sir, just after I put this cup away. This is a cup, right?
garrettc
January is a time when many of us seek to better ourselves. We want to learn a new skill or improve an existing one. A network designed especially for robots, RoboEarth, is being tested in the Netherlands…
As I get out and about in the health service I never cease to be amazed by the quality of care that is provided every day. When we get it wrong, the implications can be catastrophic – and we need to understand…
Ever since the time of the guillotine, doctors have been at the centre of the death penalty. Joseph Guillotin, the physician who suggested the device be used in 18th-century France, was actually against…
On 18 November 2013, the Italian right-wing leader Silvio Berlusconi dissolved his party, Popolo della Libertà (PDL –- People of Freedom), the founding of which he had announced to his supporters in Milan…
Something strange, or perhaps rather unexpected, has occurred over the past few years: the media and politicians alike have been highlighting the strength of British manufacturing. Stranger yet, perhaps…
Ariel Sharon, right, with Menachem Begin.
Israeli GPO
To his critics he will forever be the “Butcher of Beirut”, the master of Israel’s disastrous invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the man responsible for the horrendous massacre of hundreds of Palestinians…
Went to CES, couldn’t decide, so bought the lot.
Robert Scoble
This week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has offered up a veritable smörgåsbord of wearable technology. We’ve seen devices of all kinds to tempt us into this new age. So now is the time to decide…
Ethical issues are rife in medicine. Arguments about abortion, organ donation and euthanasia regularly take their turn in the headlines, normally prompted by media scare-stories or an arising controversy…
Get used to it: 100-year sentences enjoy popular support.
Amanda Slater
David Cameron plunged into the criminal punishment debate recently by throwing his support around proposals to impose incredibly long sentences (100 years or so) for some murders as a way to circumvent…
Now you see it … now you don’t.
Owen Humphreys/PA Wire
George Osborne has warned that a further £25bn of spending cuts will be needed after the next election – with about half of those cuts to be made from the social security budget, largely from cuts in benefits…
Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity, University of Birmingham