Was delighted to talk to staff at University of Greater Manchester (University of Greater Manchester) about writing research proposals. Very UK & Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council focused. Highlight for me was reconnecting with Anchal Garg, who I met about 15 years ago in India. Shout out to Paul Hollins, who helped me put

Last week, milauniversity was fortunate enough to have 50+ new international PhD/Masters students join us. I was delighted to say a few words of welcome. On this occasion it was about what to expect in Malaysia; its food, its culture, something of its history etc. I also managed

Research-integrity sleuths say their work is being ‘twisted’ to undermine science buff.ly/L4byree

Trust and Integrity: A Research Imperative - The Scholarly Kitchen buff.ly/CiO5m0d

Country amasses 30,000 researchers working on new technology, ‘dwarfing’ the talent pools of its nearest rivals: Country amasses 30,000 researchers working on new technology, ‘dwarfing’ the talent pools of its nearest rivals buff.ly/hIBzuFn

I first met Anchal in India, when she was a PhD student, being supervised by the Vice Chancellor (Balvinder Shukla). After the visit to Amity University, where I was a keynote speaker, I was made an Honorary Professor (and still am as far as I know). A few years later, Anchal (now Dr.

We were at a restaurant recently and this was the sign going to the kitchen area. Very strange (in Malaysia) that only Welsh people work there.

Great to see Paul Greatrix and his family in Malaysia. They have been on holiday and we managed to catch up for a meal before they flew back. I have worked with Paul for over 20 years, not always closely but our roles became more entwined as I moved to various positions at the

I was just looking back at my past papers and can't believe that this paper was published 10 years ago (seems like a few weeks). I don't do so much research these days on examination timetabling, but I have done my fair share in the past. I particularly like these "real world"

I have a research interest in Hyper-heuristics which goes back about 25 years. It is interesting to do a search every so often to look at the progress of the discipline. It is pleasing to see that over 2000 papers (Scopus indexed) have been published since the first article in

A view of (part) of milauniversity campus that not everybody sees as it involves going onto the roof (which is not as dangerous as it sounds)

I have just found out that the author of a tweet on X can hide replies. I also found out that you can look at the hidden replies. Who knew?

My writing platform of choice is latex/bibtex, using Overleaf. But, some co-authors prefer Word and some journals insist on a Word document. I am pretty proficient in Word but I wonder how others handle citations. As I said I use bibtex, but that is not possible in Word, so how

"How the Growth of Chinese Research Is Bringing Western Publishing to Breaking Point" buff.ly/YoLLttY

I know I keep posting pictures of the development of milauniversity's new sports stadium but it is changing almost daily and I think it is nice having a record. ... and to be honest, if I climb up to the roof and take a picture, you are going to see it 😂.

LLM Benchmarking Shows Capabilities Doubling Every 7 Months. By 2030, LLMs may do a month’s work in just hours buff.ly/7ngmXAD

Elsevier journal under fire over ‘AI-generated’ review comments buff.ly/ZJVHcu2

Quality of scientific papers questioned as academics ‘overwhelmed’ by the millions published: Widespread mockery of AI-generated rat with giant penis in one paper brings problem to public attention buff.ly/AoU1vUC

We may not be as prolific as some other institutions (yet!) but it is good to see that milauniversity are making steady progress. This is one of our latest (Elsevier | Scopus indexed) papers. buff.ly/PpEI1aE