With new pencil case & shiny shoes, I’m on my way to UCL for the first proper day in my new job: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/steapp/news/2022/dec/metrics-metascience-and-now-ucl-steapp-welcomes-james-wilsdon Excited to get started & looking forward to exploring @RoRInstitute collaborations with metascientific fellow travellers at UCL & STEaPP!
From metrics to metascience—and now to UCL: STEaPP welcomes James Wilsdon

We are delighted to announce that James Wilsdon will be joining UCL in January 2023 as Professor of Research Policy in the Department for Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP).

UCL Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy
I’ve a new email — [email protected] — & am even on the website. Embarrassingly though, UCL’s shadowy “webmasters” have awarded me an entirely undeserved & unwanted knighthood — apparently a recognised glitch in the HR software that “upgrades” random members of the professoriate 😂 https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=JRWIL35
Iris View Profile

This adds piquancy to the “golden triangle” that has long dominated UK HE & research. I never even heard of this hack in 7 years at Sheffield. Let alone Sussex. Now I’m questioning everything. Are all academic gongs the fruit of the glitch? Are they all just faking it ‘til they make it?
Does the honorific algorithm only err in service of the patriarchy? Is it dishing out Damehoods in equal measure?
And as @jackstilgoe reminded me, what of the silent army of long-serving UCL profs, appointed before this twisted digital genie was ever unleashed? Shouldn’t they come first? I feel a fifth fight brewing… #gongsforall