Dear Gavin Brown, Sarah Boyack, Alison Johnstone, Kezia Dugdale, Cameron Buchanan and Neil Findlay, I write to ask your help to preserve a secure future for Scottish Universities. Academics for all UK universities, including those in Scotland, have faced falling wages and falling pensions over many years. "The real wages of academics have fallen by 13% since 2008, one of the largest sustained wage cuts any profession has suffered since the Second World War." So wrote Will Hutton in the Guardian, October 2013 [1]. In 2011, Universities UK imposed vastly reduced pensions on new hires. Old hires who pay into the pension fund for forty years receive a pension of one-half their final salary; new hires who do the same receive a pension of one-half their average salary. Basing pensions on average rather than final salary may be sensible, but to do so with no adjustment in multiplier suggests employers are using this as an excuse to slip in a large cut; it means new hires receive about 2/3 the benefits received by old hires. All staff also suffered other cuts to pensions: additional caps and less good adjustment for inflation. At the time, it was predicted that within a few years old hires would be moved to the inferior scheme for new hires, and that is what has now come to pass. [2] Universities UK argue that the reductions are necessary to avoid a deficit, but their claim has been widely criticised. Notably, a group of prominent statisticians point out Universities UK inflated the deficit by assuming a buoyant economy when predicting future salaries but assuming a recession when predicting investment returns. [3] A strong university system is one of the jewels in the crown of the UK, and particularly for Scotland. That excellence is a huge driver of innovation and growth. If Scotland reduces its investment in universities, it won't be long before we feel that loss throughout the economy. [4,5] Scotland has a University system second to none, and to keep it strong we need pay and pensions that attract and retain the best minds throughout the world. We must have a system that is fair to both: old hires must retain attractive conditions; new hires must have the bad deal imposed on them in 2011 rolled back. Speaking as an old hire, I'd settle for a small cut in pension if it meant bringing new hires onto the same level: we must keep the system strong for the future. The UCU has gone on strike over the issue (suspension of assessment, which it hopes will minimise disruption for students). But UCU is unlikely to succeed without political support. I write to ask you, as my representative in the Scottish parliament, will you direct the Scottish Funding Council to make fair treatment for academics in Scottish Universities, both new hires and old, a top priority? Thank you for your consideration. Yours, -- Philip Wadler Professor of Theoretical Computer Science School of Informatics University of Edinburgh [1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/13/england-leave-funding-universities-students [2] http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/nov/23/oxbridge-pensions-academics-protest-united [3] http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/oct/29/marking-boycott-why-are-academics-protesting-about-pensions [4] http://www.universities-scotland.ac.uk/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=156&cntnt01returnid=23 [5] Royal Society of Edinburgh, Enlightening the Constitutional Debate, Science and Higher Education, p177--198, http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/events/reports/2013-2014/The%20Book.pdf
SNAPL provides a biennial venue to focus on big-picture questions, long-running research programs, and experience reports in programming languages. The ideal SNAPL paper takes one of two forms:
Examples include papers that
- A promising idea that would benefit from discussion and feedback.
- A paper about an ongoing research project that might not be accepted at a traditional conference.
SNAPL is interested in all aspects of programming languages. The PC is broad and open-minded and receptive to interesting ideas that will provoke thought and discussion.
- lay out a research roadmap
- summarize experiences
- present negative results
- discuss design alternatives
Interesting papers would combine the specific with the general. Submissions are limited to five pages (excluding bibliography), and must be formatted using ACM SIG style. The final papers can be up to 10 pages in length. Accepted papers will be published on an open-access site, probably arXiv CoRR.
To encourage authors to submit only their best work, each person can be an author or co-author of a single paper only. SNAPL will prefer experienced presenters and each submission must indicate on the submission site which co-author will present the paper at the conference.
SNAPL also accepts one-page abstracts. Abstracts will be reviewed lightly and all submitted abstracts will be published on the SNAPL 2015 web page. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to give a 5-minute presentation at the gong show at the conference.
SNAPL is unaffiliated with any organization. It is a conference for the PL community organized by the PL community.
Important Dates
Submission: January 6, 2015
Decisions announced: February 20, 2015
Final versions due: March 20, 2015
Conference: May 3-6, 2015
In a BBC interview just the other night, a spanish minister being
interviewed by Kirsty Wark despite being invited three or four times
refused to say that Spain would attempt to veto Scottish
membership. And the reason for that of course is that the Spanish
government have already said that in the circumstance of a consented
democratic referendum, as they put it, Spain would have nothing to say
about it.
We can go through legal opinion and expert opinion as much as we like.
I think the answer is in four figures: 1, 20, 25, and 60.
1% is the percentage of Scotland's population compared to the European Union.
20% is the percentage of the fish stocks of the entire European Union.
25% is the percentage of the renewable energy of the entire European Union offshore.
And 60% is the oil reserves that Scotland has.
Anyone who believes that a country [with these resources] is not
going to be welcome in the wider Europe doesn't understand the process
by which Europe accepts democratic results and that Scotland has a
huge amount of attractiveness to the rest of the European continent.
Pick a random person from somewhere on this planet. Ask them to name an alcoholic drink from Scotland, and it’s very likely they’ll reply “Whisky”. Ask them to name one from Denmark, and they’ll probably be tongue-tied. (They could answer “Gammel Dansk” or “Akvavit”, but they’re just not nearly as famous as whisky.)
Now repeat the exercise, but ask about a food item. Again, it’s likely they’ll have heard of haggis but that they’ll be struggling to name anything from Denmark.
Now try a musical instrument. Bagpipes and … sorry, cannot think of a Danish one.
A sport? Scotland has golf, of course. Denmark can perhaps claim ownership of handball, but it’s not associated with Denmark in the way that golf makes everybody think of Scotland.
A piece of clothing? Everybody knows the kilt, but I’d be very surprised if anybody can name one from Denmark.
A monster? Everybody knows what’s lurking in Loch Ness, but is there anything scary in Denmark?
The only category where Denmark perhaps wins is toys, where Lego surely is more famous than anything from Scotland (but many people don’t know Lego is from Denmark).
Denmark is also well-known for butter and bacon, of course, but these aren’t Danish in origin or strongly associated with Denmark in people’s minds.
Several famous writers and philosophers were Danish (e.g., Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard), but Scotland can arguably list more names of the same calibre, and the Scottish ones wrote in English, which makes them much more accessible to the outside world.
Scottish universities are also ranked better than the Danish ones in recent World rankings.
Finally, Scotland has lots of oil and wind, water and waves. Denmark has some, but not nearly as much, and most other countries have less than Denmark.
Because of all of this, I don’t worry about the details when it comes to Scottish independence. If Denmark can be one of the richest countries on the planet, of course Scotland can be one too.
Yes, there might be a few tough years while the rUK are in a huff and before everything has been sorted out. And of course there will be occasional crises in the future, like in any other country.
However, unless you subscribe to the school that Denmark and other small countries like Norway and Switzerland are complete failures because they don’t have nuclear weapons and a permanent seat on the UN’s Security Council, there’s simply no reason to assume Scotland won’t do exceptionally well as an independent country in the longer term.
So I’m not worried. Of course there are many details to sort out, but at the end of the day everything will be fine. Scotland will be a hugely successful independent country. Dinna fash yersel!
As Scotland contemplates independence, some, such as Paul Krugman, have questioned the "economics".
Would Scotland, going it alone, risk a decline in standards of living or a fall in GDP? There are, to be sure, risks in any course of action: should Scotland stay in the UK, and the UK leave the EU, the downside risks are, by almost any account, significantly greater. If Scotland stays in the UK, and the UK continues in its policies which have resulted in growing inequality, even if GDP were slightly larger, the standards of living of most Scots could fall.
Cutbacks in UK public support to education and health could force Scotland to face a set of unpalatable choices - even with Scotland having considerable discretion over what it spends its money on.
But there is, in fact, little basis for any of the forms of fear-mongering that have been advanced. Krugman, for instance, suggests that there are significant economies of scale: a small economy is likely, he seems to suggest, not to do well. But an independent Scotland will still be part of Europe, and the great success of the EU is the creation of a large economic zone.
Besides, small political entities, like Sweden, Singapore, and Hong Kong have prospered, while much larger entities have not. By an order of magnitude, far more important is pursuit of the right policies.
Another example of a non-issue is the currency. There are many currency arrangements that would work. Scotland could continue using sterling - with or without England's consent.
Because the economies of England and Scotland are so similar, a common currency is likely to work far better than the euro - even without shared fiscal policy. But many small countries have managed to have a currency of their own - floating, pegged, or "managed."
