Indeed, the tension created by these conflicting roles is what helps even the most workaday academic retain some independence of thought and intellectual vigour.

ECONOMIST: The tensions of modern education

Acting general secretary, Paul Cottrell, said the union was keen to encourage collaboration between universities and industry but wanted to protect the independence of academic research.

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However, the authors of the DHI's academic paper say the independence debate is "an unwelcome note of uncertainty for the oil and gas industry", at a time when it thinks it has finally got an understanding in Whitehall of the need for tax and regulatory predictability.

BBC: Scottish independence: energy's alternating currents

Public exasperation with academic introversion may lead to a loss of some independence, the most precious right of academics in a free society.

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Meanwhile, Notre Dame maintains its football independence while aligning itself with more schools of similar standards of academic integrity.

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It combines the independence from University sponsorship of the Udacitys of the world with the academic street cred of, say, CourseRA. Marginal Revolution University (or MRU for short) has been developed by two GMU economic professors, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok.

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But Martin Evans, a British academic, is too good an historian to present a one-sided story of Algeria's quest for independence.

ECONOMIST: A conflict that still reverberates today