Research and Scholarship: Simple, Independent, Humble
Your Scholarly Digest 15th January, 2026

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Hi Scholar,

Almost exactly nine years ago — on 11 January 2017 — the Wellcome Trust announced that it would accept preprints in grant applications and end-of-grant reports. That small shift had a significant impact on the way knowledge-in-the-making is circulated. There are, of course, the obvious benefits of rapid dissemination and early feedback. But for us, what we appreciate most about preprints is the way they enable open conversation — offering opportunities for debate and discussion beyond the closed chambers of peer review.

In this sense, preprints remind us of how letters were once used by early scholars to exchange, debate, and develop ideas. Preprints — like letters — share a certain simplicity in the conditions through which knowledge and research come to be. It is a theme that, perhaps, undergirds much of today’s Letter.

BRAIN FOOD

On Elegant and Simple Beauty

A somewhat large, relatively old book caught our eye one afternoon in late-August as we browsed the dusty bookshelves in a quiet corner of a second-hand bookshop. The most prominent writing on the spine read "Mid-Century" prompting us to remove the book from the shelf and revealing its much longer title:

MIDCENTURY: The Social Implications of Scientific Progress

Scholar, as you can imagine, our curiosity was aroused. Opening the book to the contents page - while breathing in the grassy, slightly sweet smell of well made, aged paper - our eyes fell upon a list of the most intriguing chapter titles. The first chapter, titled The State of Science is the subject of this weeks Brain Food.

The book is a verbatim record of speeches, conversations and presentations conducted at a conference held at MIT in the spring of 1949. The point of this conference, as you might have guessed from the title, was to examine more closely the changes science was experiencing since the turn of the 20th century. John Burchard - Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences - edited the text, compiling transcripts into chapters and connecting them by writing transitions to make a coherent whole.

Chapter 1 begins in a rather odd fashion. Before the opening speeches are printed, which explicitly address the questions to be tackled during the conference, Burchard dedicates three pages of writing to a description of the physical location where the conference takes place. In doing so he provides the reader with rich contextual information about how an academic of his time viewed problem-solving - a cornerstone of research - without speaking of research itself.

The newly constructed Rockwell Cage, we are told, is a modest structure with a recycled WWII aircraft hanger for a roof, with rolled earth floors and large windows protected from damage by the hanging of fishnets. To Burchard's eye these features have:

"an elegant and simple beauty serving their natural functions"

He goes on to describe how the structure - originally built for sport - was made suitable for the upcoming conference.

"Fortunately the ingenuity of one of the architects, long demonstrated in matters of this kind, was at command... who prefers to achieve his effects by simple means"

A simple curtain was hung to provide shade, basic tiered seats and platforms were constructed, and trees, shrubs and flowers were planted and placed around the inside of the structure. This uncomplicated structure, made from basic and recycled materials and adorned with trees and flowers in bloom where scholars will gather to discuss the implications of scientific progress is, if nothing else, a charming image. Indeed it is difficult to read Burchard's appreciation for the beauty of simple solutions achieved with minimal equipment and not be charmed yourself.

Now, what has all this got to do with scholarship? By quite literally setting the scene for the conference, he shows an appreciation for simplicity and the elegance that can be found in it — something that is no longer common in contemporary scholarship. This worldview was not unique to Burchard: it is the logical result of the early 20th century's research culture, where scholars worked with limited financial support, inexpensive equipment, and little institutional oversight.

Despite these conditions, or because of them, science had flourished. Scholars achieved great effects by modest means by relying on their ingenuity and creativity. Burchard’s account, however, suggests another important factor was at play: the very ability itself to appreciate the beauty and elegance of simple solutions. It it worth noting that despite the simplicity of their solutions, the problems these scholars worked on were not simple in and of themselves. The manufacture of insulin, classification of neurons, quantum mechanics and the role of CO2 in warming the Earth's atmosphere are just a few examples of the sophisticated research conducted during the first half of the 20th century.

Reading this text it is difficult to avoid the feeling that we modern scholars are poorer than Burchard and his contemporaries. This is not to say that complex solutions are never required or complexity does not possess its own special beauty. Rather, it is an invitation to rediscover the culture of those scholars who laid the foundations that contemporary research rests upon. There are lessons to be learnt from our intellectual history. A revival in our collective ability to appreciate simple elegance in research may aid us in facing the complex problems in the first half of the 21st century more than we expect.

CURRENT AFFAIRS

Politicisation of the University

Two things that have happened recently in the UK caught our eye.

The first is the government’s decision to rejoin the EU’s Erasmus student exchange programme from 2027. For readers less familiar with European policy, Erasmus allows students to study at universities across Europe as if they were domestic students, paying home fees and receiving grants to help with living costs. A Dutch student studying in the UK under Erasmus, for example, pays the same tuition as a British student — not international fees.

When Boris Johnson’s government delivered Brexit, the UK left Erasmus, citing that it was not “value for money”. Now Keir Starmer’s Labour government is reversing course and preparing to pay £570m to re-enter the scheme, arguing that rebuilding ties with Europe is necessary for skills, growth, and international cooperation. For a government that has, in recent months, adopted increasingly tough rhetoric on immigration, this move has pricked our ears. Erasmus is, after all, a programme built on mobility — on young people crossing borders to study, live, and work elsewhere. To us, this reads less like a simple reversal of immigration policy and more like a selective reopening: one that welcomes European students, skills, and future workers through universities, even as other forms of migration remain politically constrained.

The second development is smaller in scale, but just as symbolically powerful. One of Cambridge University’s oldest colleges, Trinity Hall, has decided to target elite private schools such as Eton, Winchester, and St Paul’s Girls’ School in its recruitment efforts. As the Guardian reported, the college approved a policy to approach a select group of private schools in order to improve the “quality” of applicants, citing concerns about “reverse discrimination”.

For context, the fifty independent schools being targeted by Trinity Hall are not ordinary institutions: they charge fees of more than £25,000 a year, educate a tiny fraction of Britain’s population, and yet supply a disproportionate share of its political, legal, and economic elites. They are, quite literally, the elite of the elite. Targeting them appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to protect social advantage at a time when universities face growing pressure to widen access.

Taken together, these two developments are telling of the role universities are now playing in British politics. It is not uncommon to think of universities as political spaces: places where students debate, protest, organise, and test out ideas. But what these recent developments suggest is something different. Universities are becoming politicised. That is, the institutions themselves are being mobilised as instruments of policy and power. The return to Erasmus is hardly just about student exchange. Instead, it turns universities into instruments of foreign policy, economic strategy, and managed mobility. Likewise, Trinity Hall’s recruitment strategy is not just a reconfiguration of admissions policy; it is an intervention into the reproduction of class and power, deciding whose backgrounds are most worthy of elite credentials.

In this way, while universities have long been political sites, what we are now seeing is the political mobilisation of higher education institutions themselves. They are being wielded as mechanisms through which borders are softened or hardened, elites are selected, and social futures are distributed.

RESOURCE

A Guide for Independent Scholars

This week’s resource is a text that has given both of us – The Critic and The Tatler, co-authors of The Scholarly Letter – a great deal of courage to continue the work we do as independent scholars, and we wanted to share it with you.

When we decided to pursue scholarly writing professionally and independently, we were full of anxiety about whether it would actually be possible to make a living from this work. We will be honest: we have not yet quite managed to do so. But we are working towards it every day, with growing confidence and resolve.

The National Coalition of Independent Scholars’ Guide for Independent Scholars has been one of the texts that has sustained us along this path. It has shown us that an intellectually serious life outside the university is not only possible but real, that others have walked this road before, and that there are ways of making it viable.

If you are feeling unsure about academia but also not willing to give up your scholarship, you may find comfort – and perhaps courage – in this text too.

OPPORTUNITIES

Funded PhDs, Postdocs and Academic Job Openings

Special thanks to Laura, a Scholar Square member, for bringing the CHORAL project to our attention!

• Postdoctoral, Research, and Faculty Positions @ University of Houston, USA: click here

• PhD, Postdoctoral, and Research Positions @ Uppsala University, Sweden: click here

• PhD, Postdoctoral, and Faculty Positions @ University of Copenhagen, Denmark: click here

• 14 PhD research grants through the CHORAL Project across 6 European universities (Applications close on the 17th of January!): click here

• 2026 Public Thinking Summer Workshops (hosted by The Point magazine). Undergraduates in the USA can get funding to attend: click here

KEEPING IT REAL

A Tentatively Written Essay

Edward T Dixon was a mathematician and logician active in the late 19th century. Little information exists about him - where he studied, where he earned his degree, where he worked - except what can be gleaned from the works he left behind. From the preface to his publication, titled “An Essay on Reasoning”, one may, without using too much imagination, get an insight into the kind of scholar he was:

Dixon’s humility and authenticity in prefacing his work is particularly inspiring to us. It is a refreshing reminder that scholarly work is not rooted in ego and personal authority by default. It is also a reminder of one's responsibilities to the texts we read - to accept or reject it on its merits. In a world where critique is often forsaken for criticism and where egotism draws strength from expertise, Dixon’s decision to let his work stand for itself – and to invite constructive engagement with it – more than earns its spot in the Keeping It Real section this week.

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