In Features this morning

If vaccines had not happened scientists would have found other ways to fight COVID-19, Merlin Crossley (UNSW) explains. It is what can happen with a “high-quality knowledge agenda.”

Plus Conor King’s Farewell Address, “the arguments we put forward will be self-interested but they should still be credible, take some account of the supporting evidence and avoid gross simplifications that are laughable.”

And James Harland (RMIT) on the on-line lab. It will never replace the real thing but it adds to the learning mix. This week’s addition to Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s celebrated series, Needed now in teaching and learning.

With Inga Davis, who demonstrates how hard organising university mergers can be. But it can be done, as an architect of the celebrated Manchester merger explained to her.