Available on both the É«ºÐÖ±²¥ website and via Apple's iTunes service, the podcasts feature a mix of extended interviews with academics and other figures from the world of higher education and the magazine's editorial staff discussing the biggest stories from each week's issue.

Other episodes include an extended interview with National Union of Students president Liam Burns and a discussion with University of Bedfordshire pro vice-chancellor Carsten Maple about the work of the National Centre for Cyberstalking Research. All the podcasts can be streamed or downloaded free of charge.

"The podcasts allow us to go into more detail about the stories that feature in the magazine, and mean that we can give listeners more information that it isn't always possible to include in print," said É«ºÐÖ±²¥ editor John Gill.

"They also give people the chance to listen in full to some of the interviews that our reporters carry out every week with key figures from the world of higher education."

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Each week, reporters from the magazine discuss some of the most interesting articles from the week's edition. The first two of these "issue reviews" cover everything from the falling number of university applicants to last year's doomsday predictions, and are available now.

"Our issue review podcasts give a bit of insight into how certain articles came about, and also mean that our writers can talk more freely about their work," Mr Gill continued.

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"They're quite informal - things can be fairly frantic on the news desk when we're going to press, but we usually find time to make the odd joke too. The podcasts give us the chance to publish some of our observations in a slightly different way."

The issue reviews are published each Thursday.

To listen, visit our podcast section or search for Times Higher Education on the podcast section of iTunes.

chris.parr@tsleducation.com