Dude, Who’s Got My Twitter?

@NIHR, apparently. Or possibly a forgotten Britpop band

It’s a fast moving world in the Twittersphere, and you have to be quick to bag the Twitter handle that is, well, your birthright. Some, such as @BBSRC, were super sharp and got theirs [shame they won’t be around much longer – Ed], although that might be more down to the implausibility of any other person/organisation having that acronym. But what about others who were – um – a bit slower or have common arconyms? Dude, who’s got my Twitter?

• Arts & Humanities Research Council:@AHRC is, of course, Advanced Hyperbaric. But you knew that already, right? ‘A full-service recovery facility specializing in state-of-the-art hyperbaric oxygen therapy and effective alternative medical treatments and techniques’. Of course.
• Association of Research Managers and Administrators:@ARMA is, well, Arma. We have no more details, except a moody photo and a single one word tweet: ‘Jameson’. Gnomic. 
• British Academy: @BA is owned by the somewhat forlorn Brian Adams. ‘Ppl tweet @ba and don’t even know why,’ he whimpers. He’s not tweeted since 2015. Oh Brian. We all love you. Come back. 
• European Research Council: @ERC is owned by Erika Crawford. Yes, *the* Erika Crawford. You know: 81 followers? Grew up in the Boston area? But now in New York? Yes, *that* Erika Crawford. She *loves* her sports teams, apparently. Go Pats/Sox/Celtics/Cardinal!
• Joseph Rowntree Foundation:@JRF is the inimitable Josefina R of Montevideo, Uruguay. She’s working tirelessly for jPOS Consulting, which is, as I scarcely need remind you, ‘Developing Your Solutions to Mission-Critical Payment Card Transaction-Processing Software.’
• Medical Research Council:@MRC is Mark Zacher. He comes across as someone who’s accusing you of spilling his pint. ‘Mind the details’, is all he says in his bio. Time to back away very, very slowly…
• National Institute of Health Research: unfortunately, were beaten to the punch by the Northern Ireland Human Resources professionals. @NIHR also appear to double as a Britpop band in the Suede/Pulp mould.
• Natural Environment Research Council: @NERC is the international man of mystery in the world of misallocated Twitter handles. Nerc has been on Twitter since 2008, s/he’s never tweeted. No picture. Pretend you’ve never seen him/her. You already know too much.
• Royal Society:@RS is, of course, RuneScape News. It’s got all the latest RuneScape News, apparently. And an impressive 11.8k followers. @UKRO, take note. 
• Science & Technology Facilities Council: No, not Swindon Town Football Club (who might share some personnel with STFC), but actually the mighty Jonathan Ebsworth, a longterm fan and therefore rightful owner of @STFC. I think we’re all agreed on that.
• UK Research & Innovation: well, they do have some excuse, being the new kids on the block. @UKRI is Ukri Jubuhuhu who hasn’t tweeted yet, but we’re expecting great things come 1 April 2018. 
• UK Research Office: Oh UKRO. The ultimate laggards of the UK research community on Twitter, they’ve only recently signed up. Unlike @UKRO, that’s Ukro, who signed up a decade ago, but has only accrued one follower since. And written four tweets. That’s quite some productivity.