A prominent feature of media coverage during the UK's referendum on European Union (EU) membership was the stark difference between the pro-EU young and their Eurosceptic elders, widely assumed to reflect a generational divide. The positive relationship between age and hostility towards the EU is well established in academic research, however only Down, and Wilson [(2013). "A rising generation of Europeans? Life-cycle and cohort effects on support for 'Europe'." European Journal of Political Research 52: 431-456] have considered whether this reflects a generational or life-cycle effect. While their research confirms that there is such a generational effect, their capacity to explain it is limited. This study utilizes data from Britain and builds on previous attempts to identify and explain generational trends in Euroscepticism, bridging it with studies on individual-level determinants of hostility towards the EU, providing the most detailed assessment of the extent and causes of generational differences in Euroscepticism to date. The results confirm that today's young people are the most supportive generation of EU membership, caused by a combination of factors including their experience of the EU during their formative years, their relationships with domestic political institutions, and their access to education.

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Since the Research Excellence Framework of 2014 (REF2014) 'impact' has created a conceptual conundrum gradually being pieced together by academics across the Higher Education sector. Emerging narratives and counter-narratives focus upon its role in dictating institutional reputation and funding to universities. However, not only does literature exploring impact, rather than 'REF2014 impact' per se, seldom see it as part of a changing sector; it often treats it as a new phenomenon within the political and social sciences.Here, drawing on academic perceptions of impact set in motion in the UK during the 1970s, we critique the underlying assumption that impact is new. We argue three key points to this end. Firstly, contrary to much of the literature examining academic perceptions of impact, it is a long-standing idea. Secondly, within such accounts, the effect of academic research on policy and society (which is longstanding) and the instrumentalisation of impact as a funding requirement (which is relatively new) are conflated. Thirdly, this conflation creates a novelty effect. In the context of a wider sea change to Higher Education, we examine different forms of consent, acceptance, endorsement and resistance surrounding the 'new' impact agenda to argue that this 'novelty effect' masks an important transitory process of acclimatisation among academics.