On 27th November, Professor Paul Wellings, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia, delivered the 11th Annual Lecture. Professor Wellings’s title was ‘The Architecture and the Plumbing: What features do the Higher Education systems in the UK and Australia have in common?’ We are today publishing the full text which, for the…
This blog post argues: the REF process has been run smoothly and complaints about the principle of research evaluation do not typically extend to the way the process has been run; the improvements in the UK’s research performance in REF2014 are not surprising but could lead to greater concentration of funding,…
The Public Accounts Committee hearing this afternoon on alternative providers of higher education was a bruising affair. Margaret Hodge was in the Chair and she and her cross-party members ferociously grilled the witnesses from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Student Loans Company, the Higher Education Funding Council…
We are grateful to Rob Behrens, the Independent Adjudicator for higher education, for contributing this exclusive guest blog on the new good practice framework for handling complaints and appeals – which is to be published at 9am on 12th December 2014. There has been an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the news…
In response to the Autumn Statement, Nick Hillman, the Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: ‘The new postgraduate loans deserve two-and-a-half cheers, which is as good as it gets in austere times. Postgraduate support was unfinished business from the 2012 university funding reforms and the new scheme is…
There are strong rumours that the Chancellor will announce a new system of postgraduate loans in his autumn statement today. This would tackle some access problems by making finance less of a barrier. It’s not clear if George Osborne will announce a fully worked-out scheme or (probably more likely) promise to consult on the details.…
‘Robbins Rebooted’ Invite-only event. For further information on the HEPI Partnership Programme please contact Sarah Isles at [email protected].
The National Audit Office have today published the Investigation into financial support for students at alternative higher education providers. It is interesting and timely.* It includes challenges for BIS, HE regulators and alternative providers. And it contains some useful new evidence, including examples of the adverts used to entice people on to courses.…
HEPI published a detailed study on the electoral power of full-time students, Do students swing elections? Registration, turnout and voting behaviour among full-time students, on the morning of 1st December 2014 – the deadline for the first electoral roll under Individual Electoral Registration. Based on new analysis by Professor Stephen…
It is often said that students are a particularly powerful group of voters. The authors of Do students swing elections? Registration, turnout and voting among full-time students? set out to test this assertion, which turns out to be half true. A number of factors must be present for the student voice to…