Today Research England have launched the second round of consultation on the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF). The aspiration for this third form of excellence framework (in addition to the longstanding Research Excellence Framework and the more recent Teaching Excellence Framework) was raised by Jo Johnson in October 2017 and forms…
This book review has been kindly written for HEPI by Anand Shukla, Chief Executive of the online mentoring charity Brightside The importance of social mobility is a rare area of policy consensus between the main UK political parties. Given the decline of intergenerational social mobility in the last 50 years, it…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Jonathan Woodhead, Policy Adviser at Birkbeck, University of London The launch of Onward’s contribution to the higher education debate today with their report A Question of Degree is certainly an interesting one. While I personally look forward to reading more of Onward’s work in…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Professor Jo Price, Vice-Chancellor at the Royal Agricultural University. During his session at the annual Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) on January 2nd 2019, Michael Gove mentioned that Agriculture should be considered as a STEM subject. This will be music to the ears of anyone…
HEPI had its busiest ever year in 2018 with, for example, a record number of hits on this website – double the number we received just a couple of years ago. So it seems a good moment to take stock of some of our output over the past year. The…
Organised by HEPI, with the support of Oracle (a HEPI Partner) the roundtable will aim to provide a platform for senior colleagues in HE institutions across the UK to share ideas, strategies and best practices that are being used to address imbalances in diversity, equality and inclusion at all levels…
At a time when academics specialising in education are paying an unprecedented amount of attention to ‘what works’ in the teaching of school children, there is – arguably – less attention paid to the question of how best to teach university undergraduates. This is especially topical given the way the…
With social mobility at a standstill, universities are increasingly being seen as part of the problem and not the solution, with advantaged students still massively outnumbering disadvantaged students in the corridors of learning – especially in relation to the most selective institutions. Against this backdrop, the Office for Students is…
Uncertainty has become a fact of life for HE institutions, with the policy environment in which they operate remaining in a state of flux and the impact of demographics and Brexit focusing minds on the best strategies to navigate the (perfect) storm ahead. In the newly developing and highly competitive market…
This blog is written by Giles Carden, Chief of Staff and Director of Strategic Projects, Lancaster University. It originally appeared as a case study in HEPI’s report Homeward Bound: Defining, understanding and aiding ‘commuter students’ by David Maguire and David Morris. Lancaster University has embodied the principles of the ‘sticky campus’ and…