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The UK's only independent think tank devoted to higher education.

Month: December 2019

  • Top of the Blogs in 2019

    31 December 2019

    For HEPI, 2019 has been the busiest year to date, not just in terms of events and publications, but also on the beloved blog. We have pulled together a list of the blogs and releases which have proved the most popular. What stands out is the variety of issues and…

  • Student residence in England: A world unto itself

    30 December 2019 by Holly Henderson

    This blog was kindly contributed by Holly Henderson, an Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham. Higher education is all too often used as if it is synonymous with university, in spite of the fact that higher education is also offered in 86% of the 257 colleges of…

  • The mystery of the missing statistic

    27 December 2019 by Dennis Sherwood

    This blog was kindly contributed by Dennis Sherwood, one of the UK’s leading experts in organisational creativity, innovation, systems thinking and system dynamics. PART ONE “There’s something missing!”, he said, setting down his briar. His companion peered over his newspaper. “How interesting! Another non-barking-dog case?” “Alas, no. But something that…

  • Slipping through the net? Study abroad and student wellbeing.

    24 December 2019 by Megan Bowler

    This blog was contributed by Megan Bowler, one of our Summer Interns. Megan is in her third year at the University of Oxford studying for an undergraduate degree in Classics. Time abroad is an obligatory feature of most Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) and MFL Joint Honours courses, offering students real-world…

  • We need to talk about free speech again. Sorry.

    23 December 2019 by Richard Brabner

    This blog was kindly contributed by Richard Brabner, Director of the UPP foundation. Richard has written this article in a personal capacity and they reflect his own views rather than those of the UPP Foundation. Readers of this fabulous website will generally think, as I do, that the free speech…

  • What is the future for university representation under the Conservatives?

    20 December 2019 by Jonathan Woodhead

    This blog was kindly contributed by Jonathan Woodhead, Policy Adviser at Birkbeck, University of London. One of the striking features about the recent general election, along with the breaching of the ‘Red Wall’ of former Labour northern heartland seats, was the increasing dominance of Labour in our larger cities. As…

  • The best for universities over the next few years is not good

    19 December 2019 by Anon

    A senior member of a staff at a British university writes anonymously about what to expect from the new Government. Boris Johnson’s thumping majority means that he can do pretty much what he likes to the higher education sector. Assuming we don’t get a Secretary of State with a pathological…

  • So did students have any impact on the election?

    18 December 2019 by Nick Hillman

    Many people thought students could boost the election results for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. Over time, as the proper academic studies of the election drip out, we will come to know for certain if that happened or not. In the meantime, we have undertaken a quick-and-dirty exercise to test the proposition:…

  • Widening Participation: an agenda for the 2020s

    17 December 2019 by Maria Neophytou

    This blog was kindly contributed by Dr Maria Neophytou, Director of Public Affairs at Impetus. 2019 has been a year of high political drama, unmatched by substantive policy change. Brexit has dominated, with domestic departments caught in a holding pattern. The Augar commission was launched by the last Prime Minister…

  • The Office for Students respond to ‘Social mobility and elite universities’

    17 December 2019

    This blog was kindly contributed by Chris Millward, Director for Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students and is written in response to HEPI’s recent report: ‘Social mobility and elite universities‘. If you found the general election campaign frustrating, spare a thought for the nation’s public officials, who…