A high-resolution photo is available in portrait and landscape.
Nick Hillman OBE has been the Director of HEPI since January 2014. He previously worked in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as the Special Adviser to the Rt Hon David Willetts MP (now Lord Willetts) when he was the Minister for Universities and Science. Earlier in his career, he was a History teacher and he also spent time working on policy at the Association of British Insurers. At the 2010 general election, he was the runner-up in Cambridge.
Nick’s recent research for HEPI includes papers on the sixtieth anniversary of the Robbins Report of 1963, the Graduate Route visa and the educational underachievement of boys and young men.
Nick has written for a many think tanks and journals. His academic articles include pieces on the Coalition’s higher education reforms for the Oxford Review of Education, on access to schools and selective universities for Higher Education Review and on the fifty-year history of student loans for Contemporary British History. He also wrote the authoritative account of being a special adviser for the Institute of Government.
In 2020/21, Nick was shortlisted for the first Prospect magazine Think Tanker of the Year Award. He is an Honorary Fellow of both Queen Mary University of London (2016) and the National Conference of University Professors (2022) and also a Companion of the British Academy of Management (2022). In June 2025, he was delighted to be awarded an OBE for ‘services to higher education’.
Nick is currently a governor of the University of Manchester and the University of Buckingham as well as at two secondary schools, Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School and Repton School, and he was formerly a Trustee of the National Foundation for Educational Research.
Email: [email protected]
A high-resolution photo is available in portrait and landscape.