Thank you, OfS, for publishing Contextual admissions – promoting fairness and rethinking merit. The fundamental premise is that access to higher education is being unfairly denied to disadvantaged students, as evidenced, for example, by the fact that ‘in 2018, 18-year-olds from the most advantaged areas were 2.4 times are more likely…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Anna Bull, senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Portsmouth and a founding member of The 1752 Group, a UK-based research and lobby organisation working to end staff-to-student sexual misconduct in higher education. The #MeToo movement has led students who experience sexual harassment at…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dennis Sherwood, founder of Silver Bullet Machine. I’m an outsider. As neither an academic nor in HE administration, I have no right to interfere. But as an outsider, and one who has worked closely with many academic teams, perhaps I can act as an…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Mike Baxter, Goal Atlas Ltd. In my recent analysis of the published strategies of 52 UK universities (University Strategy 2020), I discovered that almost 63% of university strategies have end dates in 2019, 2020 or 2021 and hence will need to be re-written…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Rebekah Smith McGloin, Director at the Doctoral College and Centre for Research Capability and Development, Coventry University. Global Challenge Research broadly describes research projects that align with the UN sustainable development goals. It benefits one or more developing countries and is carried out in partnership…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Bill Cooke, Professor of Strategic Management at the York Management School, University of York. A blog I wrote before the 2014 REF (Research Excellence Framework) had over 10000 downloads from various platforms. In policy terms it was an abject failure – It was called…
This is a guest blog kindly contributed by Mike Grey, Head of University Partnerships at Gradconsult. I spent a decade designing, delivering and managing placement programmes. I still believe they are the single most potent weapon in what has become an employability arms race, and when successful can have a huge…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Helen Carasso. She teaches and researches higher education policy in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. Drawing on her professional experience in university communications, marketing and student recruitment, she has a particular interest in questions relating to fees, funding and…
HEPI and Jisc have today jointly published How safe is your data? Cyber-security in higher education (HEPI Policy Note 12). The paper reveals: under penetration testing (ethical hacking) using spear phishing, there is a 100 per cent track record of gaining access to higher education institutions’ high-value data within two hours; 173…
In this new Policy Note, Dr John Chapman, Head of Jisc’s Security Operations Centre, reports on the cyber-security risks facing universities based on Jisc’s own work in this area. Key points: under penetration testing, there is a 100 per cent track record of gaining access to higher education institutions’ high-value…