The Robbins Review report was published 60 years ago this October. The review made a series of recommendations which have provided a reference point for comment on UK Government higher education policy ever since. This article looks back at the report and considers what the lessons might be for politicians,…
The proposals of the Robbins Report on Higher Education considered the role of providers of tertiary education. It concluded that to ‘confer degree-giving powers on all the existing’ Further Education Colleges ‘would be inappropriate because of the number involved, the variation in their sizes and the diversity of standards’. It…
Government intervention in British universities really took off after the 1963 Robbins Report. Some expansion had already begun – my alma mater, the University of Sussex (BSc 1983, MSc 1987), was set up in 1961, one of seven new “plate-glass” universities established prior to Robbins. But there were 25 other…
Lots of things are claimed for the Robbins Report that don’t hold up to scrutiny. It was responsible for the ‘plateglass’ universities of the 1960s. Nope – all of the famous ‘English 7’ plateglass universities were lined up before the Report was issued, and one (Sussex) was already open for business.…
It’s less than a year since ChatGPT-3 was launched, yet in that time it has reshaped the landscape of higher education. We spoke to a diverse group of staff from Middlesex University about the impact of generative AI on their institution and the sector as a whole. The impact of…
Perhaps it was because Lionel Robbins was a pillar of the establishment (LSE professor, Life Peer, Chairman of the Financial Times, Director of the Royal Opera House), that the 1963 Robbins Report on higher education landed like a bombshell. Its fundamental position (subsequently known as the ‘Robbins Principle’) was set…
On 12 September, the Office for Students (OfS) published its first set of findings from assessment visits focused on the quality of Business and Management courses. In conjunction with the announcements, HEPI ran a blog by Professor David Phoenix, Vice-Chancellor of London South Bank University (one of the institutions visited…
This autumn will see a strong government focus on artificial intelligence (AI) with the UK hosting the inaugural AI safety summit in November. In education, generative AI tools have both excited and alarmed the world over the past year, with tools like ChatGPT reportedly reaching over 100 million users within…
The merits of area and individual-based indicators in widening participation work continue to be keenly debated, including on the HEPI website (for example, in this piece by Sasha Roseneil). In this blog, we illustrate that it is those living in the most deprived areas that are least likely to be…
The report of the Industry and Regulators Committee of the House of Lords into the Office for Students, which was published on September 13th, hits the political sweet spot. The period of deep uncertainty and consequent political instability which has lasted since 2015 and then the Brexit referendum has given…