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  • Will dropping entry tariff in league tables offer a route to levelling up?

    1 November 2021 by Nishan Canagarajah

    This blog was contributed by Professor Nishan Canagarajah, President and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Leicester (@NCanagarajah) I have been encouraged to see the focus on education and skills coming out of this year’s Conservative Party conference. The promise to invest in individuals’ skills to create a high pay, high…

  • The great reset: student financial wellbeing

    29 October 2021 by Vivi Friedgut

    This blog was contributed by Vivi Friedgut, Founder and CEO of Blackbullion is a financial wellbeing platform on a mission to simplify the world of finance and access to funding for young people. Vivi is on Twitter @ViviFriedgut. There’s no denying that the last academic year was another long one,…

  • The race to net zero: universities need to walk the walk on reducing emissions

    28 October 2021 by Ellie Bothwell

    This guest blog was contributed by Ellie Bothwell, Rankings Editor at Times Higher Education (@elliebothwell) With COP26 rapidly approaching and the warning klaxon on the climate emergency getting ever louder, a new report from Times Higher Education examines how well higher education institutions across the globe are performing when it…

  • Outreach to schools is more necessary than ever

    27 October 2021 by Nick Barker

    This blog was kindly contributed by Nick Barker, Schools Outreach Fellow, Social Inclusion Group, The University of Warwick. If this was a film and I wanted to set the scene for you, we could start by looking down on me, sat in front of my laptop. The camera would then…

  • Universities and plagiarism: who copied who?

    26 October 2021 by Daniel Sokol

    This blog was kindly contributed by Daniel Sokol is a barrister and founder of Alpha Academic Appeals, where he leads a team of 15 barristers who act for students accused of misconduct. He was formerly a university lecturer. Daniel is on Twitter @DanielSokol9. John and Amy were best friends. They…

  • The UK’s responsibility to Afghan alumni

    25 October 2021 by an anonymous former Chevening Scholar & Ceri Oeppen

    Today’s blog was co-written by a former Chevening Scholar in Afghanistan, who remains anonymous for their own security, and Dr Ceri Oeppen, Co-Director of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex, UK (@Oeppen). In August 2021 this year’s cohort of Afghan Chevening Scholars were evacuated from Kabul. But…

  • Universities in an Era of Neo-Nationalism

    22 October 2021 by John Aubrey Douglass

    This blog was kindly contributed by John Aubrey Douglass, Senior Research Fellow and Research Professor at University of California, Berkeley. To varying degrees, universities are feeling the brunt of the rise in neo-nationalist movements and governments, usually led by powerful political demagogues. For the purpose of generating populist support and…

  • Catching the wave: harnessing regional research and development to level up

    21 October 2021 by Mary Stuart and Liz Shut

    Policymakers from across the political spectrum are committed to reducing regional inequalities and spending more on research and development. But there is a lack of detail as well as no consensus on how to deliver on these two priorities. There is also some confusion over how R&D policy and regional…

  • The rebalancing-act of public research and development

    20 October 2021 by Connor Mckenzie

    This blog was kindly contributed by Connor Mckenzie, Head of Policy and Research at MillionPlus. You can follow them on Twitter @million_plus. The recent cabinet reshuffle has presented the university sector with challenges and opportunities in the run up to the Spending Review—challenges, as the commitments of previous minsters may…