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

Nick Hillman

  • FE versus HE, HE versus FE?

    12 March 2020 by Nick Hillman

    Very often, people speak as if there is a trade off between further education and higher education. It is vocational versus academic. Useful versus ivory towers. Colleges versus universities. Anyone who spends more than a few seconds thinking about this swiftly realises it is largely nonsense. Higher education originally trained…

  • Why the UK will miss the R&D targets if we cut funding for students

    9 March 2020 by Nick Hillman

    Two days before the Budget, the Higher Education Policy Institute is publishing a new report on cross-subsidies between teaching and research in universities. From T to R revisited: Cross-subsidies from teaching to research after Augar and the 2.4% R&D target by Nick Hillman (HEPI Report 127) shows: University research is underfunded…

  • How is university governance changing?

    21 February 2020

    Many people do not appreciate just how huge the UK university sector now is. Together, it is worth around £100 billion a year to the country and supports nearly one million jobs. Some of the larger individual institutions have income and expenditure well in excess of £1,000,000,000 a year. Universities…

  • How should the higher education sector seek to persuade our new Ministers?

    19 February 2020 by Nick Hillman

    As we take stock of the Whitehall reshuffle and get to know the new Ministers responsible for the higher education sector, it seems like a good moment to think afresh about how to persuade policymakers most effectively. There is a lot of good advice on this issue available from recent…

  • The Future of Higher Education and the Implications for Students

    11 February 2020 by Nick Hillman

    Last night, I was honoured to be able to deliver the annual Drapers’ Lecture at Queen Mary, University of London. Among the issues covered by the lecture are: fees and funding; access; Augar; student numbers; international students; Brexit; edtech; part-time students; and research funding. Introduction Thank you for inviting me…

  • Remembering Richard Garner

    28 January 2020 by Nick Hillman

    Today brought the very sad news that Richard Garner has died. He was once the UK’s longest serving education correspondent, having worked on the Birmingham Evening Mail, the Times Educational Supplement, the Mirror and the Independent between 1980 and 2016 and, afterwards, he continued to write a column for the Times Educational Supplement. His book, The Thirty…