Earlier today, I delivered the speech below to the Headmasters and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC) / Girls’ School Association (GSA) annual University Admissions Conference at the University of Leicester. The speech: argues that independent schools often pick the wrong battles and could instead focus on the strengths they have in common with…
HEPI has undertaken a small piece of desk research on the tenure of university leaders over the past half a century. For a full explanation of the chart below, see the new blog outlining the research on the Times Higher website. Postscript (added 4th November, 2016): We generally aim to make…
This guest blog has been kindly provided by David Woolley, Head of Schools, Colleges and Community Outreach at Nottingham Trent University. If you are lucky, there may be a few times in your career when you are given the opportunity to really make an impact. For those of us working…
This blog is based on my remarks to a Policy Network event on the book, taking place in central London on 20th October 2016. I often wish there were more academics looking at higher education rather than just practising it, and it is rare indeed to come across a useful cross-country…
This new pamphlet by Bill Rammell, Vice Chancellor for the University of Bedfordshire and a former Higher Education Minister, argues the Government’s obsession with market competition ignores the fundamental purpose of universities to serve the public interest. He argues that the public interest should be reflected in legislation and calls…
HEPI has published a new policy paper, Protecting the public interest in higher education, by Bill Rammell, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire and the Minister for Further and Higher Education (2005-08) in the last Labour Government. The proposals in the paper include: changes to the new Office for Students to take greater account…
This guest blog on Ian Diamond’s review of university funding in Wales has been kindly provided by Lucy Hunter Blackburn, who is a Freelance researcher and postgraduate student at the University of Edinburgh as well as the author of the 2015 HEPI paper Whose to Lose?: Citizens, institutions and the ownership of…
A lot of nonsense has been expressed on both sides in the debate on grammar schools. But it can still be summed up like this: one side claims to have all the evidence while the other flounders when asked to provide any. Given this imbalance, the interesting question is not who is…
Students are less happy and more anxious than the general population, including other young people, and a minority suffer from serious mental disorders. It is stressful to live away from home without access to past support networks, while learning in new ways, taking on large debts and facing an uncertain…
A new HEPI report, The invisible problem? Improving students’ mental health, shows a majority of students experience low wellbeing, that depression and loneliness affect one-in-three students and that the number of student suicides has risen. The report calls for extra support from universities and the NHS. Nick Hillman, Director of the…