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

Nick Hillman

  • Universities could lose students while gaining financially from Brexit, but any new restrictions on international students could cost the UK economy an additional £2 billion a year

    12 January 2017

    Today (12 January), the Higher Education Policy Institute and Kaplan International publish the first detailed modelling on what Brexit and other global changes could mean for demand at UK universities from international students. The research, published as The determinants of international demand for UK higher education and undertaken by London…

  • Personal Learning Accounts for all: More choice, better skills, more success

    9 January 2017 by John Wrathmell and Simon Hughes

    This guest blog has been contributed by John Wrathmell and Simon Hughes of the Open University. Choice is at the heart of the Government’s vision for higher education. Jo Johnson MP, as the Minister responsible, could not have been clearer at the Second Reading debate on the Higher Education and…

  • Independent HE responds to our new report on alternative providers

    5 January 2017

    This guest blog has been kindly written for us by Alex Proudfoot, Chief Executive of Independent Higher Education (IHE), which is ‘the UK membership organisation and national representative body for independent providers of higher education, professional training and pathways.’ Today’s report from HEPI marks a valiant attempt to summarise the data published…

  • Alternative providers of higher education: issues for policymakers

    5 January 2017 by John Fielden and Robin Middlehurst

    In this HEPI paper, two authors with considerable expertise in evaluating higher education systems around the world assess higher education institutions that are not funded directly by taxpayers – known in the UK as alternative providers. Since the start of the century, alternative providers have been growing rapidly. This raises…

  • International university rankings: For good or ill?

    15 December 2016 by Bahram Bekhradnia

    Rankings of universities have become increasingly influential in recent years. This report demonstrates the dangers that this represents. It shows that international rankings are almost entirely based on research-related criteria, and if universities are to move up the rankings the only way of doing so is to focus on their…

  • The Bill begins its Peer Review

    12 December 2016

    This guest blog on the Second Reading of the Higher Education and Research Bill in the House of Lords has been kindly provided by G.R.Evans. The Lords really spoke their minds on the Higher Education and Research Bill in their Second Reading debate on 6 December. Peers packed in 69…

  • Research and teaching – joined at the hip or driven apart?

    5 December 2016

    This guest blog has been kindly written for HEPI by Professor John Vinney, the Vice-Chancellor of Bournemouth University. The lack of attention given to teaching by universities, in contrast to research, is one of the reasons for the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). While most people working in the sector…