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

Nick Hillman

  • Challenger institutions: A response to the Alternative White Paper

    23 June 2016 by Gordon Sweeney

    This guest blog has been contributed by Gordon Sweeney, who is Head of Education at Point Blank Music School (http://www.pointblanklondon.com). In mid-June, a group of academics published an Alternative White Paper outlining their vision for the future of higher education. Unfortunately, the Alternative White Paper included various misconceptions about alternative…

  • Let’s not forget about international students

    21 June 2016

    Centre Write is, as its name suggests, the magazine of a centre-right think-tank called Bright Blue, which is headed up by Ryan Shorthouse. Its new edition – out this week – is timely, given this week’s vote, as it focuses on migration. There are too many interesting articles to list…

  • HEPI-HEA 2016 Student Academic Experience Survey

    9 June 2016 by Jonathan Neves and Nick Hillman

    The HEPI-HEA Student Academic Experience Survey has been running since 2006 and shows how full-time undergraduates rate their time in higher education and their attitudes towards policy issues that impact upon them. The Survey has been designed and developed in partnership between the Higher Education Policy Institute and the Higher Education Academy.…

  • New ways of learning

    27 May 2016 by Neil Morris

    This guest blog has been kindly provided by Professor Neil Morris, who is the Director of Digital Learning at the University of Leeds. An A-level student seeking to get a head start on their UCAS application. A current undergraduate wanting to study a specific topic with a leading academic at a different university.…

  • After the furore: Reviewing our own work on boys’ underachievement

    25 May 2016

    Our recent report on the underachievement of boys in higher education, Boys to Men, has received many plaudits and some brickbats. That was always likely, given the sensitivity of the topic. (Still, it was an improvement on the last time HEPI raised the problem, when – as I have written…

  • Keeping Schtum?: What students think of free speech (Wave 2 of the HEPI / YouthSight Monitor)

    22 May 2016 by Nick Hillman

    Wave 2 of the HEPI / YouthSight Monitor focuses on freedom and the limits of freedom at UK higher education institutions, including: free speech; freedom from discrimination; No Platform policies; gender segregation; academic freedom; safe spaces; trigger warnings; library resources; and even whether it is appropriate for student unions to…

  • When ten into two doesn’t go?

    18 May 2016

    In many ways, the biggest shift from the recent past in the new higher education green paper is the redrawing of the research landscape (as I originally noted in a Times Higher blog). The white paper says: ‘There are currently ten arms’-length Government bodies operating in the higher education and…