The HEPI Blog aims to make brief, incisive contributions to the higher education policy landscape. It is circulated to our subscribers and published online. We welcome guest submissions, which should follow our Instructions for Blog Authors. Submissions should be sent to our Blog Editor, Josh Freeman, at [email protected].
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Mike Baxter, Goal Atlas Ltd. In my recent analysis of the published strategies of 52 UK universities (University Strategy 2020), I discovered that almost 63% of university strategies have end dates in 2019, 2020 or 2021 and hence will need to be re-written…
I have a niece who is studying ethics as part of one of her GCSEs. Whenever I see her, she asks me to pose difficult ethical issues for us to debate. So we chew the fat over what moral code should be built in to the design of autonomous vehicles,…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Rebekah Smith McGloin, Director at the Doctoral College and Centre for Research Capability and Development, Coventry University. Global Challenge Research broadly describes research projects that align with the UN sustainable development goals. It benefits one or more developing countries and is carried out in partnership…
HESA has completed its first round of the Graduate Outcomes survey, the new survey of graduates fifteen months post-graduation, which replaced the DLHE survey, which was only six months post-graduation. This is the first stage in running the new survey, which is the biggest annual social survey in the UK…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Bill Cooke, Professor of Strategic Management at the York Management School, University of York. A blog I wrote before the 2014 REF (Research Excellence Framework) had over 10000 downloads from various platforms. In policy terms it was an abject failure – It was called…
This is a guest blog kindly contributed by Mike Grey, Head of University Partnerships at Gradconsult. I spent a decade designing, delivering and managing placement programmes. I still believe they are the single most potent weapon in what has become an employability arms race, and when successful can have a huge…
There have been rumours for months, if not years, that student fees will come down. It has been a likely prospect ever since at least the 2017 general election. Then, Jeremy Corbyn copied Michael Howard’s stance at the 2005 election and Nick Clegg’s at the 2010 election by promising to…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Helen Carasso. She teaches and researches higher education policy in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. Drawing on her professional experience in university communications, marketing and student recruitment, she has a particular interest in questions relating to fees, funding and…
International Women’s Day always leaves me feeling uplifted about the steps that have been made towards gender equality and the examples of women supporting women. As journalist Dolly Alderton tweeted, ‘Tonight a female friend told me she loved international women’s day because people kept wishing her a happy one and…
On Wednesday, I went off to the UCL Institute of Education for the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE)’s excellent Conference, in particular to participate in a panel on Brexit and higher education. The instructions had asked us ‘to steer away from the political manoeuvring’, but unsurprisingly that proved impossible.…