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].
At the time of the 2014 referendum on independence for Scotland, HEPI and the Times Higher jointly ran an essay-writing competition looking at the potential impact on higher education. The winning entries were by Hugh Pennington, Emeritus Professor of Bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, and Thomas Swann, a PhD candidate…
Our latest guest blog has been kindly contributed by Fiona Ross, Director of Research at the Leadership Foundation, who has a part-time Chair at Kingston University and St George’s, University of London, where she was formerly Dean of the Joint Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education. I was excited to see…
This guest blog, responding to HEPI’s newest publication (Designing a Teaching Excellence Framework: Lessons from other sectors by Louisa Darian) has been kindly contributed by Douglas Blackstock, Chief Executive of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. Last week the Executive Director of the Finnish quality agency told a meeting in Glasgow…
This morning, HEPI and the HEA jointly hosted a seminar at the House of Commons on the forthcoming referendum on the United Kingdom’s place in the European Union and what it means for higher education, with platform speeches from Professor Anton Muscatelli (Vice Chancellor of the University of Glasgow), Professor…
In 2015, HEPI and YouthSight polled students on their views about the UK’s place in the EU and the forthcoming referendum. We published the results in a paper originally issued last November. We found overwhelming support among students for the UK to remain within the EU, although some of this…
This guest blog has been kindly contributed by John Rushforth ( [email protected]), who is part-time Secretary to the Committee of University Chairs and formerly Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of the West of England. We live in uncertain times, but universities are complex global enterprises and change is inevitable. One theme of recent years is increasing expectations…
The new UCAS figures on applications to higher education are ‘the first reliable indicator of demand for UK higher education this cycle.’ The main headline is one of broad stability: UK applicant numbers (495,940) have decreased slightly (-0.3%), due to fewer English applicants (-1%) mostly aged between 20 and 34. The number of applicants from…
The single most frustrating thing about working in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), which looks after higher education policy, is the lack of institutional memory. The surest way for a BIS official to be promoted is to change jobs as frequently as possible. This matters for good policymaking. For example,…
The biggest joy I experienced on becoming the Director of an independent think tank two years ago, after a decade working for a political party, was the freedom to follow the evidence. People condemn politicians for not listening ‘to the experts’, but the job of our elected representatives is to…
This week’s guest blog comes from Conor King, Executive Director of Innovative Research Universities, which is an Australian ‘network of six comprehensive universities conducting research of national and international standing.’ Conor looks at one long-standing commitment of the UK Government, which was repeated in the recent higher education green paper: to introduce Sharia-compliant student loans. He builds…