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].
In a previous HEPI blog, it was reported in that “it appears that just five providers … received ‘outstanding’ ratings across all three features of educational gain: SO4 – a provider’s own articulation of the gains it intends its students to achieve, SO5 – its approach to supporting these educational…
Period poverty is a term that refers to the inability of individuals to access menstrual products, due to financial constraints, limited availability or stigma preventing them from seeking the essential products they need. This issue affects millions of people worldwide, including 36% of UK students. A lack of accessible menstrual…
The Skills Gap (the mismatch or gap between the skills required in current vacancies and skills possessed by people looking for work) and the Skills Shortage have become part of the everyday narrative in UK politics driven by employment data and unfilled vacancy data that show large numbers of unfilled…
Me and my mate Dave in 1987. I like to think my beret has a hint of Che Guevara about it. But others think Curiosity Killed the Cat, a band whose lead singer, Ben Volpeliere, wore a similar-looking cap. For a fleeting moment during the 1980s hats (and hooped earrings…
Inflation has affected all corners of society to some degree. But few groups have been hit quite as hard as students – a demographic that, for the second year in a row, has seen its living costs rise at well above the national average rate of inflation. This is to…
We know that women students and staff remain underrepresented in Higher Education STEM disciplines. Even in subjects where equivalent numbers of men and women participate, however, many women are still disadvantaged by everyday sexism. Our recent research found that women who study STEM subjects at undergraduate level in England were…
What is the connection between political science and project management? How could a degree in History and Politics be so useful in financial technology? And how did I end up in fintech? Humanities and social sciences degrees have come under attack for their lack of utility, seemingly not useful in…
On Christmas Day, my family gave me a lovely new fountain pen (made out of recycled plectrums by this master craftsman since you ask). There was one other thing at the top of my Christmas wish list too, although – unlike the pen – it has only just arrived. I am referring…
What have recent changes in AI been? Rapid advances in AI have greatly improved its capabilities across content generation and sentiment analysis. By drastically pushing down the costs, they have also reduced barriers to entry. Machine learning is making social media monitoring, text and sentiment analysis much more powerful, allowing…
The date is 2018. The balancing influence of HEFCE’s cooperating bodies has been broken up and institutions are registering to the new, sole regulator of English Higher Education, the Office for Students. Pre-Graduate Outcome Survey, pre-B3 conditions, pre-Covid, pre-ChatGPT4, we’re still in the EU, annual gross domestic product is 1.4%…