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].
Consumer Rights Legislation exists to ensure that powerful traders do not take advantage of their consumers through unfair terms and actions. However, many academics are unaware that students are one such example, owing to the high fees charged, the high level commitment, and the potential consequences of onerous terms that…
Back in 1937 HG Wells, a man who knew a little of the future and the challenges it holds, warned that ‘our universities are not half-way out of the 15th century’ as he berated them for their inability to move with the times. What would he say to them now…
As a scarred veteran of the so called ‘quality wars’ – seemingly endless disputes from the mid-80s to the late-90s about the shape and control of the regulation of student education – the author has been sufficiently piqued by the House of Lords Committee’s remarkable criticisms of the Office for…
On 20 November, at the Global Food Security Summit in London, the Government launched a White Paper on international development entitled ‘International development in a contested world: ending extreme poverty and tackling climate change’. Much of what was outlined in the paper is welcome, including a commitment to scaling up…
The comparatively low rates of higher education (HE) progression amongst young men from white, working class backgrounds has received a significant amount of attention in recent years, including from HEPI. This has been accompanied by calls for a ‘response’ from the HE sector. Although how best to react remains uncertain.…
We are almost at the end of 2023, and you know what that means – we are due a round-up of the year’s most popular HEPI blogs. The year, we celebrated our 20th birthday and it has arguably been HEPI’s biggest yet, with more website views than any other year…
This short and timely book is aimed at ‘anybody seeking to understand how to get ahead’, which is presumably most people – although, in reality, I suspect it is more likely to be read by careers advisers, human resources staff and policy wonks (like me) than it is to be…
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) recently confronted a pressing challenge in the realm of education technology. Its University of London (International) programme students exhibited a reluctance to embrace the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) as enthusiastically as expected. Feedback from students indicated that the existing VLE system…
A growing consensus suggests that the higher education (HE) funding system in England is not fit for purpose. It fails to meet the needs of students, graduates, universities, and business. Through both teaching and research, universities play a pivotal role in fostering the skills necessary to be competitive in the…
Policymakers want to get maximum value from the science system. Government invests in science and research, much of which, in the UK, is conducted in universities and in public sector research establishments (PSREs). A good return on this investment would be research which contributes towards a growing economy, supports technological…