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].
To suggest that widespread condemnation of spiralling vice-chancellor pay is a product of confected outrage by unions is to seriously underestimate the level of anger this glaring injustice demands. It also diminishes the reality of a significant and growing pay gap ratio between those who lead universities, and those who…
Speak to someone working in a UK university and they will tell you there is a problem with financial resilience. Either because they already see it impacting the condition of the buildings they work in, what they can offer students or the type or amount of research they can perform,…
Demand trends The summer recruitment round is volatile in 2023, and intake levels hard to predict. Even now, after exam results have been announced, many institutions do not have a completely clear view of the shape of their incoming cohort for the approaching academic year. This is perhaps the most…
In his book, The Living Company, Arie de Gues observes that most companies either go bust or are acquired within their first 50 years of existence and that it is a rarity for companies to survive for over a century let alone 200 or 300 years.1 He wanted to understand…
Proposition The first part of this blog set out the proposition for a national student record system to be selected, procured and deployed in every UK HEI resulting in substantial financial savings and major reductions in organisational pain. Following the example of Sweden’s national student record system, called Ladok, the…
Summary It is proposed that a national student record system be selected, procured and deployed in every higher education institution in the UK thereby delivering significant benefit to all institutions, students and staff and resulting in substantial financial savings and major reductions in organisational pain. The Case for a New…
The renowned mathematician and codebreaker, Peter Hilton, once said: “Adaptability to change is itself a hallmark of successful education.” Adaptability was central to Hilton’s efforts in deciphering German codes in 1942, and it’s just as important today. The pace of innovation and scale of disruption all around us is accelerating.…
At a time when the UK is having to define and redefine its leadership and influence on the world stage, HEPI’s Soft-Power Index serves as a timely and challenging reminder that quality of leadership matters, and that it matters not just on a national scale, but globally. There are two questions to ask…
The twentieth anniversary of HEPI merits reflection on the positioning of the UK in the context of changes internationally in higher education. What is particularly striking to me is that throughout the twentieth century and earlier, the UK played a critical role in helping to shape the global and European…
Twelfth-century Northampton was one of the intellectual powerhouses of England. Fuelled by the wealth of the town and a long-standing tradition of teaching, it was by the 1180s well on its way to becoming the first serious university in the country.1 It was so attractive that scholars fleeing problems in…