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The UK's only independent think tank devoted to higher education.

Blog

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].

  • Age doesn’t matter: embracing ‘early-career research’ mid-life

    1 August 2022 by Kerith Esterhuizen

    Kerith Esterhuizen is a mature PhD student at the University of Winchester. Kerith’s doctoral thesis explores transformative employability pedagogy in a higher education institution. At 49 years old, ‘early-career researcher’ is not a label I immediately connected to and possibly still don’t fully identify with. It did, however, succeed in getting me…

  • Foreign Direct Investment into universities: Towards a national strategy

    29 July 2022 by Alexis Brown

    This blog was contributed by Alexis Brown, Director of Policy and Advocacy at HEPI. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has long been a part of the UK R&D ecosystem. In a university context, it can look like investment in physical spaces (such as science, innovation and enterprise parks), business investment in…

  • A network for global online learning

    28 July 2022 by Richard F. Heller

    This blog was written by Richard F. Heller, Emeritus Professor at the Universities of Manchester, UK and Newcastle, Australia. The rate of completing higher education varies greatly between countries. The largest disparities in access to higher education are between the Global North and the Global South, with sub-Saharan Africa at only one quarter of the global…

  • Go Gently: Why significant policy change will require nuance

    27 July 2022 by Jon Wakeford

    At the recent HEPI Annual Conference 2022, Jon Wakeford, Director of Engagement at UPP and Chair of the UPP Foundation, delivered a speech exploring the themes of the day and the wider policy context. This blog is based on Jon’s address to the conference. What are the challenges facing the future…

  • Obituary: Professor Harriet Jones

    26 July 2022 by Mary Curnock Cook

    This blog is kindly provided by Mary Curnock Cook CBE. You can find Mary on Twitter @MaryCurnockCook. I was so sorry to hear that Professor Harriet Jones – Harry to friends and family – died at the end of May after a long illness with breast cancer, aged just 55. Harriet…

  • How international students can help bridge the UK’s skills gap 

    25 July 2022 by Meti Basiri

    This blog was written by Meti Basiri, co-founder and CMO of ApplyBoard, an international student recruitment platform. ApplyBoard empowers students around the world to access the best education by simplifying the study abroad search, application and acceptance process to more than 1,500 institutions across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom,…

  • What does post-legislative scrutiny look like?

    23 July 2022 by Dr Tom Caygill

    https://www.wfd.org/what-we-do/resources/post-legislative-scrutiny-uk-parliamentAs the Higher Education and Research Act (2017) is currently due its post-legislative scrutiny, this blog on how the process is designed to work has been kindly contributed to HEPI by Dr Tom Caygill, Lecturer in Politics at Nottingham Trent University and the author of ‘The UK post-legislative scrutiny gap‘…

  • Breaking Down Barriers Together

    19 July 2022 by Diana Beech

    This blog was kindly contributed by Dr Diana Beech, Chief Executive Officer of London Higher – the representative body for more than forty universities and higher education colleges across London. It is a summary of remarks presented at Bloomsbury Institute London’s ‘Taking Shape: Teaching and Learning Conference’ on 13 July…