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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].

  • International students – the silent engine in levelling up

    2 February 2022 by Ruth Arnold

    Ruth Arnold is a Senior Advisor to Study Group and was previously the Director of Public Affairs at The University of Sheffield.  In his Daily Mail opinion piece trailing the Levelling Up White Paper, Secretary of State for Levelling Up Michael Gove described the country and the economy in terms of a jet plane…

  • In the years of waiting for a full response, it’s become clear the Augar review is a smörgåsbord not a prix fixe. But while policymakers have been deliberating, universities have been delivering.

    1 February 2022 by Nick Hillman

    This month, February 2022, marks four years since the Augar panel was set up to review post-18 education in England. They reported in May 2019, by which time it felt like we had been waiting ages and longer than anyone had originally expected. But when compared to the Government’s dilatory…

  • The difference a year makes

    31 January 2022 by Diana Beech

    This guest blog has been kindly written by Dr Diana Beech, Chief Executive Officer of London Higher – the representative body for the UK’s largest regional higher education powerhouse in London. Diana was previously Policy Adviser to the last three Universities Ministers, and you can find her on Twitter at…

  • Will the Office for Students’ proposals bake in disadvantage?

    28 January 2022 by Joan O’ Mahony

    Dr Joan O’ Mahony is Director of Academic Development at Bloomsbury Institute London. Previously she was Senior Advisor (Teaching and Learning) at Advance HE, and before that the Academic Lead for Student Retention at the Higher Education Academy. The purpose of any policy consultation by a regulatory body is to…

  • Minimum Thresholds – Are we really protecting students?

    26 January 2022 by Sally Burtonshaw

    This guest blog has been kindly written by Sally Burtonshaw, Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer at London Higher – the representative body for the UK’s largest regional higher education powerhouse. You can find Sally on Twitter at @SallyBurtonshaw. As the dust begins to settle on the 699 pages of Office…

  • Learning from the Past: What can we learn from Polytechnics?

    25 January 2022 by Elena Wilson

    This blog was contributed by Elena Wilson, Policy Manager at the Edge Foundation. The lack of ‘policy memory’ amongst policy makers has become a key problem in English further (FE) and higher education (HE) policy making (Watson, 2011). The rapid churn in government, change in ministerial teams and the rotation…

  • Comeback CATE…

    24 January 2022 by John Cater

    This blog was contributed by Dr. John Cater, Vice-Chancellor of Edge Hill University and the immediate past Chair of the Universities UK/Guild HE Teacher Education Advisory Group.  He writes here in a personal capacity.     Few will remember CATE, the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education. But history repeats…

  • Wine tasters, super crunchers and King Canute – what do they tell us about the new regulatory burdens from the Office for Students?

    21 January 2022 by Nick Hillman

    The flurry of important new documents from the Office for Students will be pored over for months, particularly between now and the end of the consultation period in March 2022. Most notably, the OfS wants to assess institutions on their students’ continuation, completion and progression rates. Institutions that fall below certain thresholds…