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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, Rose Stephenson, at [email protected]

  • A Test of Spirit for English Higher Education

    7 March 2022 by Diana Beech

    This guest blog was 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 @dianajbeech. The…

  • Employability: A blog series

    4 March 2022 by Saskia Loer Hansen and Kathy Daniels

    The first in this weekly series of blogs on the issue of employability was written by Saskia Loer Hansen, Interim Vice Chancellor, and Professor Kathy Daniels, Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor, of Aston University. Proposals recently put forward by the Office for Students suggest minimum requirements that universities should meet to deliver positive outcomes…

  • Student drug use: three outstanding questions

    3 March 2022 by Nick Hillman

    HEPI has today published a new report on illegal drug use among students. Nick Hillman, HEPI’s Director: Four years ago, back in 2018, HEPI collaborated with YouthSight and the University of Buckingham on a small but representative poll of students on their drug use. We found: The results were very…

  • Widening Access is Working: Why won’t we admit it?

    2 March 2022 by Graeme Atherton

    This blog was contributed by Professor Graeme Atherton, Director National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) and Head of Centre for Inequality and Levelling Up (CILUP), University of West London. UCAS’s recent end-of-cycle report showed that the number of students going to higher education from the country’s lowest-participation neighbourhoods has increased by more…

  • Higher Education Has Not Been the Great Leveller Blair Envisaged

    1 March 2022 by David Woolley and Kathy Charles

    This blog was contributed by David Woolley, Director of Student and Community Engagement, and Kathy Charles, Executive Dean of Learning and Teaching at Nottingham Trent University. The latest UCAS application figures confirm a trend that has been increasingly apparent in recent years. Despite everything, the demand for higher education, especially amongst…

  • How the Pandemic Will Shape University Leaders and Their Institutions

    28 February 2022 by James Ransom

    This blog was contributed by James Ransom, Head of Research at NCEE and a doctoral candidate at UCL Institute of Education. In a new report on entrepreneurial leadership, to be released on 15 March 2022 by the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE), one survey respondent stated: Some just want…

  • GCSE Thresholds for Eligibility for Student Loans Could Transform Access and Participation

    24 February 2022 by Mary Curnock Cook

    This blog was written by Mary Curnock Cook, Non-Executive Director across the education sector and former Chief Executive of UCAS. You can find Mary on Twitter @MaryCurnockCook. There won’t be many people in the higher education sector who are surprised by the announcements about fees and funding for higher education in England…