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].
I am one of that small group of people who is genuinely sad that the autumn political party conferences are (necessarily) not happening in person this year. They are eccentric affairs, but genuinely good fun and interesting for anyone with a passion for policymaking. They are also useful occasions for…
HEPI was established in 2002 ‘to promote research into and understanding of all aspects of higher education and to disseminate the useful results of such research for the education of policy makers and the general public in the United Kingdom’. As we approach our 18th birthday (in November 2020), we…
This blog was kindly contributed by Sarah Barr Miller, Head of Insight and Consultancy at UCAS Media and Josephine Hansom, Managing Director of Insight at YouthSight. Supporting undergraduate applicants who were due to sit exams in the summer and then start university this autumn has been top of the agenda…
One of the few academic books I purchased rather than borrowed, as a History undergraduate 30 years ago was Peter Mandler’s Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform: Whigs and Liberals 1830-1852 (1990). Sadly, I don’t remember much about the contents but I do still recall vividly how I felt when I…
This blog has been kindly contributed by Sharon Witherspoon, Head of Policy at the Academy of Social Sciences and the Campaign for Social Science. Prior to this Sharon was the Director at the Nuffield Foundation. Universities are currently focussed on managing the challenges arising from COVID-19: reorganising how they teach,…
This blog was kindly contributed by Darren Ellis, Higher Education Engagement Director at Unite Students. Student accommodation has been on a real journey. When I first started with Unite Students in 2003, accommodation was valued in universities but not especially visible in national policy. Indeed, this was reflected in the…
This blog was kindly contributed by John Rushforth, the executive secretary at the Committee of University Chairs. Today sees the publication of the new the Higher Education Code of Governance, published by the Committee for University Chairs. It comes at a time of unprecedented challenge for the higher education…
This blog was kindly contributed by Dennis Sherwood. Dennis has reporting for HEPI on this years A-level exams since March and the A-level system long before that! It’s not all over yet This summer’s exam fiasco is rapidly fading from the headlines, and the deadline, 17 September 2020, for appeals…
This blog was kindly contributed by Professor Jane Turner OBE DL, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Engagement at Teesside University. Employability metrics judging the success of universities based on graduate earnings fundamentally fail to take into account regional, economic and social differences. This is both hugely detrimental and also rather…
I have been concerned what plans to reduce bureaucracy will entail, since the restructuring regime was published in July, accompanied by a sentence ‘For our part, we are actively considering how to reduce the burden of bureaucracy imposed by Government and regulators’. I appreciate many in the sector may not…