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].
This blog was contributed by Dr. Alex Blower, Access and Participation Manager at Arts University Bournemouth. For a number of years, some areas of the higher education sector have taken a less than consistent approach the treatment of applicants holding vocational qualifications. It’s an issue that has been commented upon…
This blog was contributed by Ben Jordan, Head of Policy, and Ellie Rowley, Fair Access Programme Lead, UCAS. The pandemic brought with it a sharpened focus on disparities in society, and with it, unified efforts to minimise the impacts. The education and skills sector was no different. For the first…
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. The reboot The reboot to widening access to higher education announced by the Minister for Universities last month is in some ways…
This blog was contributed by Dionne Lee, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the University of Teesside. It seems counter-intuitive to suggest that we turn up the volume on levelling-up. In fact, there are many who would argue that the volume is already rather high – it is after all…
Professor Jane Robinson is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Engagement and Place at Newcastle University. In HEPI’s most recent debate paper, One Nation University, Richard Brabner presents a timely and important challenge about the role universities can play to support a fairer society and stronger communities. As we look ahead to the much-anticipated…
Here, on the last day of a year that many people will be pleased to see the back of, is our Top 40 most popular HEPI website pages of 2021. (The list is restricted to blogs and news stories so excludes, for example, our ever-changing home page.) I am struck…
At HEPI, we’ve published lots of work on student accommodation in recent years – sometimes in conjunction with accommodation providers and their charitable foundations – including: a history of student accommodation over the decades by the Reverend Professor William Whyte; a compendium of facts about student accommodation by Martin Blakey and Sarah Jones; and…
This blog was kindly contributed by Andrew Connors, Head of Higher Education at Lloyds Bank (@LloydsBankBiz). As the dust settles from COP26 with a myriad of new climate commitments, many are still assessing what this means for them. This year’s COP was particularly important, in that it was the first…
This blog was contributed by Stacey Mottershaw, Lecturer and Faculty Director of Taught Student Social Mobility at Leeds University Business School. When reading David Woolley’s recent post on The pervasive belief in low aspirations could undermine the Government’s ‘reboot’ of widening the doors to higher education, exploring the Government’s intention…
This blog was contributed by Clare Marchant, UCAS Chief Executive. The 2021 UCAS End of Cycle data provides a strong indication of where the interests of the upcoming graduate and apprentice workforce lie. The proportion of all young people across the UK getting an undergraduate place is at record levels…