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  • HEPI asks: is it time for university governors to be paid?

    11 July 2019

    The Higher Education Policy Institute has published a new report on whether university governors should be paid.   Payment for university governors? A discussion paper  (HEPI Report 118) by Alison Wheaton looks at practice in other sectors, including the NHS, housing associations and companies, as well as practice abroad. She argues…

  • Comment on the National Student Survey results (and why the NSS needs another revamp)

    3 July 2019

    Responding to the new National Student Survey results from the Office for Students, Nick Hillman, the Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: It is good that student satisfaction is rising, if only slightly and not everywhere. But as our own surveys show, you need to get underneath the student satisfaction data…

  • Why it is so important to protect free speech in universities

    27 June 2019

    The Higher Education Policy Institute has published a robust defence of free speech in universities, Free Speech and Censorship on Campus (HEPI Occasional Paper 21) by Corey Stoughton. The author is the Advocacy Director and previous Acting Director of the Human Rights organisation Liberty and served as senior counsel to the Assistant…

  • Second consecutive year of students reporting better value for money

    13 June 2019 by Nick Hillman

    The 2019 Student Academic Experience Survey of over 14,000 full-time undergraduate students from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Advance HE shows rising value-for-money perceptions. The key findings in the 2019 Student Academic Experience Survey by Jonathan Neves, Head of Business Intelligence and Surveys at Advance HE, and Nick Hillman,…

  • Initial response to the Augar proposals

    30 May 2019

    In his initial response to the publication of the long-awaited Augar report on post-18 education, Nick Hillman, the Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “The report that universities and colleges have all been waiting for has finally landed. The immediate focus will be on the proposed reduction in…

  • Theresa May and higher education

    25 May 2019

    HEPI Director Nick Hillman looks back on what Theresa May’s premiership has meant for higher education and universities. Back in 2015, during her final Conservative Party Conference speech as Home Secretary, Theresa May took a sharp dart from the box labelled ‘populism’ and fired it directly at universities: I don’t…

  • New report calls for universities to start tracking the well-being of their staff

    9 May 2019

    Measuring well-being in higher education (HEPI Policy Note 13) by Rachel Hewitt, Director of Policy and Advocacy at HEPI, highlights the need to distinguish between mental health and well-being and calls for more comprehensive data to be made available on the well-being of all those work and study at universities. This…