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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].

  • Where Global Challenge Research and Doctoral Education Meet: Six challenges for institutions supporting research capacity building in developing countries

    16 April 2019 by Dr Rebekah Smith McGloin

    A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Rebekah Smith McGloin, Director at the Doctoral College and Centre for Research Capability and Development, Coventry University. Global Challenge Research broadly describes research projects that align with the UN sustainable development goals. It benefits one or more developing countries and is carried out in partnership…

  • A positive outcome?

    15 April 2019 by Rachel Hewitt

    HESA has completed its first round of the Graduate Outcomes survey, the new survey of graduates fifteen months post-graduation, which replaced the DLHE survey, which was only six months post-graduation. This is the first stage in running the new survey, which is the biggest annual social survey in the UK…

  • If you can’t kill it, cure it: a five-point prescription for REF201

    12 April 2019 by Bill Cooke

    A guest blog kindly contributed by Bill Cooke, Professor of Strategic Management at the York Management School, University of York.  A blog I wrote before the 2014 REF (Research Excellence Framework) had over 10000 downloads from various platforms. In policy terms it was an abject failure – It was called…

  • The placement panacea

    11 April 2019 by Mike Grey

    This is a guest blog kindly contributed by Mike Grey, Head of University Partnerships at Gradconsult. I spent a decade designing, delivering and managing placement programmes. I still believe they are the single most potent weapon in what has become an employability arms race, and when successful can have a huge…

  • Why universities are spending millions on marketing

    9 April 2019 by Helen Carasso

    A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Helen Carasso. She teaches and researches higher education policy in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. Drawing on her professional experience in university communications, marketing and student recruitment, she has a particular interest in questions relating to fees, funding and…

  • Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a world designed for men: book review

    8 April 2019 by Rachel Hewitt

    International Women’s Day always leaves me feeling uplifted about the steps that have been made towards gender equality and the examples of women supporting women. As journalist Dolly Alderton tweeted, ‘Tonight a female friend told me she loved international women’s day because people kept wishing her a happy one and…

  • Three years on, we still need to build a better explanation of why EU membership is the best way to ensure UK universities are open to the rest of the world

    5 April 2019

    On Wednesday, I went off to the UCL Institute of Education for the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE)’s excellent Conference, in particular to participate in a panel on Brexit and higher education. The instructions had asked us ‘to steer away from the political manoeuvring’, but unsurprisingly that proved impossible.…

  • Delivering the digital transformation responsibly

    4 April 2019 by Paul Feldman

    A guest blog kindly contributed by Paul Feldman, chief executive of Jisc to mark the publication of a new HEPI report ‘How Safe is Your Data?’ by Jisc’s Dr John Chapman There is no more important time to talk about the importance of cyber security in Higher Education. We are in…