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].
What are select committees? With a new Parliament will come new select committees to scrutinise the Government. In the House of Commons, these committees are usually composed of 11 MPs. Most Commons committees are headed by a Chair elected in a secret ballot by all MPs. Committees are overtly cross-party…
At the recent Universities UK (UUK) Conference on Higher Education Regulation, I was invited to contribute to a session exploring institutional approaches to managing UK franchising. This topic is close to my heart, given my role in developing and managing our UK and global partnership network at the University of…
What matters to students continues to evolve as the world around them changes. Through QS data and analytics – including the International Student Survey which collates the perspectives and motivations of over 115,000 international students annually – it is becoming clear that a greater awareness of environmental and social sustainability…
It is not difficult, with the power of hindsight, to identify the three Grey Rhinos, and institutions’ responses to them, that have underpinned the current crisis facing UK universities. Grey Rhinos are defined as “highly probable, high impact but yet neglected” systemic disruptions; they are not random surprises (like Black…
As Keir Starmer’s first cabinet begins to govern, HEPI takes a look back to where and what the new cabinet members studied for their undergraduate degrees. Our analysis finds: The two undergraduate subjects studied by the most members of Starmer’s cabinet are Law and Politics, Philosophy and Economics (each studied…
And so it is decided. After weeks of debates and polls, elephant traps and memes, the election is over. Labour wins a majority of 172 seats and shows assurance as it takes the reins of government. It’s been a long wait. With it, something else begins — the long hard…
Universities are invaluable to the national economy and important anchor institutions in their regions. In 2021-22 around 285 higher education providers across the UK hosted 2.9m students and contributed £71bn to UK GDP. However, both the UK’s regions and our universities are facing times of change and challenge, leading to…
In autumn 2022, HEPI and Midlands Innovation released a ten-part blog series on technical talent, reflecting a growing interest in technicians in the higher education and research sectors. There is a particular interest in understanding employment quality for technicians, encompassing skills utilisation, career development opportunities, pay and contract terms. Information…
A Yorkshire Universities (YU) project has produced the first large-scale picture of student self-reported career readiness at the start of undergraduate study across an English region. Key findings have emerged around students entering higher education at the early stages of their career thinking and levels of interest in gaining experience.…
Since the general election was called, HEPI has been arguing that parliamentary constituencies with a large number of undergraduates could behave unexpectedly. This rests on the idea that the timing of the election in early July meant many (not all) students would have moved back home for the holidays. Furthermore, we argued this…