By . The British Open University received its charter on April 23, 1969. I joined the OU as a research officer at the end of August, 1969. I was the 20th person hired (my payroll number was 000020). My job was ‘to research distance education.’ That was it, initially. More...25 avril 2019
The Open University is 50 years old today
By . The British Open University received its charter on April 23, 1969. I joined the OU as a research officer at the end of August, 1969. I was the 20th person hired (my payroll number was 000020). My job was ‘to research distance education.’ That was it, initially. More...From Russia with LEO
When I recently attended an event at the Resolution Foundation on the use of LEO data, someone said they thought we were the first country in the world to have this kind of linked data on graduate salaries available. My experience in Russia last month proved this not to be the case. Nor are we the first to try and grapple with the complexity that the new availability of this data brings. More...
The Future for University Strategies
In my recent analysis of the published strategies of 52 UK universities (University Strategy 2020), I discovered that almost 63% of university strategies have end dates in 2019, 2020 or 2021 and hence will need to be re-written and re-launched over the next few years. More...
The hardest (higher) education policy question of all?
Recording the latest episode of Wonkhe’s podcast brought another challenging issue to the forefront of my mind: the educational entitlement of people guilty of practices that are deeply socially unacceptable and / or against the law. More...
Where Global Challenge Research and Doctoral Education Meet: Six challenges for institutions
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 with researchers in those countries. More...
A positive outcome?
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. More...
The Access Challenge in The State of Independence
Tonight, a new book on the state of independent education will be officially launched by Routledge. With 57 short contributions, many of the authors will be well-known to HEPI's readers for they include a Vice Chancellor, a peer, various academics, a former special adviser to a Conservative Secretary of State for Education, think tankers, an education journalist and a former Labour Secretary of State for Education. More...
If you can’t kill it, cure it: a five-point prescription for REF201
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 Kill The Ref in Complex Circumstances. Yet REF lives. More...
Reducing student fees is one thing … but deciding how you do it is another thing altogether
There have been rumours for months, if not years, that student fees will come down. It has been a likely prospect ever since at least the 2017 general election. More...
