Norway Doesn’t Like University Rankings

The Norwegian Government Gives a Big Thumbs Down to Global University Rankings The Chronicle of Higher Education has a piece on an analysis commissioned by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research of Norwegian universities’ performance in international university rankings. The report concluded that the "top rankings are so based on subjective weightings of factors …

Tooled up campus security

Guns and Grenades for University Security Earlier this year I posted on the acquisition of an armoured truck by security at Ohio State University. The Chronicle of Higher Education has since discovered that other US universities have also taken advantage of the opportunity to buy surplus army kit including grenade launchers, M-16s, and armoured vehicles: …

New 2014/15 QS World University Rankings

The latest QS world league table is out Full details of the rankings can be found at the QS website. A summary of the world top 10 follows where we find MIT retaining the top spot for a third consecutive year but really not a lot to grab the headlines here: Global top ten 1 …

Spy kids

GCHQ accredits UK master's degrees for 'cyber spies'     Was very much taken by this thrilling news. Of course we have had Professional Body accreditation for many years and more recently courses supported by Asda and other supermarkets. But this is a little bit different. Not least in the sense that GCHQ is not …

Sino-Foreign Unity

Inauguration of Sino-foreign Cooperative Universities Union Sino-foreign universities are still small in number. Since the establishment of the first Sino-foreign institution, the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, a decade ago, the number has grown though and npw six have come together to establish the Sino-foreign Cooperative University Union and Presidents Forum. The event was a …

Capital spend spend spend

Changing patterns of capital spending in universities   HESA recently released details of HEIs' capital spend in 2012-13 showing the total spend on buildings and equipment and the sources of the funds used:   Times Higher Education has a brief piece on this and notes that, unsurprisingly, as external funding for capital expenditure has declined, …

Students behaving badly

Crimes and misdemeanours at university I was greatly taken by this list of fineable offences for 18th-century students at Harvard: Offense #19, "Cutting off the lead," seems to refer to the lead on the college building's roof. Lead was once used for roofing material (especially for more expensively-constructed buildings), and such buildings suffered from the …

It’s not about the money: real international impact

Genuinely international- Going Global 2014 Universities have had an international outlook since the beginning. Whilst some aspects of internationalisation have moved on since the middle ages some principles remain clear. Including the need to look beyond income generation as a motive. As part of Going Global 2014, the British Council's international HE conference, I'm involved …

The Imperfect University: Students and their Unions – Part II

Changed days indeed (As with the previous offering I suspect I'm going to be challenged on much of what follows.) Part I of these two pieces looked at the changes in the National Union of Students as it almost completely changed its campaign foci to concentrate much more directly on supporting students on local issues …

More means worse? (Data that is)

 Lots of information is not necessarily a good thing for prospective students I've written before about concerns about too much data and the importance of quality rather than just quantity in the information provided to applicants to higher education. Now a new HEFCE report on Improving information for prospective students has come to a similar …

The Imperfect University: Students and their Unions

Part I: How much power in the union? (I suspect I'm going to be challenged on just about every aspect of what follows.) Students’ unions and the National Union of Students, which recently celebrated its 90th birthday, have a long and distinctive history in UK higher and further education. There have been major shifts in …

OFT gives English HE a 2i (just)

A decent result for HE in England? A previous post noted the launch of an OFT investigation into competition in the HE sector in England. After gathering much information the OFT has now published a report which, broadly (and perhaps grudgingly), says things are working well: Overall, our analysis of the higher education sector in …

The 2014 Grant letter: another epistolary triumph

And the wait was finally over The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has written to HEFCE with the Department's annual message on funding and helpful bag of instructions. As excitement in the sector reached near fever pitch, the contents were being live-tweeted by @TimesHigherEd while everyone else waited to get hold of …

Universities unable to regulate guns on campus

More crimes about guns A post here a couple of years ago noted the challenges US universities were facing in trying to address guns on campus. More recently there was news in a survey on US students' views on carrying concealed weapons which highlighted what seemed to be quite a large proportion of students who did not …

The Imperfect University: Sectoral change since Robbins and into the future

All change please! Sectoral change since Robbins and into the future Rewriting Robbins? The very thought I recently agreed to give a presentation on this theme at an event entitled “Rewriting Robbins” by those lovely people at SGP Martineau. You can find the full details of the event here  and my rather fetching but nevertheless …