Jobs in .ac.uk

Some handy data on higher education employment trends HEFCE has published 'interactive' data on the trends in employment of staff in the higher education sector for the ten years, 2003-04 to 2012-13. The data is divided into two main categories: academic roles, such as professors and research assistants and then professional and support roles, including …

Needed: More Money, Money, Money

Higher Education needs more and better fundraising. And fundraisers A new publication from HEFCE.on developing the HE fundraising workforce: This report was commissioned by HEFCE to address one of the recommendations in 'Review of Philanthropy in UK Higher Education: 2012 status report and challenges for the next decade' (the Pearce report), specifically the future development …

Guidance or directive?

Easy finance A new statement from HEFCE advises universities how to make financial information more visible to students. But is it advice, guidance, assistance or in fact a clear directive? New guidance aims to help universities and colleges in England present information about income and expenditure on their web-sites in a way that is transparent …

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 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 …

Do we really need more performance indicators in HE?

Review proposes yet more performance indicators. An earlier post noted that the UK Performance Indicators Steering Group (or the UKPISG, perhaps one of the least felicitous acronyms in higher education), was undertaking a major review of performance Indicators for higher education. It was hoped (by me at least) that this might lead to some rationalisation of performance …

Variations in HE participation

Some big differences across the country HEFCE has just published its latest research on participation in HE for 14 cohorts of young people aged 18 in the academic years from 1998-99 to 2011-12: In October 2013 we published a report on the latest trends in young participation. This report builds on earlier reports to include cohorts …

Save universities from more misguided regulation

Well-meaning but fundamentally wrong proposals for yet more regulation Just when you thought things couldn't get much worse in terms of higher education regulation, another group comes along and proposes a whole load more. Brilliant. (I've posted before here on this issue.) I've not seen the report yet (it is due to be published today) …

Unbelievable excitement as website updated

Big announcements about Unistats. As previously noted there is no shortage of information available to prospective university students. Unistats was intended to enable better decision-making by students but, whilst it is not without merit, it is no substitute for effective advice and guidance. Unfortunately this shiny website seems to be pretty much all that's on …

Higher Ed data – way too much information

Tackling the surfeit of data I've written before here about Higher Education regulation (see for example this general commentary and this post on information provision) and the excess of information provision available to prospective students. It's pleasing therefore to see that HEFCE is undertaking a review of providing information about higher education. The aims of the review …

Go West. Or East. Plans for more student mobility

Government wants more students to travel. There is to be a Government initiative to persuade more students to travel. The aim is that more UK students will be encouraged to broaden their horizons by travelling overseas for part of their degree courses. The new UK Outward Student Mobility Strategy aims to boost the number of …

How Green is my Campus?

An exciting new tool to count university plants. A web-based tool to measure plant diversity on university and college campuses has been developed by the University of Northampton with funds from HEFCE. The index The Biodiversity Index is an interactive system which allows organisations with little or no knowledge of biodiversity to assess the level …

Regulation without legislation

Not a campaign slogan but the next steps in HE regulatory change from HEFCE Something of a surprise announcement from HEFCE on new changes to HE regulation. The changes follow a written Ministerial statement from David Willetts. The changes cover a lot of ground: The success of higher education in England is underpinned by the …

£5m for Students’ Green Fund

Big funding for student-led green initiatives. HEFCE recently announced the launch of the 'Students’ Green Fund' which is intended to help students work with their institutions on sustainable development: NUS will run a single-round bidding competition in summer 2013, to allocate the funding. The funded projects will then receive the funding over two full academic …

Do we need more ways to measure HE?

Clearly we do... There seems to be a new review of performance indicators for higher education underway. This is, it appears, a "fundamental review" of how higher education is measured in the UK. The review has been commissioned by HEFCE's Performance Indicators Steering Group (the acronym for which I get a childish pleasure from saying out …