Last week’s HE in the news…

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As ever, thanks to colleagues at University Alliance for the content of this post.

Monday

Sir Andrew Witty called for the boost in innovation funding in his review of universities and growth issued last year. But in its response to the Witty review, published on 14 March, the government has said it was unable to commit to raising the level of Heif in the “current tight fiscal environment”. University innovation fund will not be increased, says government (THE)

Funding

Teaching grants for universities in England are to fall by more than the £45 million announced last month, Hefce has said. Universities to get near 6 per cent cut to ‘most teaching budgets’ (THE)

Employability

A growing shortage of engineering skills threatens to hold back industry’s nascent recovery and wreck efforts to rebalance the UK economy, industrialists and politicians have said. Vince Cable told the Financial Times that skills shortages were “a massively serious problem” that could disrupt the recovery “unless we get this right”. Lack of engineers threatens UK recovery, say industrialists (FT)

Widening participation

A study has found that there is some evidence that state school students are getting more 2:1s and first class degrees. The research into 132,000 students, over three years, found state school pupils were up to 8% more likely to get a 2:1 or first-class degree than their private school counterparts with the same A-level results.

Scottish referendum

A Westminster committee has said independence would have a damaging effect on higher education and research in Scotland. Scottish independence: MPs claim Yes vote would damage education (BBC)

Women in science

Tuesday

The “hidden talent” of 2.5 million young adults is being wasted because they are unemployed, working part-time or in jobs for which they are over-qualified, the Government is warned today. A report for the LGA says 40 per cent of 16-to-24-year-olds are failing to make the most of their abilities in the workplace, with nearly 1.3 million not working at all and another 1.2 million who are “underemployed or overqualified”. In some areas the proportion is close to 50 per cent. Fall in jobless hides plight of 2.5m young adults whose talents go to waste (Independent)

Gender disparities

There is concern over female participation rates in science, but gender disparities need to be addressed in many subjects argues Laura McInerney. Education: Only 29% of English A-level students are boys. Why don’t we think that’s a problem? (Guardian)

Wednesday

A letter from a group of academics in the Guardian argues that prior to 1970 science was led by mavericks with limited funding but much more academic freedom, this led to huge scientific discoveries that have enriched our lives and driven the economy. They argue that the HE system must find a way to support blue-sky thinking. We need more scientific mavericks.

Social work

A discussion piece in the Guardian examines the quality of teaching of social work courses in response to the release of two books which are critical of the preparation courses give to students. Social work training courses need to offer high quality work placements.

Thursday

The government “will not have saved any money” by trebling fees to £9,000 and scrapping nearly all direct grants to universities, a senior sector figure has said in response to data showing the “break-even point” for the new system could be rapidly approaching. Cost of new fee regime may soon exceed the old (THE)

Politics

Universities returning to Department for Education?: Asked in an interview with the FT what he would like to do next, Mr Gove replied: “What I’d really like to do is this job, plus universities.” He added: “I think that universities and science should be in this department.” The week in higher education (THE)

Research and growth

Budget 2014: George Osborne announced that £106 million will be spent over five years in 20 new centres for doctoral training, to strengthen Britain’s science, maths and engineering capabilities. It will help to train about 750 post-doctoral students to prepare them for the demands of industry. A new Alan Turing Institute is also to be built, costing £42 million over five years, to specialise in the analysis and application of “big data”.

·         Alan Turing Institute to be set up to research big data (BBC)

·         Research centre to honour Turing (Telegraph)

·         Millions to boost training and enhance research (Independent)

·         Budget 2014: Osborne seeks to boost UK’s scientific credentials (FT)

Research funding: The UK’s research councils will look at tying funding to membership of schemes such as Athena SWAN, which promotes good employment practices for women in science, if they decide universities are failing to improve gender and ethnic diversity among academic staff. Research councils may tie funding to diversity accreditation (THE)

University-business collaboration: Universities are now “hungrier” to work with industry than they have been in the past, according to a man who builds links between academia and industry for a major pharmaceutical company. Malcolm Skingle, director of academic liaison at GlaxoSmithKline, said that the change has been helped along by the research excellence framework’s impact agenda. Growing appetite for university-industry collaborations (THE)

Social mobility

Career guidance: Improving career guidance before students apply to university would significantly cut dropout rates, analysis suggests. According to a BIS research paper, those who consulted only a few sources of advice when picking their degree course were far more likely to drop out by the end of their first year. Better careers guidance ‘will reduce dropout rates’ (THE)

International

Reputation: The UK’s reputation in higher education is being tarnished by an overseas student recruitment process that is full of pitfalls, says Zakaria Mahmood. Blog: ‘The access labyrinth for foreign students’  (Daily Telegraph)

Universities

Student numbers and marketing: Does an increase in marketing spend result in an increase in student numbers? Marketing spend up, but applications fail to follow suit (THE)

Student accommodation: More than three-quarters of students live in poor accommodation, says NUS. It also claims many struggle to get help from landlords. The NUS wants tougher regulation for letting agents, like there is in Scotland, to help stop “exploitation of students”. Many students living in poor accommodation, says NUS (BBC Radio)

Friday

It is a very quiet HE news day today but one story that may be of interest. John Raftery, who has served as pro vice-chancellor at Oxford Brookes University for nine years covering areas including student experience and international strategy, will succeed current London Met vice-chancellor Malcolm Gillies later this year. London Met appoints next vice-chancellor (THE)  

 

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