Food Standards Agency – Invitation to join the Independent Scientific Advisory Council. The Food Standards Agency is looking for committed, highly capable and motivated individuals to become members of their Scientific Advisory Committees and Science Council. Members will help ensure food produced or sold in the UK is safe, providing independent expert assessment of risks arising in… Read more »
Category / policy
This part of the blog features news and information about higher education policy and how BU’s research is influencing policy.
HE Policy Update for the w/e 27th November 2020
The spending review was quiet on HE and heavier on research spending commitments. A UUK publication tackles racial harassment in HE and the OIA provides examples of what will and won’t be upheld from student Covid complaints. We wonder about the TEF. See you in December! Driving home for Christmas? Today’s news is all about… Read more »
Dr John Oliver awarded Parliamentary Fellowship
Dr John Oliver has recently been awarded a prestigious Academic Fellowship from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). One aspect of POST work includes making scientific research accessible to UK Parliament by producing forward-thinking briefings that involves horizon scanning activities on a range of subject areas. Dr Oliver will be working in the… Read more »
BU Professor publishes sixth edition of bestselling book ‘Social Work Practice’!
I am pleased to say that the sixth edition of my book Social Work Practice has now been published. It is with grateful thanks to all former students and people who have received social work services that this has been possible. I’ve updated this edition looking to the future and developing a more green and… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 20th November 2020
w/e 20 November 2020 This week has been all about Government intervention in HE. The news has been non-stop so we’ve sectioned some of the biggest debates into separate documents which are linked to within the main text. Fear not, for our skim readers the basics on each debate are still covered in the main… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 13th November 2020
We’ve a lot to cover this week as the new lockdown seems to have inspired policy wonks to publish! Input from the Government has informed how students should travel home safely for Christmas and the Education Secretary wants all the Skills answers. Skills reform Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has written to Stephen van Rooyen (Sky… Read more »
HE policy update for the w/e 6th November 2020
To combat potential politics fatigue we’ve kept the news from the last couple of weeks short and sharp for you, and to combat lockdown fatigue this is also a COVID-light update. Parliamentary News On Wednesday there was a debate in the House of Commons on FE funding. Research news Post-Brexit Research Programme Association Discontent has… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 23rd October 2020
Some fresh news and reports but overall a quieter week HE wise as the Government continues to focus on the rise in virus numbers nationally. Much of the media interest has focussed on familiar topics such as student complaints and white working class students. HEPI looked at future demand for HE study and UUK surveyed… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 16th October 2020
A big week for pandemic news as more restrictions bite across the country. The Secretary of State is getting tetchy and the Department for Education and the OfS are both going back on recent pledges to reduce bureaucracy, as they add new information requirements. Meanwhile if you missed it, Jane wrote last week for the… Read more »
Upcoming online events
BU is a member of the Parliamentary & Scientific Committee (an APPG). Colleagues who are interested in attending any of the below online events should contact office@scienceinparliament.org.uk to book a place. Please inform the Policy team if you do book a place so we can monitor interest and uptake for these events. You will require… Read more »
Academic insight in Parliament
Wonkhe have a new blog acknowledging the increasing access that researchers have to Parliament and the policy making process. The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) covers all research interests, not just science and technology. POST is Parliament’s in-house source of research expertise and provides a bridge between policy makers and external researchers. During… Read more »
The Government’s Areas of Research Interest
The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) have released a new opportunity for research colleagues: In April POST ran a survey of experts on the COVID-19 outbreak expert database that resulted in the publication of syntheses about the future effects of COVID-19 in different policy areas. From this survey POST developed Parliament’s first Areas of… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 9th October 2020
The virtual Conservative Party Conference took place – we’ve coverage of the relevant fringe events below; the Science and Technology Committee ran an interesting session on ARPA, and university adoption of the definition of anti-semitism is back on the agenda. What next for HE policy? Jonathan Simons of Public First writes Ambitious Minds for Research… Read more »
Social Innovation and older people
Over the last three years the EU funded project Staying Active and Independent for Longer (SAIL) has explored how the concept of social innovation can be used to support older people. Some of this research is soon to be published in Quality in Aging and Older People (Crossen-White, Hemingway and Ladkin 2020). The article… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 2nd October 2020
We’re in October already! This week has been busy in Parliament, and we had some Ministerial engagement too. Boris unveiled a skills pledge and Gavin Williamson made a statement regarding students returning to universities (and was subsequently slammed for inaccuracies). And angry parents have taken issue that their children might be prevented from returning home… Read more »
BU researchers contribute to POST report about life beyond Covid-19
In March 2020, the Knowledge Exchange Unit in the Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology launched the COVID-19 outbreak database and over 5,500 experts signed up. With the launch of the House of Lords COVID-19 Committee inquiry on Life beyond COVID, a survey was sent to all of these experts to find out what implications… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 25th September 2020
Has anyone else been shouting at the radio last week and over the weekend, or muttering aloud while reading social media posts? Or is that just me? There has been nowhere to hide from negative and badly informed stories about students, universities and the virus this week. Then you add in the news that lorries… Read more »
HE policy update for the w/e 18th September 2020
Hi all, there is very much of a “what will the new academic year hold” feel about this week. Will there be another national lockdown? Is the rise in virus cases a second wave or a small bounce? What will university students do when they are not learning or socialising online? In the “find someone… Read more »
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