Advance notice that the Parliamentary Academic Fellowship Scheme Open Call will be launching in June 2020, when expressions of interest will be sought. Securing a prestigious fellowship with POST provides researchers with unique access to Parliament as well as direct potential for impact. It’s open to all employed academics with a PhD, and applicants… 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.
BU policy update for the w/e 1st April 2020
HE news in the media has been dominated by talk of student number controls while the sector wrestles with decisions over student exams. Parliamentary Business Appointments Alex Chisholm has been announced as the new Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Chief Operating Officer for the Civil Service. Alex is currently serving as Permanent Secretary at the… Read more »
COVID-19 Outbreak Expert Database – update
According to Parliament’s Knowledge Exchange Unit (KEU), more than 3,500 researchers from across the UK have signed up to its COVID-19 Outbreak Expert Database, which includes a number of BU academics across all faculties. The KEU reports that it is already making use of the database and, later this week, will be directly contacting experts… Read more »
COVID-19 Pandemic: Public Health Implications in Nepal
Our editorial today in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology highlights some of the key issues related to COVID-19 related to a low-income country such as Nepal [1]. There are various Public Health challenges to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in South Asia including Nepal. Learning from the COVID-19 outbreak in China, there will be slowdown of economic… Read more »
HE Policy Update as at 25th March 2020
Welcome to your new mid-week update! If you missed our admissions special last week, you will also not have seen that we are moving away from Friday afternoon e-mails because we want to support your wellbeing. Nothing much has changed on admissions yet, by the way, so that one is still worth reading. Government Updates… Read more »
COVID-19 Outbreak Expert Database – request for researchers
Over the past few weeks, Parliament has seen a surge in need for access to research expertise as it engages with the COVID-19 outbreak. In this rapidly evolving situation, Parliament needs quick access to researchers who can provide expert insights relating to both Coronavirus and its impacts. Parliament and Parliamentarians use these insights to help… Read more »
HE policy update for the w/e 20th March 2020
We are going to change the way that we do the BU HE policy update to respond to current circumstances. No-one wants to receive a long bulletin on a Friday evening after a long week juggling working from home with all the other requirements on your time. And really, we need to discourage anyone from… Read more »
He policy update for the w/e 13th March 2020
The first budget of the new Government was delivered on Wednesday. Overall a quieter week as most focussed on the nation’s health. We can do no better than refer you to the BU website and for staff, the BU intranet pages. The Budget There was very little specifically relating to HE in the budget. Of most… Read more »
Women Empowerment through Skills Development
UK could increase economic growth by 0.5 percentage points per year, with a potential gain of 10% of GDP by 2030 by equalising labour force participation rates of men and women (Gov.uk 2019). In the last few decades, women of various ethnic origins including Indian high-class professionals in the fields of IT, medical, academia and entrepreneurship have come to… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 6th March 2020
Pre-budget week has been as we’d typically expect with organisations releasing a hoard of reports, evidence and lobbying papers aiming to influence Government funding decisions. We’ve summarised the main reports and added links for the reports which say similar things. Graduate outcomes and apprenticeships& technical education were the loudest shouters, and this week also saw… Read more »
HE policy update for the w/e 28th February 2020
Welcome back to your policy update. We bring you the key news from the last two weeks including the new universities minister, rumours of student number control return, and we explore what the new points-based immigration system means for students and staff members. Admissions in the spotlight The anticipated OfS consultation on admissions has gone… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 7th February 2020
With a reshuffle on the horizon this week, last week was Apprenticeships Week and Children’s Mental Health Week. Parliamentary News Cabinet Reshuffle – we are expecting a ministerial reshuffle to take place before Parliament enters recess at the end of next week. Politico speculates about who may be in and out of favour. Brexit –… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 31 January 2020
A bumper edition covering lot of news across all the HE interest areas. We have also done a special edition on this week’s big OfS’ report analysing the future of HE Access and Participation. Parliamentary News Select Committee elections were held on Wednesday with some big names being elected. Here are the Chairs of the… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 24th January 2020
There are five reports touching on social mobility this week, lots of education statistics released, and we’ve almost Brexited. After all the focus on Parliamentary process over the last two and a half years, the ping pong was over before it really started. There is scope for more before the end of the year, although… Read more »
HE policy update for the w/e 17th January 2020
Another busy week in HE policy– with consultations and a very short timeline for the KEF. Everyone has hit the ground running in 2020! The third leg of the HE stool arrives: KEF has landed The outcome of the KEF consultation in 2019 has come out. UKRI have published the “Decisions for the first iteration”. … Read more »
REF2021: the importance of Open Access compliance
Introduction The four main HE funding bodies in the UK believe that ‘the outputs of publicly funded research should be freely accessible and widely available.’ The REF2021 Open Access Policy was introduced as a requirement for the next REF and it states that – all journal articles and conference contributions (with ISSN) accepted for… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 10th January 2020
Welcome to all our new readers! Parliament is back in the swing, the Labour leadership contest kicks off and the OfS has been VERY busy. Parliamentary News Daniel Zeichner, Labour MP for Cambridge, has been elected the new chair of the all-party parliamentary group for universities. The Budget has been scheduled for Wednesday 11 March… Read more »
HE Policy Update for the w/e 3rd January 2020
The end of 2019 saw a flurry of announcements and planning documents as the government issued detailed notes on the Queen’s Speech, building on their manifesto commitments, and the Office for Students issued a detailed annual review with an accompanying blog giving some ideas about what is coming up next. If you missed our policy… Read more »