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November 26, 2018

HE Policy update for the w/e 23rd November 2018

Impact, Industry collaboration, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, policy, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

Considering we were late and included much of Monday’s news in the last update, this is a bumper update for you. Lots of data and lots of speculation about fees etc. We have managed to avoid the B word this week – as you will have had enough of it from all the other news sources.

Internships

Sophie Bradfield, the Policy & Campaigns Coordinator for SUBU, returns with another guest piece for us this week

Sutton Trust has published research today on graduate internships detailing that “39% of graduates in their twenties have done an internship, including almost half (46%) of young graduates under 24.” These statistics have a direct correspondence with research published in a Lancaster University HECSU-funded Graduate Resilience Project in 2016, looking at how students transition after graduating, where “45% of respondents identified a concern that they lacked relevant experience.” Pairing this with the competition for graduate jobs, it’s of no surprise that so many students seek to undertake internships. At BU gaining placements and real-world experience is a unique selling point and as BU proudly states on the placement information page “90% of our graduates have relevant work experience and this can give you a real head start in the competitive jobs market.” The Students’ Union at Bournemouth University (SUBU) is in absolute agreement that offering opportunities to gain experience can really help students to stand out from the crowd; learn transferable skills for employment; and increase employability and so we have a lot of extra-curricular opportunities on offer for students and collaborate with BU on a number of joint projects including recruiting paid students to be on programme review panels.

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November 19, 2018

HE policy update for the w/e 16th November 2018

EU, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, policy, Public engagement, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

Last week was dominated by the Brexit political turmoil and no major HE reports were launched (although there are some coming later this week). The media continued to wring all the coverage they could out of the fee cut speculations and there was news on an American university who is currently registering with the OfS to takeover a London university college. And on Monday there was news for the TEF review and on accelerated degree fees.

TEF Review

The details for the Independent Review of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) have been announced. The Terms of Reference are here and the 2016 policy paper has also been shared here.

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July 23, 2018

HE Policy update for the w/e 20th July 2018

Funding opportunities, HEIF, innovation, policy, Student Engagement jforster

Free speech still in the news

The Higher Education Policy Institute has published a report on free speech on campus – Cracking the code: A practical guide for university free speech policies. This is the last report to be written for HEPI by Dr Diana Beech before she goes to work for Sam Gyimah as policy adviser. [Those readers who met Diana when she attended our recent policy meeting or read my blog about the event will know that this is a good thing – Diana is well informed and positive about the sector and open minded rather than partisan –we’re looking forward to seeing her impact.]

HEPI say about the report:

The report finds some worrying loopholes in existing codes of practice, including:

overlooking new types of meetings afforded by social media and digital technologies;
failing to publish updated policies following internal reviews;
neglecting to provide codes in a wide range of accessible formats such as braille or audio;
not hosting codes in the public domain; and
not linking to necessary supplementary materials such as room booking forms and risk assessment protocols.

This new guide is intended to assist university boards and committees when formulating or updating codes of practice on freedom of speech to ensure policies are as efficient and user-friendly as possible.

The foreword is written by Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner, who says:

“Overall, I find most universities positive, conducive places for healthy debate. When you compare the lively conversations that take place on UK campuses to those that are openly or more subtly squeezed out, or plain banned, in other countries, our universities look like bastions of free speech. And yet … Not everything is perfect. A minority of students do seem remarkably intolerant and unwilling to hear others’ views. It’s not even a left / right split. Sometimes the fiercest disagreements come between people who all regard themselves as progressive. Challenging student meetings can get bogged down in red tape about the rules of debate and their interpretation. It is also sometimes contested who can speak, what they can say and the degree of dissent that is permitted.”
And “In my view, bad ideas are most soundly defeated by good ideas. Bigoted opinions should never be given a free pass. They should always be protested and countered. But the best way to do this is usually by subjecting them to open debate, to show why they are factually and morally wrong.”

The recommendations are lengthy, but then this is a complicated area:

“To optimise the format of codes of practice on freedom of speech, we recommend universities:
- include a cover page to the code detailing the document’s history, including key information on the date of its approval, the next date of review and contact information for the responsible officer;
- consider formulating the codes in other formats (such as braille or audio) to ensure the widest possible readership;
- enhance the usability of the codes by employing hyperlinks throughout all online versions of the policies, as well as writing out web addresses in full in an appendix to the code (or in footnotes or endnotes) to ensure this information is not lost when the codes are printed out;
- make use of additional appendices to the codes to host vital supplementary documentation including application forms and additional guidance, so that this information is all housed in one place;
- visualise application and assessment processes in the form of process flowcharts wherever possible, to allow event organisers to easily understand what is required of them and to ensure the policies are as simple as they can be during the design process;
- take care to define what the code covers both in terms of meeting size and meeting format; and
- outline the precise remits of the code if intended, for example, to be applicable to students’ unions, in other countries, in constituent parts of a university with otherwise autonomous governance structures (such as Oxbridge colleges) or in faith-based institutions, where contradictions may occur with religious doctrine (such as Canon Law in Catholic institutions).
To optimise the processes surrounding the codes of practice on freedom of speech, we recommend universities:
- regularly review and update their code, particularly in line with developments in relevant legislation;
- ensure the latest versions of the code are swiftly approved by relevant university boards and committees, and published accordingly on university websites;
- keep a visual record of where the code has been disseminated to allow university committees and boards to decide whether this is appropriate and sufficient at the next review meeting;
- avoid requesting information from speakers or event organisers that could be deemed unreasonable or offputting (such as routinely requesting copies of speeches before they are made);
- include in the code reasonable timescales for both the initial application to host an event or external speaker and the appeals process;
- offer in the code assistance to event organisers – such as PA systems or added security provisions – to give an event the best chance of going ahead before considering it for cancellation;
- consider including a disclaimer in the code to cover more lengthy and complex decision processes over appeals (although every effort should be made to stick to the original timescales outlined as above); and
- consider employing the expertise of an assessment panel, as opposed to just one accountable officer, to help in the case of deciding whether more complex or controversial events or speakers should go ahead.
In addition, higher education institutions – particularly in England – may consider producing additional governance documents, such as statements of commitment to the codes of practice. This will not only help institutions to become clear about what their codes of practice are for, and what purpose they serve, but also help them to prepare for life under the Office for Students and its new Regulatory Framework, which may well require providers of higher education to justify their policies and processes in more detail in the future.”

Sir Michael Barber was on the Today programme on Thursday – he refused to say that stopping organisers requesting speech in advance was going to be OfS policy (the OfS is not a bureaucratic organisation or a rule maker, but a regulator, he said – we aren’t sure about this distinction without a difference either) – but he did say it was a good idea.

Smita Jamdar of Shakespeare Martineau tweeted a response thread which is worth reading:

“So the JCHR may have said universities should not ask for details of what will be said, but as long as that guidance remains in that form I do not think it is fair to ask universities to carry the risk. Government needs to work out what it wants and make some policy changes.”

Student Loans, RPI & HE Funding

The cost of student loans and how it is presented in public accounting is an issue that has been bubbling for a while. Both the Commons Economic Affairs Committee and the Treasury Committee reviewed the treatment of student loans in the public accounts during 2018. The timing is fascinating in the context of the Government’s current review of post-18 education – often described as the fees and funding review, but as we know, it is not only this. We wrote about this in our policy update on 6th July. Andrew McGettigan, who spoke at the recent Wonkhe conference eon this, has now published a blog on Wonkhe setting out his argument in full – this is well worth reading.

The debate has now moved on as this week two bodies proposed alternative methods of accounting for student loans, one from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the other from the Office for National Statistics.

The Times explain the financial trickery:

Currently student loans are treated as a normal loan for the purpose of the public finances, which means that the cash transfer does not show up as borrowing but as an asset. Interest payments owed, but not necessarily paid, by former students show up as receipts and reduce the deficit. The effect is to improve the deficit in the early years as interest is capitalised. When students fail to meet repayments and loans are written off 30 years later, the loss is incurred as spending.

It is only at the point of writing off the loans that they count as expenditure and negatively affect public spending statistics. If the government sells off the loans before the write-off is due, that moment of reckoning will never arrive and the government will never, so far as the public accounts are concerned, have had to demonstrate direct public expenditure on student finance. Its benefit is that it provides sustainable funding for HE. Arguably therefore, HE does not have to fight with other departments to secure an adequate share of public funds.

OBR’s chairman Robert Chote speaks of the system saying it:

“flatters the impact of student loans on the public finances and creates a perverse incentive to sell them, even at a loss…. Capturing the impact of student loans in measures of the public sector deficit and debt is not straightforward, because the full impact of any particular cohort of loans takes more than three decades to fully work through…”

The OBR estimates that the government’s plan to sell £12bn worth of older student loans by 2020-21 “will deprive it of £23bn of future repayments”.

This article on Research Professional provides more detail on alternatives to the current treatment. It goes on to note that the HE Review has been instructed to make recommendations that do not worsen the spending deficit. Research Professional explain that:

“changing the way student loan repayments are presented in the public finances would automatically add to the deficit and would not only hamper Augar’s review but also make it next to impossible for chancellor Philip Hammond to meet his own spending targets. This is before you factor in the money—as yet unaccounted for—promised to the NHS and all the other demands that will be made by Brexit.
A degree of collusion is evident between the two reports, with the OBR’s working paper citing the one from the ONS. In short, both put up a range of different accounting models and invite us to pick one, with a strong steer that we should go for a hybrid model that would classify the estimated part of the loan that will be repaid as a loan, and the estimated part that will not be repaid as a grant or direct upfront expenditure.
The effect of each of the accounting models is significant, with the hybrid model immediately adding 0.7 per cent to the public spending deficit. All the models considered present the public finances in a less favourable light than the existing system, with a commercial model of revenue and expenditure for loan repayment, as you might find in the banking industry, adding 1.1 per cent to the deficit by the mid-2040s.”

This presents a challenge for the HE Review as it is expected to work within public spending constraints. Research Professional note that any short-term change would almost certainly mean higher education having a negative impact on the public accounts. This could put universities in line for budget cuts.

Retail Price Index

The use of the Retail Price Index (RPI) to calculate the interest owed on students loans is another challenge. RPI has been denounced as an inappropriate statistic that inflates the amount students are required to pay back. The Economic Affairs Committee has investigated the use of RPI and considered its possible reform. The Committee session spanned several topics, including a focus on its use within HE. John Pullinger (Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority) said he did not wish to unilaterally change the RPI as it would result in some parties getting windfall gains and others losses. However, he felt the reform of RPI would definitely happen at some point in the next ten years. He stressed the need for the change to be ‘choreographed‘ with changes by the Treasury and the Bank of England (BoE). It was put to him that it was the role of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to come forward with an alternative proposal (to move away from RPI) for the chancellor for due consideration.

On the use of RPI within student loan accounting Lord Burns highlighted that ONS felt the economic nature of student loans closely matched the definition of a loan in national accounts. Whereas consideration could be given to the proportion of loans not expected to be repaid. John responded within the historical context noting that when student loans first came about they were considered by the national accounts team to be loans, which was how they had appeared in the national accounts since. He said the response to the committee on this issue during the loans enquiry could have been more ‘nuanced’, but this is essentially what happened.

John Pullinger went on to note if student loans will be sold, maybe they should not have been considered as loans at all. Since April the ONS had been considering how they should be treated, which had resulted in five new options. (Watch the Committee session for more detail on this.) He went on to state the ONS had now ‘opened the box’ and was looking at the issue carefully, he mentioned a decision would be made by December.

He was also asked to comment on the suspicions that the reforms to student finances had constituted a ‘fiscal illusion‘ (see the two reports out this week mentioned above) to reduce the deficit. He confirmed he was observing recent developments with regard to this point.

HE Funding

The House of Commons library regularly produces succinct briefing papers on topics to inform MPs. They have just released one on HE funding (England) which sits alongside more specific papers on student loan statistics, HE finance and the value of student maintenance support (all papers can be accessed here). The HE Funding paper itself covers all the main points in a simple way to draw together the myriad of HE funding changes in the last 6 years. Despite the Brexit furore Parliament is actually winding down towards recess. (Recess being the time when MPs return to catch up on their constituency work and take some time off.) With the release of the HE Funding briefing paper as summer reading just before recess one wonders what is in store for HE when Parliament reconvenes in September.

Cost Effective Universities – Student Spending

New analysis from Which? University reveals how choosing where to study can have huge consequences on the cost of living for students – with a potential disparity of £15,000 over the term of a typical degree between the cheapest and most expensive UK regions. Using data on student expenditure and the average cost of rent, Which? University ranked 12 regions across the UK to reveal the most expensive and cheapest areas for students to live.

Unsurprisingly London was the most expensive region (£14,200 average student living cost per year). Second were the South East and the East of England (both £11,000 per year). Northern Ireland was the cheapest (£8,800), followed by Wales (£9,500). The South West region is mid-table for cost. The student budget calculator on the Which? website shows BU coming in very reasonably at £10,824 per annum (Arts University Bournemouth comes in at £12,120 per year).

The rest of the analysis highlights familiar student finance themes:

31% per cent of students said that money worries have negatively impacted their mental health/stress
20% use their overdrafts to manage the cost of living at university, (10% rely on credit cards)
46% rely on their parents to bankroll their living costs (remember there is an expectation that parents contribute anyway for students from certain household income bands)
40% of students found the cost of university was higher than expected
13% of students considered not continuing their studies due to financial difficulties

Which? use the analysis to advertise their student budget calculator tool which calculates average monthly expenditure, including a breakdown of rent, utilities and transport costs per university selected. It also factors in regional variables to improve accuracy in its predictions. With Clearing fast approaching Which? are keen to ensure students who are forced to change their HE plans have access to fast information on their potential new institutions.

There is an interesting section showing student spending habits.

Category	Percentage of students that spent on the category
Water & Energy	99%
Food Shopping	98%
Mobile & Internet	93%
Interest & Hobbies	92%
Coffee & Tea	91%
Transport	88%
Other Expenses	88%
Going Out	83%
Take Away & Snacks	83%
Personal Care	82%
Clothing	66%
Alcohol & Cigarettes	57%
Bank Charges & Fees	54%
Holidays & Flights	42%

Research Commercialisation

There was a dialogue in the House of Commons on the commercialisation of university research during oral questions this week.

Chris Green (Bolton West, Conservative) quizzed Sam Gyimah on what steps he is taking to support the commercialisation of universities’ research. Sam responded:

“we want the UK to be the place where innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs turn ideas into reality. Our universities have a strong part to play within this, alongside business. That is why we are funding, through United Kingdom Research and Innovation, support for research collaborations between universities and business. We also have the industrial strategy challenge fund, as well as higher education innovation funding and our Connecting Capability funding. All of those will help universities work together with business “

Chris Green took the opportunity to highlight the research partnership between the University of Tokyo and Imperial College London as an excellent example of how the UK can benefit from sharing innovation and technology. He asked Sam:

“what more will my hon. Friend do to ensure that we continue to strengthen academic networks and communities post Brexit? Sam responded:

our research and innovation collaboration is important in what we do with the EU, but also globally in what we do around the world. That is why UKRI has established a new £110 million fund to explore and develop international partnerships with leading science and innovation regions. We will also bring forward an international science strategy in the autumn.”

Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield, Labour/Co-op) asked Sam if he would look at universities in the United States, such as Cornell University, which have different ways of paying and incentivising research on those campuses? Gyimah responded:

“the reason behind UK Research and Innovation, which brings together all the research agencies in the UK, is that, for the first time, we have a strategic brain to direct UK research so that we can allow innovation and ingenuity to flourish in our universities. That is the best way to create returns that benefit the economy but also the best minds in our country.”

Research Funding and Talent

Q – Adam Afriyie (Conservative): How much funding his Department has provided to the UK science base in the last 12 months.

A – Sam Gyimah:

The principal research funding route is through UK Research and Innovation, which in 2018 alone accounts for over £6 billion of investment in research and innovation. I am proud that the Conservative Government have overseen the largest increase in scientific research and development funding that we have ever seen in the UK. We are investing an additional £7 billion in R&D by 2022, as a first step in delivering our ambition of increasing the UK’s R&D spend to 2.4% of GDP.

Q – Adam Afriyie As a former shadow Science Minister, I am very conscious of the increases in funding, particularly in cash terms, but I am also acutely conscious that it is not just cash but the availability of talent that matters when it comes to science, innovation and the industrial base. Given the recent concerns around Brexit and everything else, will the Minister reassure me that the availability of highly talented scientists will still be a priority for this Government?

A – Sam Gyimah:

The increase in funding is actually in real terms, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right: to succeed here, we have to be open to ideas and open to talent. He will have seen the recent relaxation in the tier 5 visa restrictions for scientists. We are also investing £900 million in UKRI’s flagship future leadership fellowships and a further £350 million for the national academies to expand their prestigious fellowships. When it comes to science, innovation and research, we are open for business.

Q – Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge, Labour): I am sure that the Minister saw the recent report from the Office for Life Sciences, which showed that R&D investment in the pharmaceutical sector fell from £4.9 billion per annum in 2011 to £4.1 billion in 2016—a decline of £800 million per annum. To what does he attribute that, and given that life sciences are so important, what does he plan to do about it?

A – Sam Gyimah:

I am aware that everyone in the life sciences sector has welcomed the life sciences sector deal. As part of our work to reach 2.4% of our GDP being invested in scientific research by 2027, we will be working with the pharmaceutical industry along with other industries to increase their research investment in the UK.

Another question clarified that an announcement on the national quantum technologies programme would follow shortly.

LEO

Robert Halfon (Conservative) questioned Sam Gyimah on LEO

Q – Robert Halfon: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what use officials in his Department are making of the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) database.

AND

Q – Robert Halfon: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to make data from the Longitudinal Education Outcomes database available to education researchers outside his Department.

A – Sam Gyimah:

The department has published seven statistical first releases and one ad hoc release for graduate employment outcomes using Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data. These cover the employment outcomes for undergraduates and postgraduates one, three, five and 10 years after graduating. Figures are published at institution and subject level as well as national level.
Students’ ability to make informed choices is at the heart of the higher education (HE) reform agenda. We are keen that these releases are easily accessible by HE students. We have therefore launched a Higher Education Open Data Competition, which is part of the work we are doing to improve the way we provide information to students. The competition aims to give students full access to valuable data on graduate outcomes – including aggregated, publically available LEO data – on an accessible and innovative digital platform. By supporting the development of new tools, the competition will help all applicants, regardless of their background, make decisions that are right for them and get value for money.
We plan to make appropriate extracts of the data available in the ONS Secure Research Service, in late 2018. In addition to this, we currently make data available, under contract, to the following research groups: Centre for Vocational Education Research, Institute for Fiscal Studies, University of Westminster.

Mental Health

A Guardian article this week considered mental health within the university context and noted the rise in wellbeing services. While traditional counselling still has its place within universities it noted some had vastly reduced the availability of counselling. In response The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy publicly voiced their concern at the reduction in traditional counselling sessions.

Meanwhile HEPI published a new guest blog: Could data and analytics help to promote student wellbeing and mental health? by Professor Martin Hall. It considers how learning analytics is already used to improve academic attainment through analysing the students’ digital footprint and engagement with the university. It is used to identify students at risk and triggers supportive interventions where the student may be under engaging to underperforming. The blog describes how this could be extended to identify patterns that may indicate student mental health concerns. Allowing support to be offered before the student reaches crisis point. s

Technical Education

Q – Adam Afriyie: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department has taken to put technical courses on parity with academic courses.

A – Anne Milton:

The government is transforming technical education to create a high quality system that meets the skills needs of businesses and is held in the same high esteem as our academic option. 15 prestigious technical routes will set a clear path to skilled employment through reformed apprenticeships and the new flagship T Level programmes. T Levels are a central part of the greatest shake-up of technical education for 70 years and builds on the recommendations made by the Independent Panel on Technical Education, chaired by Lord Sainsbury. They will provide a distinctive and rigorous technical alternative to A levels.
They are, however, just one strand of our ambitious new technical education offer. We also intend to undertake a review of qualifications at Level 3 and below so that those we fund serve a genuine and useful purpose, are of high quality and enable students to progress to meaningful outcomes.

Despite Anne’s response to the Parliamentary Question she caused a scandal this week by seemingly confirming T levels wouldn’t be fit for purpose at their point of launch. At the Commons Education Committee she was questioned on the timing of the roll-out of the T levels and responded “I’m a parent of four children. If somebody said to me ‘Your children can do this new qualification’, I would say ‘Leave it a year.’” The Times covered the story: Anne Milton has advised teenagers who are considering taking up T-Levels to “leave it a year”.

Gordon Marsden, Labour’s Shadow Minister for HE stated:

“It’s astounding that the Minister doesn’t have confidence in her own Government’s flagship education policy. It is not acceptable for there to be one rule for the Government, and another for everyone else. The Department for Education’s Permanent Secretary has already said that T-Levels cannot feasibly be implemented on time without a serious risk to taxpayers’ money.”

Consultations

Click here to view the updated consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Other news

STEM: Jenson Button is leading the way for women in STEM in his calls for the motor industry to get more women involved in engineering. He said:

“female engineers are already making a big difference in motorsport, but that we need a far higher percentage in order to address imbalances. It is vital to push for more women working in mechanical engineering. Many Le Mans championships have been won by female engineers so there is obviously no reason why more females can’t get involved, including the driving. I’ve worked with very competitive women at the highest levels of engineering, but we need many more to enter the field.”

The UK currently has the lowest percentage of female engineering professionals in Europe (11%)

Simpler R&D tax credits: The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has called on the Government to introduce a new tax credit to tackle the innovation productivity fap within small business in the UK. On Tuesday the FSB published a report revealing that 24% of small firms have not made any significant changes to products or ways of working in the last three years – with many held back by pressures on time and finances. The report noted that as well as improving support for the creation of ‘new to market’ innovations, the complexity of the R&D tax credit and Patent Box Tax relief systems must be simplified.

Research Costs: Research Professional consider the Transparent Approach to Costing report, published by the Office for Students, which says that UK universities received funding that covered less than 75 per cent of the full economic cost of research last year.

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May 8, 2018

HE Policy Update for the w/e 4th May 2018

EU, innovation, policy jforster

A bumper policy update for you packed full of political changes and arguments, and BU gets a mention in the House of Commons. Enjoy the sunny bank holiday weekend!

Political News

Amber Rudd resigned on Sunday. Replacing her are Penny Mordaunt and Sajid Javid.

Penny Mordaunt (Secretary of State for International Development) will replace her as Women and Equalities Minister. Penny’s pre-UK political career is varied ranging from magician’s assistant, working in Romanian hospitals and orphanages, and as Head of Foreign Press for George W Bush. Previously she was the Minister of State for Disabled People, Work and Health. Her political interests are care and quality of life for the elderly, healthcare, defence, the arts, and space.

Sajid Javid will replace Amber as Home Secretary. (James Brokenshire will replace Sajid as Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary). Sajid’s political interests are civil liberties, free enterprise, defence, and welfare policy. Sajid has held a string of parliamentary roles including Economic Secretary 2012-13, Financial Secretary 2013-14; Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 2014-15; Minister for Equalities 2014; Secretary of State for: Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade 2015-16, and Communities, Local Government and Housing Secretary 2016-18. Times Higher took to Twitter to remind the HE world that Sajid believes international students shouldn’t stay on to work in Britain post-graduation.

#BUProud – Sam Gyimah praised BU in a recent Education select committee meeting. Questioned on whether the three year full time degree is an outdated dinosaur and whether accelerated or non-standard degrees are the future Sam replied:

I will start off, before saying what I think the answer is, by saying that there is some good practice in the sector that is often not acknowledged. For example, 42% of degrees are currently vocational. If you look at what some universities are doing, Bournemouth University, where I was a few weeks ago, is a most effective place at training people for media and film studies. Most people would dismiss some of these things, but if you want to work at Universal Studios, one of the best universities in this country to go to is Bournemouth. They have a focused university curriculum.

Office for Students (OfS) Strategy and Business Plan

The OfS have published their strategy and business plan. They set out their familar 4 objectives ( participation, experience, outcomes and value for money). The OfS will deliver their strategy by:

Ensuring providers meet the quality threshold (the 24 conditions of registration)
Supporting informed student choice about courses and careers
Taking action to ‘ensure that the sector is working effectively in the interests of students, employers, and society’.
The OfS will publish key performance indicators in the summer to measure the business plan.
Being an efficient and effective regulator

The OfS will also measure contributory progress against these cross cutting strategic outcomes:

Public trust and confidence in HE
National social mobility
Equality & diversity within HE and beyond
A dynamic national workforce

There is more detail in the Business Plan 2018-19, including:

The intention to evaluate the return on investment on access and participation plans and impact work; develop, address cold spots and evaluate IAG; and increase transparency data in relation to access and participation.
New providers – address barriers to entry; facilitate alternative forms of provision and develop measures of diversity of provision and innovation (including a work placement measure beyond sandwich placements and the ‘Higher education – business and community interaction’ survey data; also to support growth in technical routes.
Deliver NSS and explore new measures and monitoring tools.
Develop the OfS approach to student welfare and wellbeing.
Remove barriers to student transfer.
Continue the TEF, KEF and REF.
Develop strategy and processes surrounding student protection and managing market exit.

And much more!

The Knowledge Exchange Framework

Research Professional published a mock Knowledge Exchange rankings table based on three years of data from the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction surveys. Hamish McAlpine, senior policy adviser for knowledge exchange at Research England, has written a progress report on work towards the real KEF. We have been a bit sceptical about the KEF at BU – because something with great potential to measure something of great benefit (going beyond REF impact) looks like being a way to channel more money to those who make money already from commercialisation….

The article is interesting because it is clear that thinking is still evolving – this sentence gives some hope about the value of the framework:

“To this end we are looking at creating clusters of institutions with similar capabilities. These include not just staff numbers, but also things such as disciplinary mix, research strengths and intensity, income, student numbers and capital investments.”

And they haven’t yet decided on the link to funding…..but it still looks as if income is the driver:

“Income is only a proxy for impact, but it is the best measure we have at present. Income is also robust and relatively easy to audit. It is not in anyone’s interest to distribute lots of public money based on unsound metrics”

Income is a very unreliable proxy for impact outside STEM. In her previous role at BU Jane supported a number of projects with HSS that have limited potential to make money (because they help the NHS) but have potential to make a real difference to care and outcomes. And what about all the work in social sciences – and knowledge exchange projects in FoM and FMC? So we’re still sceptical about the KEF – but it might be a bit less pointless than it was looking a few months ago. I’ve added a comment to the article – we’ll see what the response is.

Major review of post-18 education (fees and funding)

We have submitted BU’s response to the HE review and you can read it here. SUBU’s response is here.

There is a useful article by Gordon McKenzie of GuildHE on Wonkhe.

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) published their 10 points for the HE review – a useful round up of some of the issues based on HEPI’s own research over the last few years. Their 10 points relate to:

Part-time learners
Differential fees
Maintenance grants
Mixed funding model
Uses of tuition fees
Misunderstanding among applicants
Outreach versus spending on bursaries
Accounting treatment of student loans
Level 4 and Level 5 qualifications
Student number controls

UUK have blogged on their response to the review calling for the review to address confusion about the tuition fees system. UUK note that while the funding system hasn’t deterred young people from full time study (and is beneficial in creating stability for universities) ‘there is a lack of public confidence and understanding of how it delivers value for money for students’. They note those wishing to study flexibly, or part time, or young students who wish to earn whilst they learn aren’t serviced adequately by the existing funding system. They also call for maintenance grants to be restored.

The Universities UK submission makes a number of recommendations, including:

government should, in partnership with universities, provide more targeted information to prospective students on the costs and benefits of higher education
universities could develop their value for money statements, to better explain how pricing decisions for undergraduate courses are arrived at. These should explain how the university uses income from tuition fees, and other sources of income, to fund the student experience and other activities such as research
to deal with students’ concerns about living costs, new funding should be introduced to restore maintenance grants for those most in need
to help address students’ fears of debt, government should remove the interest rate that starts building from the start date of the course, and deliver better financial advice, especially on the difference between student loan debt and conventional debt
greater exploration of ways that learners can study more flexibly and piloting preferential loan repayment terms for subjects that address national skills shortages

You can read Baroness Wolf in the TES on what the review is about (not just HE).

From March – the OfS report on student perceptions of value for money: – not providing a definition but see below

“Funded by OfS, our SUs led some research into what students think. The purpose was not to definitively answer the question of what ‘value for money’ means in higher education but, rather, to explore value for money from the student perspective. Do students feel they are receiving value for money? Do student perceptions of value for money evolve as they go from school to higher education, and then into the world of work? What can higher education providers – and the OfS – do to help improve the value students perceive they are getting from the considerable investment they have made in higher education?”

Factors that demonstrate value for money:

Maintenance Grant Raid – David Morris wrote for the Guardian this week stating: The government has hinted it will reintroduce maintenance grants, but that there will be no extra money to pay for it. David believes this will take the political pressure out of the tuition fee conundrum because ‘expensive rent is probably far more of a barrier to widening access than expensive fees, since students don’t repay these until after graduation.’ David believes the Government might solve the issue of funding maintenance grants by utilising the current teaching grant. He states: ‘This time around, universities will have to convince government to find additional spending, or it will be their pockets that are raided.’

Political Battles – Martin Lewis (MoneySavingExpert) tackles Chi Onwurah (Labour MP) in BBC Question Time. In essence his fiery response blames both Government and Opposition for making Fees and Student Loans a political battlefield – serving only their own political ends and leaving prospective students bewildered about affordability. He states in itself this is what is putting off even more students because they believe they can’t afford to attend University.

Martin: “Look politicians do this all the time and you’re making your political points and you’re doing it and you put off young people from underprivileged backgrounds going to university with a fear of debt by framing it as debt when you know it doesn’t work like that.”
“Politicians need to take responsibility, your political football that you and all the parties have used student finance to be has miseducated a generation about how student finance works and it is an abomination you should all hang your heads in shame.
Chi comes back to argue that fees are a psychological barrier: “It is psychological but a lot of the world is psychological Martin, how things are perceived is what informs peoples choices.”
Martin: “Then let’s re-educate.”

Watch the short (1 minute) clip here, the Express also covered the argument.

Higher Earning Graduates – Sam Gyimah avoided responding to a parliamentary question on higher earning graduates this week.

Q – Jim Cunningham: What estimate he has made of the number of graduate students who are earning over £50k and have begun repaying their student loan since 2010.
A – Sam Gyimah: This is a matter for the Student Loans Company (SLC). I have asked the SLC’s Interim Chief Executive, Peter Lauener, to write to the hon. Member for Coventry South and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Student Loan Overpayments –Another parliamentary question revealed that 55% of the nursing, midwifery and allied health professions students who were overpaid by SLC (leading to concerns about how the money would be clawed back), were overpaid by more than £1,000. And the non-repayable support has been confirmed

Q – Baroness Thornton: Whether, given that the Student Loans Company (SLC) has accepted responsibility for overpayments to healthcare students and that the SLC told students that they were not being overpaid, the SLC will write off overpayments to physiotherapy and other healthcare students.
A – Viscount Younger Of Leckie: The government announced on 18 April 2018 that the Student Loans Company (SLC) will provide support to ensure that none of the students affected by the error suffer hardship. Students affected by this will be eligible to apply for additional, non-repayable, support of up to £1,000 for the remainder of this academic year, and should contact the SLC. In addition, repayment of overpaid maintenance support will be deferred for all students affected until they have finished their courses and can afford to repay. Repayment of overpaid maintenance loans will happen via HM Revenue and Customs in the normal way, which is how students will have expected to repay their loans when they took them out.

Loan Terms – Another week, another student loan parliamentary question – this time Sam’s answer fails to confirm whether the Government will change the loan terms for the post-2012 students, leading to worry over how students may be affected if the post-2012 loans are sold off.

Q – Caroline Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he retains the legal power to revise the terms and conditions of student loans, including those sold to the Student Loans Company; and whether his Department has any plans to standardise those terms and conditions irrespective of the higher education start date of those loans.
A – Sam Gyimah: Key student loan repayment terms are set out in legislation, and can therefore be amended through the applicable parliamentary processes. It is important that, subject to this Parliamentary scrutiny, the government retains the power to adjust the terms and conditions of student loans. However, the government has no plans to change, or to consider changing, the terms of pre-2012 loans, including those sold recently.Student loans are subsidised by the taxpayer, and we must ensure that the interests of both borrowers and taxpayers continue to be protected. The review of post-18 education and funding will look at how we can ensure a joined-up education system that works for everyone.

Paramedic Student Loans – A parliamentary question on reclassifying paramedic degrees for existing graduates to access the student loan whilst retraining:

Q – Peter Kyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 19 April 2018 to Question 135158, if he will classify paramedic science as an exception course to allow those who study it as a second degree to obtain a student loan.
A – Stephen Barclay: Since the decision taken by the Health and Care Professions Council on 21 March 2018 to move paramedic programmes to a degree level, the Department of Health and Social Care has been working with Health Education England and the Department for Education to actively review the position of students wishing to study a paramedic programme. This review will consider aligning paramedic courses with other healthcare courses reviewed during the recent healthcare education funding reforms.

Freedom of Speech

The Universities Minister gave a speech on Thursday at a free speech summit calling for new guidance for organisations and students on freedom of speech. Covered by The Times Sam is portrayed as championing free speech way beyond his predecessor (Jo Johnson’s) intent to ‘enforce existing measures’. Sam plans for the OfS to name and shame or fine institutions for failing to uphold his view of free speech. He has announced the intention to create a single set of guidelines ‘to clarify the rules and regulations around speakers and events to prevent bureaucrats or wreckers on campus from exploiting gaps for their own ends’. The NUS is permitted to input into the new rules. See the Government’s press release here.

UUK commented: “Tens of thousands of speaking events are put on every year across the country. The majority pass without incident. A small number of flashpoints do occasionally occur, on contentious or controversial issues, but universities do all they can to protect free speech so events continue.”
Sector press has noted that the Joint Committee on Human Rights report (March 2018) did not believe there to be a problem with free speech at universities: we did not find the wholesale censorship of debate in universities which media coverage has suggested. And on the ‘chilling’ (deterrent) effect ‘which is hard to measure’: A much broader survey of students’ opinion would be needed to assess levels of confidence amongst the student body as a whole. Source
Free Speech does get a (very limited) mention in the OfS’ new Business Plan – one mention (page 7) ‘Incentivise positive student experiences beyond the conditions of registration – Define and begin to deliver the OfS’ role to promote and protect free speech.’
THE also reported on Sam’s speech, ironically noting it was delivered at a ‘behind-closed-doors’ event.
Sam wrote for The Times Red Box on Thursday: The time I was almost censored on campus. There is an entertaining range of reader comments following Sam’s piece, only overshadowed by the Twitter glee that the quote Sam opens his article with is misattributed. Whoops.

HEPI Free Speech blog

On Tuesday HEPI got the last word in on Free Speech ahead of Sam’s speech. See their blog Six points about free speech at universities. Nick Hillman commenced with HEPI’s survey statistics on free speech. Most of his six points are familiar:

The current law is ‘in about the right place’ on free speech issues – and notes the need for legitimate limits (terrorism influence, inciting violence, risking safety of others)
Universities have the expertise, the time and resources to debate issues freely
Debate and expose bad ideas to defeat them (not hide away)
HEPI refer to their detailed study of free speech. The blog suggests a quarter of students are illiberal wanting to ban some extreme positions, and HEPI interpret mixed results as confusion amongst students (saying yes to almost any question on free speech, whether supporting free speech, backing trigger warnings or supporting Prevent). It could be confusion, it could be students repeating back the social ideal they may not genuinely sign up to, or it could be poor questionnaire design! But on the confusion the blog goes on to recommend…
Universities need to help students through the complexities of free speech issues (and avoid too much red tape when putting on events)
HEPI don’t believe the situation is as bad as the media portray, however, they note if the sector continues to provide contentious ‘juicy’ examples of threats to free speech then the media will seize on them and further blow the debate out of proportion.

International Students

False Deportation – On Tuesday the Financial Times broke the news of 7,000 international students falsely deported in: Home Office told thousands of foreign students to leave UK in error. Wonkhe have provided a summary:

The Financial Times reports that the Home Office may have ordered up to 7,000 international students to leave the country on the basis of false accusations that they “faked” their proficiency in English. The error allegedly occurred when US-based organisation Educational Testing Services (ETS) carried out an investigation on behalf of the Home Office into cheating in their Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) in 2014. The investigation results led the Home Office to revoke the Tier 4 visas of around 35,870 students studying in the UK who were suspected to have used proxies to sit the test. An immigration tribunal heard in 2016 that the computer analysis used to identify fraud had been correct in only 80% of cases, meaning that 7,000 students had been deported in error. The Home Office told us “the Government took immediate robust action, which has been measured and proportionate and so far 21 people have received criminal convictions for their role in this deception” and noted that courts had consistently found in their favour that evidence in these cases was enough to act on. However, the FT cites a judgement published in 2017 that said that the Home Office’s behaviour was “so unfair and unreasonable as to amount to an abuse of power”.

The Guardian also has the story, noting that new Home Secretary Sajid Javid has been urged to conduct a review.

International Post-Doc Researchers – Earlier in the year HEPI released their report The costs and benefits of international students ahead of the Migration Advisory Committee’s consultation on international students (outcomes expected autumn 2018). At the HEPI launch event there was strong argument for the sectors which need international talent to fulfil economic and business needs but which have low graduate starting salaries. An oral question this week extended this debate to cover post-doc employment:

Q – Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con): I declare an interest as a trustee of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Post-doctoral research fellows are a vital part of this country’s research base, and they come from all over the world, including from the EU. What discussions are my right hon. and hon. Friends having with the Home Office to ensure that our future immigration policy is based not on salaries—post-docs often receive pretty miserly salaries compared with their qualifications—but on the skills that we really need in this country.
A – Robin Walker: I regularly attend the higher education and science working group chaired by my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, where we discuss these issues, and we have been feeding into the work being done by the Migration Advisory Committee and the Home Office on that front. The Prime Minister made clear that we will want to continue to attract key talent from around the world, and Britain will want to continue to be a scientific superpower in the years to come. It is essential that we get our policies right on this.

Widening Participation & Achievement

New Fair Access Tsar, Chris Millward, blogs for UUK on the ‘OpportUNIty for everyone’ campaign aiming to promote the work done by universities on social mobility. Chris’ entry into the sector as Director for Fair Access and Participation has had WP buffs pondering whether there will be an entirely different fair access landscape with new directives. Perhaps unintentionally Chris’ blog continues to repeat Les Ebdon’s constant calls for ‘faster change’: ‘Opportunity for everyone’ shows how universities are opening their doors, but they must build on this for faster change. It perhaps favours a focusing of the WP target groups by specifically mentioning:

Young people from identified low participation neighbourhoods (LPN) – concern: access and successful completion
White boys from low income families (also within LPN and in receipt of free school meals) – concern: access
Mature students – concern: falling numbers accessing HE
Black and Asian, and Disabled students – concern: parity of numbers receiving good degree and/or successfully securing a graduate level job
Students reporting mental health concerns – concern: better support to complete degree

It notes all universities are expected to narrow their gaps in all these areas. Chris promises the OfS will ‘develop evidence and effective practice guidance, and create opportunities to promote its use’ through a national Evidence and Impact Exchange. You can follow the Opportunity for everyone campaign on Twitter via: #YesUniCan

Brexit – Science & Innovation

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee have published Brexit, science and innovation (fifth special report of session 2017-19). This gives the Government’s response to the Committee’s previous paper. Here are excerpts from the introduction:

The Government welcomes the Science and Technology Select Committee’s report ‘Brexit, Science and Innovation’, and is grateful for the Committee’s positive view on the Government’s input to the EU’s consultation on the shape of Framework Programme 9 (FP9). The Committee’s report highlights key issues that will need to be considered as we leave the European Union and continuing to build the broadest and deepest possible partnership with the EU on Science and Innovations remains a top priority.
As made clear in the UK’s position paper on Framework Programme 9, a continued focus on excellence is essential, and the EU and its Member States should facilitate and strengthen collaborative working with other countries on shared priorities for mutual benefit. The principles of excellence and competitiveness that underpin European collaboration drive up the quality of research outputs and contribute to higher skills levels.
The Government’s commitment to underwrite Horizon 2020 funding has provided clarity and assurance to UK businesses and universities.
The Government has been consistently clear that the UK is, and will continue to be, a place that welcomes talented scientists and researchers from across the globe to work or study here.
We value the strong collaborative partnerships that we have across the EU in the areas of science, research and innovation and recognise the important contribution they make to the UK.

Read the Government’s response to the four recommendations here.

Life Sciences

And just in case you missed it last week here is the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report – Life Sciences Industrial Strategy: Who’s driving the bus?

Mental Health

OfS blog on the HE partnership who are trialling new strategic methods to support good mental health through the Catalyst funding. The approach is based on UUK’s Step Change framework. Student suicides were in the news this week and there is a parliamentary question asking about national student suicide figures due for answer next week.

Strike law suits

Wonkhe report that some students intend to sue their universities over the strike action. In line with the wishes of the self-appointed “Minister for Students”, some students are now seeking compensation for teaching time lost at the 65 institutions affected by the 14 days of recent USS pension strikes.

Over 100,000 students have signed petitions to complain about the issue and request refunds. However, widespread media coverage has focused on Tel-Aviv/London-based English law firm Asserson, a “disputes” specialist, which has set up a website encouraging UK, EU, and non-EU students to sign up to a class action lawsuit to potentially claim “hundreds of pounds each”. Apparently, it now has over 1,000 signatures, enough to apply for a group litigation order. If the firm can secure funding from a specialist litigation funder for the no-win-no-fee claim, get insurance against a failed claim, and work out how to distribute claimants across institutions, we may see a landmark case. Shimon Goldwater of the firm said this could cost universities “millions of pounds”.

Some institutions have put unspent pay in hardship funds, and those with student contracts will be checking the wording carefully. At the time, Universities UK (UUK) advised students to start with institutional complaints procedures, then if necessary escalate them to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) in England and Wales. The OIA’s annual report came out on Thursday, showing a slight increase in complaints in 2017 – 1,635 compared to 1,517 the previous year. The student-as-consumer trend continues.

Wonkhe’s website also explains how group litigation works and a blogger warns that calls for money back could result in them becoming victims of another compensation scam.

No pause for Purdah

Research Professional explores how a Purdah period needn’t be a gag order. They confirmed that scientists are permitted to make public statements during election campaigns. On 11 April, the Cabinet Office issued revised election guidance for civil servants permitting scientists to continue with their work in the run up to an election. During the 2017 general election, the UK Research Councils “strongly” advised against issuing press releases about new research. Jeremy Heywood, Head of the Civil Service, stated: the [purdah] principles are not, and have never been about restricting commentary from independent academics.

Fiona Fox (Chief Executive of the Science Media Centre) writes in Research Professional to urge all to get the message out:

This is an important moment for the scientific community, but only if we shout about it. We must make sure that the new guidance is to hand the next time someone tries to use purdah as a reason to restrict scientists from speaking publicly about their research during election time.

UK Research and Innovation in particular has an important role here to ensure that all the academics it funds know about and understand these positive changes. The multiple sets of guidance on guidance, which emphasises what scientists cannot say in elections, should be replaced with a simple statement of what academics should continue to do as normal.

Purdah was never intended to silence scientists, but in the absence of real clarity, some allowed that to happen. Now that we have the clarity there is no excuse to let it happen again.

Consultations

Click here to view the updated consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

New consultations and inquiries this week:

The House of Commons Education Committee has launched an inquiry into the challenges posed and opportunities presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As outlined in the inquiry press release, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterised by the emergence of a range of new technologies including artificial intelligence, robotics and the internet of things. The changes are likely to have a major impact on both productivity and the labour market, with low and medium skilled jobs most at risk. The inquiry will examine how best to prepare young people to take advantage of future opportunities by looking at the suitability of the school curriculum. It will also look at the role of lifelong learning and how best to help people climb the ladder of opportunity in the future. Please see further details and links below:

Inquiry page: Fourth Industrial Revolution inquiry
Press release: Fourth Industrial Revolution inquiry launched
Written Submissions: written submission form
Deadline for written submissions: Thursday 21 June 2018
Please contact policy if you would like to respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution inquiry.

Interesting news

If you’re a bit rusty on the different elements of parliament this 1 minute You Tube Video may be for you: Why does the House of Commons Chamber look empty?
Trans experience: Wonkhe bloggers examine the experience of trans and gender diverse staff in HE and how matters can move forward more positively.
Alumni & data protection: BU’s own Fiona Cowrie writes for Research Professional on how the imminent data protection changes will affect universities’ relationships with their alumni.
Personal statements: A role for school’s to supplement second-hand cultural capital by supporting students through tailored super-curricular experiences. A simple read setting out what makes the difference in successful UCAS personal statements.
Influencing policy through research: We’ve mentioned this previously and Wonkhe have a new blog post on getting parliament to pick up research and translate it into policy. It lists 10 simple steps to make connections and present your research effectively for policy makers.
Useful complaints: A blogger from the Office of the Independent Adjudicator blogs on the impact listening to and acting on complaints can have in: Complaints – student engagement in its rickets form?
BTEC students: BTEC students are more likely to fail and not progress to their second year, although the non-continuation rate varies with subject choice. Overall patterns of progression show more BTEC students fail the end of first year examination as compared to entrants with other qualifications. One possible explanation for this is that they are at a different starting point in terms of academic preparedness and understanding assessment expectations in HE. Interventions may therefore need to target support around learning and progression of BTEC students during first year in HE or even earlier to encourage transferable learning. Subject-wise patterns of progressions for BTEC students show they are less successful in Computer Science and Business Studies as compared to Sports. Interventions and academic support in HE need to be tailored across subject-areas in line with course structure and programme requirements to help BTEC students achieve better educational outcomes. It might be the case that not just inclusive pedagogies across universities, but a collaborative approach between higher education providers and FE colleges, can support the progression of these students better. This is all the more important as BTEC qualifications are acknowledged as contributing to widening HE access. Read How successful are BTEC students at university? for more detail and interactive charts.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

April 16, 2018

HE Policy Update for the w/e 13th April 2018

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, HEIF, Impact, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, policy, Public engagement, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

Knowledge Exchange Framework

After the initial announcement and consultation, things had gone a bit quiet. Louis Coiffat from Wonkhe chaired a conference on it before Easter and wrote about it here. BU’s concern has been that there is likely to be an over-focus on commercialisation and technology transfer so that the result of the KEF is to recognise and distribute investment funds to those institutions already receiving income from commercialisation – rather than to invest in those participating in a broader range of knowledge exchange activities and with potential to develop important – but possibly less financially significant – technology transfer arrangements, e.g. in healthcare or other less remunerative areas (see John Vinney’s blog for Wonkhe from February).

And see the section below on research news – HEIF funding, which is likely to be influenced by the KEF – is increasing.

So the feedback from the conference is interesting:

“It’s looking like KEF will involve a leadership statement (or concordat) – for institutions to self-evaluate, define, and communicate their own KE strategy. And, of course, some metrics. The latter will probably see institutions clustered and benchmarked. Speakers had good intentions about “proportionate” reporting burdens.
A one-size-fits-all approach clearly won’t work, as another speaker said, this “isn’t a simple league table with one institution best at knowledge exchange”. Also, real life is messy, how can everything universities do be measured? In reality, much KE activity is already happening, it’s just not being captured, synthesised or described. But, nobody wants every academic completing a timesheet.”

And:

“There’s also the question about how KEF relates to REF impact case studies. The consensus seems to be that KEF is about an institutions’ overall capabilities, not a peer-reviewed example of a single research impact in time.
One promise of KEF is that it should support better self-evaluation so that providers can work on their weaknesses honestly without finger-pointing, and crow about their strengths. It should provide institutions with valuable new information they can then tailor to different audiences. However, it should also be formative, open, and flexible – rather than box-ticking. Universities will always need to answer questions about how their impact compares (with other institutions and internationally), and how they can improve. KEF could help with that.”

We look forward to the response to the recent consultation to see where all this ends up.

Student Loan Repayment threshold

The changes to the student loan repayment threshold announced by Theresa May last year have come into effect.

Graduates earning over the new £25,000 threshold are set to benefit too, with lower payments compared to before, for example:

£25,000 per year repays £0 per month instead of £30
£27,000 per year repays £15 per month instead of £45
£30,000 per year repays £37 per month instead of £67
£33,000 per year repays £60 per month instead of £90
£35,000 per year repays £75 per month instead of £105
£40,000 per year repays £112 per month instead of £142The increase in the student repayment threshold marks a key milestone and is another example of the steps the Government is taking to support those in higher education.The increased repayment threshold applies to any student who has taken out a post-2012 undergraduate student loan or Advanced Learner Loan.

Martin Lewis has written about the change in threshold on Money Saving Expert.com. It is also important to note that this change also affects interest dates.

We are seeing more 18-year-olds than ever before attend university, including the highest ever number from disadvantaged backgrounds and we want to give these students a fair deal both during their studies and afterwards too. Not only will it benefit hundreds of thousands of graduates in the next financial year alone, but millions in the years to come.

Research news

Research England announced a pilot to explore a longitudinal, real-time evaluation approach for the REF 2021. The pilot will be led by research teams at Cardiff University and the University of Sheffield, and will test the feasibility of evaluating the perceptions, experiences and understanding of the REF among academics across career stages, and in a range of departments and universities.

The pilot will launch in the spring with the results available by early 2019.

Executive Chair of Research England, David Sweeney, welcoming the pilot, said:

“UK universities deliver world-leading research and are recognised globally for the quality of their outputs and diverse impact. National research assessment has been part of our high-performing system for over 30 years and has developed over that period through consultation with the community. This work presents an opportunity to test evaluating REF 2021 in a new way, informing the collection of evaluative data for shaping exercises post 2021.”

Research England has agreed budgets for the academic year 2018-19 and capital budgets for the financial year 2018-19. Allocations for individual institutions will be announced in early May 2018. The letter to all institutions is here.

There is an overall increase of £70m available in 2018-19, enabling higher education institutions (HEIs) in England to deliver on the government’s industrial strategy and tackle global, national and local challenges.

The following budgets are being increased:

An additional £25m for knowledge exchange through Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF), enabling universities to increase their contributions to deliver commercialisation and working with business to meet Industrial Strategy priorities;
An additional £20m for the postgraduate research degree supervision element of quality-related research (QR) funding, supporting universities to develop the next generation of researchers and protecting the health of the talent pipeline through postgraduate study and into research and the wider economy;
An additional £10m for the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) element of QR, supporting investment in cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges of economic development and wellbeing faced by developing countries;
An additional £6m to contribute to the charity research element of QR, providing additional support for research that universities carry out on behalf of charities.

David Sweeney, Executive Chair of Research England, said:

“We are delighted to announce funding levels for the coming year. The increased public investment in universities reflects their central role in delivering economic growth and creating social prosperity for the country.
We see universities as key partners in tackling global challenges, and the increased investment into GCRF reflects that. Our investment into the postgraduate pipeline will enable our higher education sector to continue to grow and attract top talent.
Achieving the government’s target of 2.4% of GDP investment in R&D by 2027 depends on universities deepening their partnerships with business, charities and other organisations. Through HEIF, and working with the Office for Students, we are committed to investing in the knowledge exchange activities that underpin R&D partnerships.”

And a new funding scheme to build research excellence has been announced- the deadline is noon on 17^th July 2018.

“We are delighted to announce the launch of the Expanding Excellence in England (E3) fund, a first new initiative for Research England. This competitive fund will allocate up to £75m over three years to help grow small but excellent research units and departments in English universities. Bids will be assessed by an expert panel chaired by Professor Sir Ian Diamond, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen.”

“Aims of the Fund

Strengthen the contribution of English HEIs to our society, pushing the frontiers of human knowledge, delivering economic impact and creating social impact by supporting our society and others to become enriched, healthier, more resilient and sustainable;
Build the capacity and quality of research in departments and units within English universities where excellence exists but at a small scale with potential for growth;
Contribute towards the delivery of government strategy, including the Industrial Strategy, the GCRF strategy and local priorities by supporting sustained improvements in research capacity across England while maintaining the principle of funding excellence wherever it is found;
Enhance the skills base and build talent in areas of research excellence where there is untapped potential;
Stimulate strategic partnerships between HEIs and other organisations outside of Higher Education.”

As part of the Connecting Capability Fund Research England has invested £67 million in 14 collaborative projects between universities and with other partners to drive forward world-class university commercialisation across the country, including a project to build a creative technology network through a project led by the University of the West of England

HE Review

Reminder: to inform our BU response to the HE Review all staff and students are invited to consider the issues in this (anonymous) short survey. Please take a look at the survey questions as we’d like to hear from as many staff and students as possible. You don’t have to answer all the questions. The major review of HE will shape the HE system, including how universities are funded for years to come. The survey will be available to staff and students until Friday 20^th April.

Prevent

The Secretary of State wrote to the Office for Students about its monitoring duty in relation to Prevent:

As monitoring authority, the OfS’s function will be to collect information from RHEBs to enable it to monitor those bodies’ performance in discharging the ‘Prevent duty’ imposed on them by section 26(1) of the Act.
I am now looking to the OfS to build on this experience when undertaking their function as the new monitoring authority; and in particular I would like them to build on the valuable work HEFCE has undertaken in sharing good practice and driving continuous improvement, which I know the HE sector values. Their work should include ensuring RHEB’s continue to effectively balance their Prevent and free speech responsibilities .
I would also like the OfS to take the opportunity to review the existing monitoring framework and consider how it might evolve to align with the values and approach of the Office for Students. In particular, I would like the Office for Students to consider how it might take a more risk-based approach.

Transforming the service economy

The Government Office for Science issued a report on Growth Opportunities for the UK Service Economy.

Recommendation 1: The Office for National Statistics should work with academia to develop new methods for mapping value chains as well as measuring research and development in the service sector. Opportunities to pilot and test new methods include the SERVCOM survey of service sector outputs and revisions to the Standard Industrial Classification.
Recommendation 2: Industry and sector councils should raise the level of horizon-scanning to anticipate and monitor emerging opportunities and challenges to their services. In addition, government should undertake detailed studies to better understand how the potential to trade services at a distance is developing, and how this tradability will affect individual services.
Recommendation 3: BEIS should build on the Bazalgette review of creative industries, the Maier review of industrial digitalisation, the Bell review of the life sciences sector and the Hall and Pesenti review of artificial intelligence to strengthen the service sector through the Industrial Strategy. Government and business should work together on the collected recommendations from these reviews. To support the service economy, this process can exploit sector deals, place-based policy making and support development of education, skills and lifelong learning, and the work of UK Research and Innovation and the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund
Recommendation 4: (1) Government needs to close the skills gap in STEM subjects such as data science, and ensure that our education system cultivates creative, social and critical thinking skills. (2) Industry needs to make a commitment to lifelong learning in the workplace by providing courses that train and reskill existing employees, rather than relying on new employees to fill skills gaps.
Recommendation 5: Government and industry should jointly conduct a public debate on the impact and regulation of digital disruption, especially with regard to ensuring the protection of casual employees. There should be similar analysis and debate of the market and regulatory status of incumbent businesses and potential disruptors to help produce a level playing field. This could be facilitated through the work of the Alan Turing Institute and the Open Data Institute.
Recommendation 6: Government, industry and academia should work together to raise productivity, encouraging the adoption and diffusion of innovation across the service sector. Government procurement could be used to incentivise support for SMEs as a key part of the supply chain to government, as is done in the USA. Schemes for place-based support from BEIS, Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and other departments should consider how to incentivise diffusion of best practice, which needs to be in management and leadership as much as in technology.
Recommendation 7: The Departments for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and BEIS should continue developing a coordinated approach that takes into account business broadband concerns and ensures businesses can benefit equally from digital technology initiatives to help drive productivity and economic growth.
Recommendation 8: Analysts and policy makers and those who deliver public services should work across government to understand how the government policy levers identified in the Technology and Innovation Futures report 2017 can be applied to greatest effect in the service sector.
Recommendation 9: Government should consider using outcome-based contracts and avoiding over-prescriptive specifications. This approach to procurement will allow providers of assets to servitise and innovate their business models using digital technologies. It will be important to carefully examine and test outcome-based contracts and regulatory approaches to avoid unintended consequences and to achieve the full set of desired outcomes.
Recommendation 10: The development of outcome-based contracts offers great opportunities to the UK. Industry, academia and leadership councils should together explore the possibilities for provision of outcome-based contractual services. Horizon-scanning will be essential to anticipate, monitor and assist in the identification of emerging opportunities in this area. Innovators should be encouraged to look across sectors and think more broadly about potential opportunities for servitisation and where the UK could create new comparative advantage.
Recommendation 11: Government should use sector and city deals to develop and build on existing financial ecosystems across the UK with the aim of reducing regional disparities. This will require mass data collection to measure and evaluate the planning and implementation of these deals.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

February 5, 2018

HE Policy update for the w/e 2nd February 2018

EU, international, Knowledge Exchange, policy, Public engagement jforster

Fees, funding and the HE review

Sam Gyimah responded to a parliamentary question quashing the notion that UK students might be able to access student loans to study in international destinations.

THAT interview: Greening on maintenance grants & fees

Justine Greening (former Secretary of State for Education) made big news this week during her interview on the Today programme on Monday. This was her first interview since leaving the Cabinet. Reporting of the interview implies she criticised Government policy, primarily the abolition of maintenance grants, and failed to deny she was sacked from Cabinet because she blocked the HE major review. Read this short Guardian live blog for the salient quotes from Greening’s interview to decide for yourself how critical she really was.

Meanwhile Research Professional (RP) interpret Justine’s thoughts on fees as proposing ‘a mostly unnoticed alternative way to fund universities’, culminating in a thought provoking article on fees: A third way. RP report that Justine felt the government should move away from talking about loans to selling the idea of “time-limited graduate contributions” a phrase first coined by Martin Lewis (MoneySavingExpert.com). RP report that Greening went on: we need to have a student finance system that is progressive”, and that money raised from TLGC [time-limited graduate contributions] should be ring-fenced and put into a higher education fund “so that graduates today know that their contribution is helping to pay for students to get the same opportunities they had at university”.

She also suggested that employers could contribute to such a fund and that all graduates should pay into it for the entire 30 years. In this way, better-off students would not be able to have their fees paid upfront or repay their loans early as a consequence of large salaries. RP go on to debate how this resembles a graduate tax and the problems associated with a graduate tax scheme, including:

The proposal also seems to abandon several of the principles that underpin the funding system. Student loans are not a form of taxation because they are attached to named individuals, are related to the amount borrowed, are subject to interest rates and can be sold to third parties.
Importantly, taxation should be progressive. There is a small difference in the interest rate charged to graduates earning more than £41,000, but there is no difference in the percentage of earnings that graduates repay—9 per cent—across the pay range.

Returning to social mobility and the maintenance grants RP write:

Greening, as an avowed champion of social mobility, offered her proposal as a way of removing the fear of debt as a barrier to participation. A higher education fund would be accompanied, in Greening’s mind, by maintenance grants for disadvantaged students, presumably paid for by the fund. In this respect, that part of the proposal begins to look a lot like a return to means-tested grants with a parental contribution.
It is interesting that the former education secretary, who approved the politically unacceptable policy of index-linked rises in the fee level, should end up advocating a policy that is really neither one thing nor the other. It is a move away from the loan system but not an embrace of the direct taxation that underpins Labour’s offer to abolish fees. It is, if you will, a third way.
Prime minister Theresa May’s primary concern is the perceived value for money of a university education. Selling TLGC on the doorstep as retail politics would involve a considerable gearshift away from one idea of the value of higher education towards another.

Wonkhe picked up on another element of the Greening interview: there were suggestions that some in government were pushing for variable fees by subject – Greening cautioned that this could encourage students from lower income backgrounds into non-STEM degrees.

Later on Sam Gyimah (Universities Minister) took part in the Today programme, to describe how living costs and value for money are of great concern to current students. Wonkhe report that he admitted that no change would be made by the next academic year (it would not be “credible” to do so), but was clear the review would have an independent element. There was the implication that fees would remain frozen until this was complete (as per Theresa May’s comments). See below for the OfS research into value for money launched last week.

Angela Rayner (Labour), Shadow Sec of State for Education) capitalised on Justine’s interview asking an oral parliamentary question:

Q – The Secretary of State’s predecessor this morning admitted that they were wrong to abolish maintenance grants, that the student finance system is regressive, that variable fees will punish the poorest and that their review is intended to kick the issue into the long grass, rather than make decisions. Apart from that, she is very supportive. But she is right, is she not?

A – Damian Hinds (Conservative, Sec of State for Education): We have a system of higher education finance in this country that means unprecedented levels of disadvantaged people can go to university and our universities are properly funded. In October the Prime Minister said that we would be taking quick action, raising the threshold for repayment and freezing the top fees for the next academic year. It is also right that we have a full review, looking at all aspects of value for money for young people and others going to university, and at the alternatives to university, such as taking a degree apprenticeship, as we discussed earlier.

Office for Students

The Office for Students confirmed they will run the TEF this year (as per timing and specifications already established by HEFCE). Chris Husbands (VC Sheffield Hallam) will remain as TEF Panel Chair (confirmed until August 2021).

Last week the OfS launched research into student perceptions of value for money. They state it will take forward its legal responsibilities to promote value for money. The research will cover:

Fees and charges
What students identify as value (services and opportunities)
Immediate concerns around value for money
Cross subsidisation
Provider transparency

Nicola Dandridge (Chief Executive of OfS) said: “This important research will be invaluable in understanding more about what value for money means for students. The OfS has a duty to promote value for money and it has been clear from my visits to students’ unions that these issues provoke significant discussion. This research will allow us to deepen our understanding of this important issue, and prepare the ground for future inquiry.”

Data and Quality – designated bodies: Following the OfS Regulatory consultations (December) DfE have confirmed that HESA (data) and the QAA (quality) were the only applicants for the designated bodies and the sector response was virtually unanimous in support for the two bodies to be reappointed. The OfS will consider the sector’s response in their recommendation DfE which a final decision on their appointment due in late March.

Alternative providers

In the Lords there was question on safeguarding against plagiarism within alternative providers:

Q – Lord Storey: Whether there is clear guidance on the use of the plagiarism checker technology Turnitin by those universities that validate degrees from private and independent colleges.

A – Viscount Younger Of Leckie:

Higher education providers, as autonomous organisations, are responsible for handling matters of this nature, including developing and implementing policies to detect and discourage plagiarism.
Although the government does not provide guidance on, or advocate the use of, plagiarism software to help providers tackle the issue of plagiarism, we asked the Quality Assurance Agency, Universities UK and the National Union of Students to produce new guidance, which was published in October 2017.
This guidance is the first set of comprehensive advice for providers and students on the subject. It makes clear that where providers are working with others to deliver programmes, such as through validation, care should be taken to ensure that partner organisations are taking the risks of academic misconduct seriously. Providers are also encouraged to consider steps to scrutinise potential partners’ processes and regulations when developing validation arrangements. This is in line with the wider expectations set out in the UK Quality Code for Higher Education, which all providers must meet. This establishes the fundamental principle that degree awarding bodies have ultimate responsibility for academic standards and the quality of learning opportunities, regardless of where these opportunities are delivered and who provides them.
Going forward I expect the Office for Students to encourage and support the sector to implement strong policies and sanctions to address this important issue in the most robust way possible.

Nurse training

Within the Lords there was a question on nurse training:

Q – Baroness Neville-Rolfe: Whether they have any evidence that difficulties in recruiting UK nationals as nurses reflect changes in the UK’s higher education system in recent years.

A – Viscount Younger Of Leckie:

Until 1 August 2017, nursing, midwifery and allied health profession students had their training costs largely borne by the NHS, and this was not affected by changes to the wider higher education system.
From 1 August 2017, most new undergraduate healthcare students receive tuition fee loans and, for full-time courses, living costs support, administered by the Student Loans Company. The former Department of Health also confirmed that it would fund up to an additional 10,000 clinical placements to support this expansion. These students are in their first year of university study.
These reforms to healthcare student funding will help secure the future supply of nurses to the NHS by removing the artificial cap on training numbers in these professions, and enabling thousands of additional UK applicants to gain a place to study nursing at university.

Locally, Richard Drax (Conservative, South Dorset) used PM question time to ask the Government to improve rail links within South Dorset.

International Matters

UK-China Education Deals

The Prime Minister announced UK-China education deals on Wednesday. The package consists of exchange deals, partnerships and commercial contracts from pre-school to post-graduation. She said: “The close ties between the UK and China are reflected in our relationship on education. More than 150,000 Chinese students study at the UK’s world-leading institutions and make a significant contribution to our academic life.”

It’s well known that Chinese students are the largest group of overseas students within UK education. The Government notes that 9,000 young British are studying/interns in China (a 60% increase since 2013). The deal was reported in Professionals in International Education who cite HESA data to remind of the stagnation in HE international students studying in the UK over recent years. The HE sector has long been calling on Government to paint a more welcoming picture to overseas prospective students. However, so far Theresa May has stood firmly behind her plans to include students within the net migration targets. Could this be part of a softer, more welcoming, approach without her losing face over the target battleground (yet)?

The package:

The UK-China Maths Teacher Exchange for primary schools has been extended to 2020 (two week exchanges both ways). By 2023 the Government estimates 11,000 schools will have experienced the East-Asian style maths Teaching for Mastery programme.
More study exchanges and information sharing on vocational education
Promotion of English proficiency in China.

The bill for the education deals is in excess of £550 million and is expected to create 800 UK jobs.

International Questions

At Prime Minister’s questions this week Daniel Zeichener (Labour) cited the value international students bring to the economy questioning why the PM’s policy continued to seek to reduce the number of international students. The Government responded that visa numbers were up since 2010.

In the House of Lords questions Lord Norton of Louth (Conservative) asked what plans the Government has to increase funding for promoting campaigns to encourage students in overseas countries to study in the UK.

Baroness Fairhead (Conservative) responded:

The Study UK: Discover You (“Study UK”) campaign led by the British Council, aims to promote UK higher education, attract the brightest and best students to choose the UK and support UK universities in their international objectives. Study UK is a core component of the government’s GREAT Britain campaign (“GREAT”), which showcases the very best of what our whole nation has to offer in order to encourage the world to visit, study and do business with the UK.
Study UK uses digital and face to face activity in key markets to promote the quality and distinctiveness of the UK education offer in the highly competitive international market for globally mobile students. The campaign also promotes the success of international alumni of British universities in their countries and promotes other forms of UK study – for instance, by encouraging international students to study online courses provided by UK universities.
Activity to encouraged overseas students to study UK courses on the online FutureLearn platform led to over 100,000 extra enrolments by overseas students on MOOCs (“Massive Open Online Courses”) provided by UK universities in 2016/17. Students enrolled from 124 different countries. This year, the programme has driven more than 60,000 such new enrolments to date.

Lord Luce asked whether the purpose of the Commonwealth Education Ministers meeting would strengthen commonwealth cooperation between universities and schools for the benefit of young people.

Lord Agnew of Oulton responded: The purpose of the Conference is to strengthen cooperation across the Commonwealth for the benefit of young people of all ages. A key objective of this year’s conference is to address and define mechanisms through which education systems across the Commonwealth can enable sustainable development, and address major global challenges, such as climate change. This is a topic, which is of importance to young people across all member states.

Finally Chris Law (SNP) raised the reintroduction of the post-study work visa and asked if Scotland could tailor its own immigration policy for students.

Sam Gyimah (Conservative, HE Minister) responded: a lot of work is being done on international students by the Migration Advisory Committee. I am happy to consider the issue of Scottish visas specifically and come back to him on it.

Brexit – Policy Exchange have published Immigration After Brexit – What should post-Brexit immigration policy look like? They argue for a system limiting low skilled EU immigration but with more generous terms for high skilled professionals. There should be a customised “light touch” work permit system for EU professionals and — as Britain weans itself off low skilled migration — there should be priority for low skilled workers ready to work antisocial hours, thereby acting more as complements than direct competitors to the British workforce.

Brexit effect on the 2017 General Election – Kings College London has produced Voting in the 2017 general election: a Brexit election. A quick read for those interested in the voting surprises of the 2017 general election. The blog notes the slight tendency of those with degrees to vote Labour over Conservative. The article concludes:

Even a year after the referendum, the BES found no sign of a decline in the ‘very strong’ sense of identification with Leave and Remain camps, which are substantially more important to voters than their party identities… so when problems arise, and they will as the Brexit negotiations progress, we can expect to see voters once again switching to parties that best represent their views on Brexit.

You can read BU’s response to the Migration Advisory Committee on International Students – economic and social benefits

Driving Innovation – an Asian perspective

HEPI have published Major shifts in global HE: A perspective from Asia. It discusses the rapid shifts in Asian HE (massification, rise of liberal arts, research importance, and graduate under-employment). Eastwood (VC, Birmingham) states: Asian universities have changed the paradigm for developing a university. Many have achieved a standing, a stature and a maturity much more rapidly than had previously been thought possible. This…includes challenges that are very familiar to us: challenges of making our universities fit, not just for tomorrow, but for a generation of students who are going to live and work differently. Universities are going to have touchpoints with their graduates over a much longer period of their lives than traditionally has been the case. Professor Tan’s Lecture includes some challenging questions for us in the UK. It shows our present debate on higher education has become too narrow and is in danger of becoming quite old fashioned.

On driving innovation the report says:

As we all know, universities have substantial talent and research strengths. Through the mechanisms of commercialisation of intellectual property, start-ups, spin-offs and industry collaborations, universities contribute to the formation of new enterprises and the creation of new services and innovations. Universities can attract and boost industries and, in some cases, anchor industry clusters. This all contributes to the growth of national and in some cases global innovation systems. Humanities colleagues also contribute to addressing social and global challenges. They contribute to public understanding of issues and policy innovations that lead to societal advancement.
Traditionally, there are three fundamental mismatches that impede close collaborations between universities and industry in R&D, namely in time frames, incentives and culture. The time frame of academics tends to be indefinite whereas industry is much more focused on doing things quickly. Academics like to publish papers; industry is largely concerned about commercial outcomes and profits. In terms of culture, again, our academic colleagues like the freedom to explore and to pursue long-term research, while industry is often about timelines, schedules and deliverables. In the same way, these traditional mismatches that impede university / industry partnerships in R&D, also affect the ability of universities to start up and spin off companies. But the landscape is changing, because industry players are adopting open innovation approaches and strategies when working with universities, to identify and recruit new talent through universities and to in-source intellectual property from universities. At the same time, in response to this, many more universities are embracing innovation and enterprise as core parts of their mission.
What we have seen in recent years is that in certain fields – such as artificial intelligence (AI), computer science and data analytics – there are marked reductions in the time and barriers to move from a high quality basic research discovery to its high-impact application and commercialisation. So it is possible for universities to excel in basic research and create impact through its translation. As a result, more universities are moving into these areas because they represent a sweet spot between academic value and translational value. That means a higher quality of academic research and greater translational impact.
While China has been rapidly increasing its investments in R&D, much of that investment has been spent in more applied research. [The new]…long-term strategic view of R&D is impressive. In some areas, like artificial intelligence and data analytics, China is making massive investments, and also has access to huge amounts of data. In these areas, China could move straight into a situation where it is creating research of high academic value as well as commercial impact.
In Asia, rapid growth creates excellent conditions for universities to develop the education, research and entrepreneurial programmes that ride on the new opportunities and also to offer solutions to some of the serious challenges that rapid economic growth creates.

The report goes on to discuss supporting students to develop an entrepreneurial mindset (read page 21 onwards).

Advance HE

Advance HE is the new name for all the sector organisations that have merged following the Bell Review. Wonkhe have produced a tree diagram which shows the predecessor organisations and their successors. Given its size it’s best viewed online.

Widening Participation

Social Mobility League Table – A Wonkhe blogger discusses ranking social mobility as a method to incentivise better performance within universities. Andrew George (DVC, Brunel University) highlights that taking a broader range of students can cause a university to score lower in the traditional league table rankings. He argues that without including social mobility measures in league tables they will continue to reinforce social division. Recommendations of how this could occur and the benefits for diversity are discussed. The blog even mentions Bournemouth as within the top 10 for value added salaries 5 years after graduation.

PM Questions – The schools attainment gap between less and better off pupils was covered in PM questions this week. The Government responded that the 2011 reforms had improved school standards and the attainment gap has shrunk by 10% at GCSEs and Key stage 2.

HESA – WP data – HESA will release the UK performance indicators for widening participation at the end of the week. These will illustrate the proportion of UK-domiciled, full-time, first degree entrants from state schools and low-participation neighbourhoods at each HE provider.

Unpaid Internships

The Sutton Trust, a social mobility organisation, has published Internships – unpaid, unadvertised, unfair. They state: For young people who cannot afford to work for free, and for those who do not have the networks with which to secure a placement informally, internships are acting as a barrier to the best careers – and to social mobility.

The Key findings (direct from the report):

Even if transport costs are provided, our new analysis shows the minimum cost of carrying out an internship in London unpaid is £1,019 per month (or £827 in Manchester). This is higher than we estimated in our last report in 2014, largely as a result of rising rents and inflation.
Although there has been some progress since our last report on the subject, organisations continue to offer internships which are unpaid, and offer internships without formally advertising them.
Current research suggests that over 40% of young people who have carried out an internship have done at least one of them unpaid.
The most recent government estimate is that there are 70,000 interns in the UK at any one time, although there is no newer estimate available than 2010. In 2017, 11,000 internships were found to be advertised online, but many more are likely to have been offered unadvertised.
New Sutton Trust analysis of the most recent HESA data suggests that roughly 10,000 graduates are carrying out an internship at six months postgraduation, with 20% of them doing so unpaid.
There are concerns that some employers are either unaware that their interns should be paid, or that some employers are exploiting the lack of clarity in the law to avoid paying their interns.

Recommendations (from the report)

All internships longer than one month should be paid at least the national minimum wage
Internship positions should be advertised publicly, rather than being filled informally.
Recruitment processes should be fair, transparent and based on merit.

In the latter half of 2017 there was discussion of unpaid internships within the House of Lords. Currently Lord Holmes’ has launched a private members bill to limit unpaid work experience to four weeks in length. The Sutton Trust recommendations coincide with this.

Consultations

Click here to view the updated consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

There aren’t any new consultations and inquiries this week however you can read BU’s responses to

Migration Advisory Committee on International Students – economic and social benefits
Knowledge Exchange Framework
Doctoral Education survey

Other news

Resilience toolkit: Unite Students and AMOSSHE (student services) launched a new resilience toolkit on Thursday for Student Services HE professionals aiming to improve resilience through emotional control, self-management and social factors in the student response to stresses, anxieties and the daily barriers they encounter.

Apprenticeships: FE Week announced 15 more universities are now registered as apprenticeship training providers (taking the total to over 100 universities). The article goes on to discuss the inspection arrangements but never explicitly makes clear whether all 100 universities are offering degree level apprenticeships.

Mental Health: Student minds have published What’s the role of academics in supporting students’ mental health? The shorter 2 page summary is here. HEPI also have a blog on the report.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

December 4, 2017

HE policy update for the w/e 1st December 2017

BU research, Business Engagement, EU, Funding opportunities, Fusion, Fusion themes, HEIF, Impact, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Transfer Partnership, PG research, policy, Public engagement, Research assessment, Research news, Uncategorized jforster

The KEF is coming

On 1^st December, HEFCE launched a consultation on the new Knowledge Exchange Framework – the KEF – which was announced earlier in the Autumn by the Jo Johnson – as the “third leg” of the HE stool*. Putting aside the rather unflattering stool analogy, we prefer to think of this as the third side of the Fusion triangle. (For those of you who have not yet looked at the staff consultation on the BU2025 strategy, spoiler alert – the proposed new Fusion device is more of a vaguely triangular swirl. Much more inclusive and dynamic. And better colours than the red and yellow of the previous one.) But anyway, knowledge exchange is an important part of what we do at BU and this is important.

The consultation, which closes at the end of January, will give us a chance to contribute to the design of this framework. The HEFCE press release says “The KEF metrics system will provide more information for the public and businesses on the performance of universities in knowledge exchange – how they share knowledge, expertise and other assets for the benefit of the economy and society. The aim is to provide regularly updated data that enables fair comparison between institutions’ performance in knowledge exchange. This will help to support further improvements in universities and promote accountability, responsiveness to economic and societal needs and effective use of public funds.”

So much like the TEF this is being pitched as being about value for money and choice (for those interested in funding research or choosing where to work). And, like the REF (indirectly), and as with the TEF (at least as originally planned – more on this later), there are cash incentives for universities to do well in this new framework via HEIF funding.

“The KEF metrics will help support the Industrial Strategy, which includes the commitment announced on 27 November to increase Higher Education Innovation Funding to £250 million by 2020-21. This increase will allow Universities to work with businesses of all sizes to support the delivery of the Industrial Strategy in diverse ways.”

And of course, like the TEF, the key to all of it is the metrics. A metrics working group has been established – details of the people are below.

There are only 5 questions, as follows.

What approaches and data need to be used to ensure a fair and meaningful comparison between different universities, taking into account factors that might impact individual institution’s knowledge exchange performance (such as research income, size or local economic conditions), whilst allowing identification of relative performance? How should benchmarking be used?
Other than HE-BCI survey data, what other existing sources of data could be used to inform a framework, and how should it be used?
What new (or not currently collected) data might be useful to such a framework?
How should KEF metrics be visualised to ensure they are simple, transparent and useful to a non-specialist audience?
Any other comments?

This is a bit of a concern. If it measures research income, there is a great risk of it being circular – and therefore not inclusive across the sector. This would conflict with the principles behind the Industrial Strategy – which are about focussing on areas of strength – wherever they are. We would prefer it not to be entirely metrics based (as we said for the TEF – where the written submission became a key part of the process and had a significant impact on the outcome in some cases).

Questions 2 and 3 are the opportunities to get into this debate – even through the questions are framed as questions about metrics. The letter from the Minister commissioning the work is a bit more helpful: “The design process should: …

Consider whether additional metrics can be devised and collected to provide a more comprehensive view of the effectiveness of universities’ external engagement, whilst having regard to the burden and cost of collection.
Take into account factors that might impact individual universities’ knowledge exchange performance, such as the university’s research income, size or local economic conditions, to ensure comparability between institutions …”

We will be working with RKEO to draft a BU response to this, so please contact policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you would like to contribute to this process.

The key people involved: “The technical group, chaired by Professor Richard Jones FRS, University of Sheffield, will advise HEFCE and later RE on the design and delivery of the new KEF metrics system. The group’s members have been chosen to provide expertise in knowledge exchange metrics and external insights on performance. The members of the KEF metrics technical advisory group are:

Chair: Professor Richard Jones, FRS, Professor of Physics, University of Sheffield. EPSRC Council Member.
Tomas Coates Ulrichsen, Research Associate, Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation, University of Cambridge.
Alice Frost, Head of Knowledge Exchange policy, HEFCE / Research England.
Alice Hu Wagner, Managing Director for Strategy, Economics and Markets, British Business Bank.
Professor Graeme Reid, Professor of Science and Research Policy, University College London. Member of the Research England Council.
Mr Peter Saraga CBE, FREng, Senior Independent Member on the Research England Council. Former Managing Director of Philips Research Laboratories UK, Chair of HEFCE’s UKRPIF panel, and formerly President of the Institute of Physics and Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Stian Westlake, Policy Adviser to the Minister for State for Universities, Research and Innovation at Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
BEIS observer: Carolyn Reeve / Thomas Crawley.
HEFCE / Office for Students observers: Mario Ferelli, Richard Puttock
Higher Educations Statistics Agency (HESA) observer: Andy Youell, Director of Data Policy and Governance, HESA.
Head of secretariat: Hamish McAlpine, HEFCE / Research England

Professor Trevor McMillan, Vice-Chancellor of Keele University, has been leading work on the principles and good practices of university knowledge exchange since 2015. He will continue to do so, including providing advice to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). For the KEF metrics system, Professor McMillan and his university expert group will advise on the value of the exercise for good practice development within universities”.

*(with REF and TEF – we’re in TLA chaos. Even though the TEF is now TESOF (SO = student outcomes) but we’re not allowed to call it that). Arguably as has been noted elsewhere, the KEF should be KEEF – Knowledge Exchange Excellence Framework). As we have also noted before, many voices have suggested that the OfS should be the OfSHE (Office for Students and Higher Education). But TLAs are the thing, it seems).

And…the major review of fees and funding….

We have discussed the options for fees and funding a lot recently, as the “national debate” that followed the election was continued over the summer and the debate shifted to whether there would be a review or not after the Conservative Party Conference in October. The Minister told Wonkfest in early November to watch for it in the budget, but no…. The BBC reported on 1^st December that it is actually happening – so please keep watching this space.

Future of skills and lifelong learning report

The Government Office for Science have issued the Future of Skills and Lifelong Learning report. In 112 pages it sets out a pathway to develop skills in the UK to support the Industrial Strategy, productivity and improve wages (and health and wellbeing along the way).

The focus on workplace learning, placements and work experience, and the role of extra-curricular activities are very interesting and consistent with the BU approach in many ways – so this is interesting for us. It also raises interesting questions about supply and demand and information flows.

To quote from the executive summary:

“Young adults in the UK have relatively poor literacy and numeracy and there are signs that we are falling further behind international competitors. …Seven OECD countries have numeracy scores equal to or higher than the UK for all age groups, and the number of countries increases considerably if the UK’s high-performing 60-65 age group is excluded. Literacy for UK 16-19 year-olds is ahead of only Chile and Turkey among a group of 24 (mostly OECD) countries. Literacy and numeracy performance varies between UK regions, with London and the South East achieving the highest scores …There is also evidence of intergenerational effects, with poor parental attainment reflected in the educational outcomes of the child. Breaking out of this cycle may require interventions that target both the parent and child, for example family learning programmes. Improvements to literacy and numeracy continue beyond school and higher education into the early years of work, suggesting that workplace environments play an important role in developing these skills.
Employers believe labour market entrants are not properly prepared for the workforce; again the UK compares poorly against other countries. Employers are looking not only for better literacy and numeracy, relevant qualifications and/or discipline-specific training but also for more positive attitudes towards work as well as ‘character’ attributes. Greater collaboration between employers and education providers may help to ensure that education-leavers are equipped with the skills that are in demand. Work placements and experience can help individuals gain the non-academic skills desired by employers. However, only around one-third of employers offer these opportunities and they are predominantly found in the South East of England. Informal learning also has a part to play, including participation in peer-to-peer learning or sports and other extra-curricular activities.
The UK has relatively large mismatches between the supply of and the demand for skills. Skills underutilisation is particularly high in the UK, while at the same time there are shortages of some particular high-level skills. Such mismatches imply that education providers are not offering, or students are not selecting, the courses that match with employers’ skills needs, and that future skill needs are not being fully anticipated. Improving the quality of and access to labour market information may be able to help address this.
Many places and sectors in the UK are in “low skills equilibrium”. A low skills equilibrium occurs when the availability of low-skilled jobs is matched by a low-skilled workforce, such that students have limited incentives to gain higher skills (or to remain in that place if they have them) and employers adapt to but are constrained by the skills supply. This is a stable equilibrium that can only be changed if supply and demand for skills are addressed together. If only the supply of skills improves, not the demand, it will create surplus and underutilisation or prompt migration to where those skills are in demand. This suggests that close partnerships between employers and providers of education and training are required to avoid mismatches, or improved infrastructure is needed to facilitate longer commuting distances.
Participation in formal learning declines with age. Adult learning is in overall decline and is disproportionately taken up by wealthier, more highly skilled individuals. Formal workplace training has also declined over the last 15 years. This may in part be explained by the fact that learning by adults aged 55+ has shifted from formal to ‘informal’ channels in the last decade or so, with higher socio-economic groups more likely to engage in such self-directed or peer-driven learning, potentially because of positive prior experience of education. While cost and lack of time are reported as common barriers to adult learning for individuals of all skill levels, individuals with no qualifications are more likely to cite attitudinal barriers including lack of confidence, lack of interest, and feeling too old to learn. However, low skilled individuals or those from poor socio-economic backgrounds and minority groups, reap the greatest rewards from learning. If the former trend persists, it suggests that older and particularly lower skilled individuals will be especially vulnerable in a future labour market that is likely to place a premium on lifelong learning.

And one conclusion:

“Analysis of the wage benefits associated with higher levels of education suggests that the returns on learning are substantial. A 2013 estimate found that an individual who has earned a bachelor’s degree will earn on average £210,000 more over the course of their lifetime, after taxes and loan costs, than someone with only A-levels. The benefit is greater for women, at £252,000 than for men, at £168,0006 (BIS, 2013b, p.5).”

Industrial Strategy

As noted, this was published last week and we are still digesting it (another 100+ pages). However, at least the models are simplified from the Green Paper (10 pillars etc). Now it has 5 foundations: Ideas, People, Infrastructure, Business Environment and Places and 4 grand challenges. The paper says “Our focus on them responds to the detailed feedback to the Green Paper”.

To coincide with the publication of the Industrial Strategy White Paper, UUK has published new guidance for businesses on how best to involve and engage with universities when developing a sector deal.

So what is actually going to happen? There is more detail below – and some practical steps to implement it:

“We will create an independent Industrial Strategy Council that will develop measures to assess and evaluate our Industrial Strategy and make recommendations to the government. The Council will have access to relevant government data and will be funded to commission specific evaluation projects as appropriate. It will be drawn from leading business men and women, investors, economists and academics from across the UK.”
“Investing in R&D to transform our economy. For the UK to become the most innovative country in the world we need a generational increase in public and private R&D investment. In this strategy we commit to reach 2.4 per cent of GDP investment in R&D by 2027 and to reach 3 per cent of GDP in the longer term, placing us in the top quartile of OECD countries. If we meet this target we will transform our economy. It could increase public and private R&D investment by as much as £80bn over the next 10 years, with much wider benefits across the UK economy.”

To do this:

As a first step we will invest an additional £2.3bn over what was previously planned in 2021/22, raising total public investment in R&D to approximately £12.5bn in that year alone.
We will work with industry in the coming months to develop a roadmap for meeting this target. This will provide a framework to drive business investment in R&D and focus on key sectors, technologies and clusters, including by optimising government investment to drive private investment in R&D and considering further opportunities to improve the business environment, including access to finance, regulatory frameworks, and intellectual property. This will maximise the impact of public investment in science and innovation to support businesses to invest more and drive outputs to realise our commitment to invest 2.4 per cent of GDP in R&D.
We will invest a further £725m in a second wave of the Industrial Strategy Challenge programme across the UK to respond to some of the greatest global challenges and opportunities – from climate change to automation….
We will invest £300m over the next three years in world-class talent including in priority areas aligned with the Industrial Strategy, such as artificial intelligence, to enhance our skilled workforce and attract private sector R&D investment. This investment will focus on collaboration and the flow of people between industry and academia and interdisciplinary and cutting-edge research and innovation to support the Industrial Strategy programme and the Grand Challenges. Support will range from Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and PhD programmes, with strong and flexible links to industry, to prestigious awards that support rising stars and the top talent from both the UK and overseas.
We will work with our leading universities, research institutes and UK Research and Innovation to increase global investors’ R&D activities taking place in the UK. Of the world’s 2,500 top R&D investors, just 50 businesses are responsible for 40 per cent of private sector investment globally. If we could attract an additional five per cent of R&D from these top 50, UK based R&D would increase by around a third.
We will work with UKRI to develop a new competitive Strategic Priorities Fund…This will support high quality R&D priorities which would otherwise be missed – multidisciplinary and inter-disciplinary programmes identified by researchers and businesses at the cutting edge of research and innovation. …. UK Research and Innovation strategy will deliver a real-terms increase in council budgets of approximately 20 per cent between 2015/16 and 2019/20. We will also increase support for Quality-Related research through Research England. This recognises the vital importance of providing underpinning funding for our world-leading universities to invest in the excellence and impact of their research and ensure the sustainability of our research infrastructure.
We will improve the UK tax system to support innovation. ….
We will make it easier to finance innovation by increasing the resources for government agencies that promote and fund innovation like Innovate UK – our world leading innovation agency that supports businesses across the UK to collaborate and innovate – and the British Business Bank..
We are also allocating a further £44m of grant funding to enable Innovate UK to fund £150m of responsive grant competitions in 2017/18. This will allow it to support hundreds more high-growth businesses, collaborations and industries to innovate and compete in future global markets. In addition, Innovate UK will pilot new ways of financing innovation: – £50m Innovation Loans pilot over the next two years to target the most promising projects in viable businesses on the cusp of commercialisation, but not yet ready to access loans from commercial lenders; and – an Investment Accelerator pilot to bring in seed equity alongside grant funding by matching the most innovative early stage businesses with investors. …
We will develop an agile approach to regulation that promotes innovation, the growth of new sectors, and innovative market entrants while ensuring effective protections for citizens and the environment. An example is establishing a clear framework for autonomous vehicles and, through our Digital Charter, building agreement on the ethical and effective use of new technologies and data. …
We will improve public procurement as an important source of finance for innovative businesses that does not dilute their equity and gives an endorsement for others to invest. …. we will refocus the [Small Business Research Initiative] SBRI programme to increase its impact for innovative businesses, aligning it with Grand Challenges and building capability in the public sector to drive productivity by adopting SBRI solutions. As a first step, this month we announced a new GovTech Catalyst with a GovTech Fund of up to £20m over three years, which will use SBRI to support tech firms to provide the government with innovative solutions for more efficient public services

“We will:

Ideas:

raise total research and development(R&D) investment to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027;
increase the rate of R&D tax credit to 12 per cent;
invest £725m in new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund programmes to capture the value of innovation;

People

establish a technical education system that rivals the best in the world to stand alongside our world-class higher education system;
invest an additional £406m in maths, digital and technical education, helping to address the shortage of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills;
create a new National Retraining Scheme that supports people to re-skill, beginning with a £64m investment for digital and construction training;

Infrastructure

increase the National Productivity Investment Fund to £31bn, supporting investments in transport, housing and digital infrastructure;
support electric vehicles through £400m charging infrastructure investment and an extra £100m to extend the plug-in car grant;
boost our digital infrastructure with over £1bn of public investment, including £176m for 5G and £200m for local areas to encourage roll out of full-fibre networks;

Business Environment

launch and roll-out Sector Deals – partnerships between government and industry aiming to increase sector productivity. The first Sector Deals are in life sciences, construction, artificial intelligence and the automotive sector;
drive over £20bn of investment in innovative and high potential businesses, including through establishing a new £2.5bn Investment Fund, incubated in the British Business Bank;
launch a review of the actions that could be most effective in improving the productivity and growth of small and medium-sized businesses, including how to address what has been called the ‘long tail’ of lower productivity firms;

Places

agree Local Industrial Strategies that build on local strengths and deliver on economic opportunities;
create a new Transforming Cities fund that will provide £1.7bn for intra-city transport. This will fund projects that drive productivity by improving connections within city regions; and
provide £42m to pilot a Teacher Development Premium. This will test the impact of a £1000 budget for high-quality professional development for teachers working in areas that have fallen behind.
These policies, alongside the many others set out in this document, are the first strategic actions of a long-term approach to transform our levels of productivity and our earning power as a nation, as businesses, as places, and as individuals. We are ready to be judged on our performance in implementing them.

Student visas

The Home Office released quarterly and annual immigration statistics including data on study visas here: Why do people come to the UK? (3) To study

The data relating to study found in the year ending September 2017:

An increase of 8 per cent in Short-term student visas
A 6 per cent increase in University sponsored study visa application
Increases of 9 per cent for Russell Group universities to 87,362,
A decrease of 4 per cent in applications for the Further education sector

Nationalities data for the year ending September 2017 (top 5):

China: +15 per cent
United States: +6 per cent
India: +27 per cent
Hong Kong: +5 per cent
Saudi Arabia: -2 per cent

The lead story is the rise in visa applications for Indian students, with the first annual rise in applications since 2010: THE Article. [thanks to Dods for the summary].

Jo Johnson has tweeted about this.

Committee inquiries

Two parliamentary committees on issues of key importance to the higher education sector are now taking written evidence.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into freedom of speech in universities has a deadline for written evidence of 15 December, while the Treasury Committee’s inquiry into student loans will accept submissions until 31 December.

Earlier this week Professor Julia Buckingham, Vice-Chancellor of Brunel University London, represented UUK before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee in relation to its ongoing inquiry into the economics of higher, further and technical education.

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October 16, 2017

HE policy update for the w/e 13th October 2017

Business Engagement, EU, Festival of Learning, Funding opportunities, Fusion, humanities, Impact, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, policy, Public engagement, Research assessment, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

Well, anyone who thought the Minister would have less to do in this session of Parliament, other than oversee the implementation of the Higher Education and Research Act, was underestimating him. Rather unexpectedly he demonstrated yesterday that he had fully embraced the Fusion model (he calls it a three legged stool) by announcing a new excellence framework for knowledge exchange to sit alongside REF and TEF. We have a bit on each, along with an update on that funding review (what funding review) and some other news.

New Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF)

REF, TEF (even when it’s TESOF, see below) and now the KEF….a new excellence framework has been announced by the Minister at the annual HEFCE conference.

Described by the Minster (apparently) as the “third leg of the HE stool” this new framework will be run by Research England (under its head (designate), David Sweeney, and also responsible for the REF). Like the REF, the KEF will have a clear cash “carrot” for participation and to motivate high performance – it will provide a new method for allocating Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF).

The story was all about the UK’s competitiveness. The Minister celebrated the quality of UK research but challenged the sector to have more connection to the wider world and impact on the economy, to justify the “outsize role” that universities play in Research and Development in the UK – compared to industry. He said:

“…the system needs to find a new gear. University income from business engagement is growing more slowly than the economy as a whole, with British universities producing fewer spin-outs and less licensing income per pound of research resource than US counterparts. As a greater proportion of R&D takes place in universities in the UK than in other countries, it’s especially important that we get this right.”
“Over half of the money the UK taxpayer provides for R&D goes to the Higher Education sector – £4.8bn out of £8.8bn in 2015.
The result is that a far greater proportion of R&D – 26% – takes place in our universities – than in comparable countries, with 20% in France, 17% in Germany, 13% in the US and 12% in Japan.
This funding arrangement has helped ensure the excellence of British universities and their strong performance in international league tables, which give a heavy weighting to research.
But the fact that by international standards an unusually large proportion of our R&D activity takes place within our universities brings with it increased responsibilities.”

(more…)

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