Winning large research and capital grants could soon bring unwanted headaches for UK universities along with all the acclaim. From the next academic year, their accountants will be expected to adopt new…
There are class tensions existing very close to the surface of the government’s policy to increase the number of students from disadvantaged areas going to university. New data shows that the number of…
Innovation policy in the UK has taken on a medieval cast. No sooner do we have Catapult Centres, than there is a call for Arrow Projects. This is the headline recommendation of a report to government by…
In December, the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, announced the government would be abolishing the existing cap on undergraduate student numbers from 2015. At the Guardian University Forum…
The UK is investing less on research and development across both the public and private sectors and remains behind Europe on the proportion of its GDP spent on research, prompting leading academics to…
It was clear that recent fundamental changes to the way we pay for university in England would have longstanding ramifications for young people’s plans for their future. Two years into the new fee regime…
The funding climate for the public sector in England has been as inclement as the actual weather recently. So the government’s recent allocation of £50m to bring down the barriers for entry into postgraduate…
I recall the time some years ago when the possible introduction of student fees was being debated and a government decision was imminent. I was attending a seminar on the subject organised by a think tank…
Gill Wyness, London School of Economics and Political Science
The announcement that the government intends to sell off part of the student loan book is perhaps no surprise, but it is bad economics. Debt from student loans is currently a groaning £46.6 billion on…
In the last few weeks, we have seen a number of universities begin to push for extra funding from Australian philanthropists. While this move to broaden the revenue base of universities is welcome, to…
The rise of student numbers in Australian universities that followed the lifting of a cap on enrolment quotas last year is concerning, newly-minted Higher Education Minister Kim Carr said today. Under…
In his spending review, Chancellor George Osborne announced cuts to the universities budget, targeted mainly at funding used to encourage students from under-represented groups to apply for university…