Spill The News

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Glen Noble gets across what the Chinese government’s recent five-year plan means for international scientific collaboration and UK universities

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Glen Noble gets across what the Chinese government’s recent five-year plan means for international scientific collaboration and UK universities

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The recent High Court ruling on free speech has larger implications for how the sector in England is regulated. Richard Sykes and Sam Rose chart a potential way forward

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The recent High Court ruling on free speech has larger implications for how the sector in England is regulated. Richard Sykes and Sam Rose chart a potential way forward

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Universities in the North East of England have set up a fund dedicated to university spinout creation. Northumbria University vice chancellor Andy Long explains the thinking behind it

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Universities in the North East of England have set up a fund dedicated to university spinout creation. Northumbria University vice chancellor Andy Long explains the thinking behind it

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Local resilience forums are one of the UK’s key ways to organise emergency responses. Gary F Fisher explains why the system works best when universities play a central role

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Local resilience forums are one of the UK’s key ways to organise emergency responses. Gary F Fisher explains why the system works best when universities play a central role

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For the time being at least, we have notionally centre-left governments across England, Scotland and Wales.

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The latest British Social Attitudes survey release tracks a disquieting change in the public's perception of higher education. David Kernohan has the numbers

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The latest British Social Attitudes survey release tracks a disquieting change in the public's perception of higher education. David Kernohan has the numbers

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Wonkhe and IDP Education are exploring what the HE sector needs to do now to secure the success of the government’s International Education Strategy. Rachel MacSween and Debbie McVitty parse out the question of "quality"

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Wonkhe and IDP Education are exploring what the HE sector needs to do now to secure the success of the government’s International Education Strategy. Rachel MacSween and Debbie McVitty parse out the question of "quality"

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This week on the podcast we discuss the scale and shape of cuts across UK higher education

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This week on the podcast we discuss the scale and shape of cuts across UK higher education

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Public and DfE responses have been published today

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Story goes that a student in Pakistan turned up to an agent's office with a gun, demanding a deposit refund from a UK university.

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Universities UK’s Future Universities strategy aims to tackle public apathy towards universities. Sally Mapstone explains why that means doing more than “telling better stories”

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Universities UK’s Future Universities strategy aims to tackle public apathy towards universities. Sally Mapstone explains why that means doing more than “telling better stories”

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This week’s card from Hugh Jones’ postbag takes us to Cambridge via the east end of London

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This week’s card from Hugh Jones’ postbag takes us to Cambridge via the east end of London

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Newer migrants could contribute even more to the UK with access to training and development. Lydia Dye-Stonebridge asks why the LLE can't work for them

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Newer migrants could contribute even more to the UK with access to training and development. Lydia Dye-Stonebridge asks why the LLE can't work for them

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Established ideas of leadership are mismatched with the crisis in UK higher education. Lisa Colledge, Candy Rowe, Sarah Shenow and others reflect on the UKRI future leaders fellows development network summit

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Established ideas of leadership are mismatched with the crisis in UK higher education. Lisa Colledge, Candy Rowe, Sarah Shenow and others reflect on the UKRI future leaders fellows development network summit

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The old international recruitment paradigm thought about China in terms of how many students it would send abroad. Leina Shi explains its increasing focus on attracting international talent – and why the UK needs to pay attention

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The old international recruitment paradigm thought about China in terms of how many students it would send abroad. Leina Shi explains its increasing focus on attracting international talent – and why the UK needs to pay attention

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The consensus that more research funding will lead to more growth is breaking down. Richard Jones urges the sector to act before it's too late

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The consensus that more research funding will lead to more growth is breaking down. Richard Jones urges the sector to act before it's too late

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With the UK back in Erasmus+ and a Eurovision entry doing double duty as policy argument, Maia Chankseliani asks whether the return will finally reach apprentices and vocational learners

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With the UK back in Erasmus+ and a Eurovision entry doing double duty as policy argument, Maia Chankseliani asks whether the return will finally reach apprentices and vocational learners

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Why merge and why now? James Coe deconstructs the big news on King’s College London and Cranfield University.

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Why merge and why now? James Coe deconstructs the big news on King’s College London and Cranfield University.

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David Kernohan digests this year's OfS summary of annual financial returns, and the parallel release of HESA finance data

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David Kernohan digests this year's OfS summary of annual financial returns, and the parallel release of HESA finance data

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Everything we know so far about this latest sector merger

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The latest of the increasingly desperate attempts to shore up both the Office for Students (OfS) and its free speech tsar Arif Ahmed comes from Abhishek Saha, who's a professor of maths at Queen Mary and a founder member of the London…

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For Day Three of Eurovision week, Jim Dickinson tours Europe's student meal subsidies – and finds the UK alleviating student food insecurity via declining food banks and the odd free apple

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For Day Three of Eurovision week, Jim Dickinson tours Europe's student meal subsidies – and finds the UK alleviating student food insecurity via declining food banks and the odd free apple

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New analysis from the British Academy shows us huge areas of the country where key areas of humanities, arts, and social sciences are not taught. Ruairi Cullen has the details

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New analysis from the British Academy shows us huge areas of the country where key areas of humanities, arts, and social sciences are not taught. Ruairi Cullen has the details

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With interesting timing, the committee’s new report says that making it harder to stay in the UK may particularly drive away those working in HE

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Against a backdrop of the industrial strategy and UKRI’s new approach, Michael Salmon argues that perennial debates over Wales’ research system will come into sharpened focus under the next government

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Against a backdrop of the industrial strategy and UKRI’s new approach, Michael Salmon argues that perennial debates over Wales’ research system will come into sharpened focus under the next government

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With DSA reductions already underway, Jim Dickinson argues that new research describes essential disabled student support that DfE is preparing to cut without a replacement plan

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With DSA reductions already underway, Jim Dickinson argues that new research describes essential disabled student support that DfE is preparing to cut without a replacement plan

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One of my (least) favourite moments in many an HE conference is that bit where the chair throws to the floor, and a man (it's always a man) grabs the mic and delivers a six minute soliloquy declaring that we need to go back to higher…

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This week on the podcast as voters in Scotland and Wales head to the polls on 7 May, what do the manifestos mean for higher education?

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This week on the podcast as voters in Scotland and Wales head to the polls on 7 May, what do the manifestos mean for higher education?

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This is how we know people are learning the skills we need for the future

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Setting out the next steps for Universities UK's transformation and efficiency agenda, Nigel Carrington calls on government to back the sector's ambitions

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Setting out the next steps for Universities UK's transformation and efficiency agenda, Nigel Carrington calls on government to back the sector's ambitions

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Matthew Howling considers how government financing for HE transformation could best complement institutions' existing financial arrangements with lenders

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Matthew Howling considers how government financing for HE transformation could best complement institutions' existing financial arrangements with lenders

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No single institution can address the most complex access issues. Antony Moss sets out the evidence from London on why collaboration must be the way forward

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No single institution can address the most complex access issues. Antony Moss sets out the evidence from London on why collaboration must be the way forward

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Jim Dickinson gets across DfE's latest news on Alternative Student Finance – and finds the government has accidentally reinvented the graduate tax for Muslim students

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Jim Dickinson gets across DfE's latest news on Alternative Student Finance – and finds the government has accidentally reinvented the graduate tax for Muslim students

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This week’s card from Hugh Jones’ postbag takes us to the heart of Bloomsbury

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This week’s card from Hugh Jones’ postbag takes us to the heart of Bloomsbury

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At Education Questions in the Commons today, Department for Education (DfE) minister Josh MacAlister said this unprompted:

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But why now?

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Director of The Post-18 Project John Blake sets out why thirty years of policy struggle has left England without the higher education system it deserves

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Director of The Post-18 Project John Blake sets out why thirty years of policy struggle has left England without the higher education system it deserves

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Iceland's higher education system was built to serve a national purpose. Jim Dickinson and Mack Marshall report from Reykjavík – and ask what the UK's system is for when the salary returns stop adding up

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Iceland's higher education system was built to serve a national purpose. Jim Dickinson and Mack Marshall report from Reykjavík – and ask what the UK's system is for when the salary returns stop adding up

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On 7 May 2026, voters in Scotland and Wales go to the polls.

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This week’s card from Hugh Jones’ postbag cooks up a treat!

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Entrepreneurship education is of increasing importance, yet Aleksandra Bavdaz and Rami Al-Sharif have noticed that gendered expectations in the classroom still shape who sees themselves as a future entrepreneur

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As OfS tells ethics committees to rein themselves in and prioritise academic freedom, Joe Mintz makes the case that values can't be wished away – they have to be argued over in public

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A new ongoing condition of registration gives a familiar refresh to ongoing registration conditions on consumer protections. David Kernohan has the detail

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For Jo Irving-Walton, generative AI use is just one angle in a wider dopamine problem in higher education

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Kashan Pirzada explains how leadership systems which prioritise immediate and countable outputs may generate short-term activity without longer-term impact

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Jane Robinson breaks down the barriers between global ambitions and civic responsibility in growing the UK's economy

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Jane Robinson breaks down the barriers between global ambitions and civic responsibility in growing the UK's economy

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Jane Robinson breaks down the barriers between global ambitions and civic responsibility in growing the UK's economy

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Joanne Caldwell argues that the sector can no longer afford to ignore the enormous contribution that professional services staff can make to doctoral education

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Jakob Feldfos Christensen asks what your equality, diversity, and inclusion approaches need in an increasingly complex and unstable world

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Stepped student loan repayments sound progressive. Jim Dickinson argues they distract from an accounting structure that structurally rewards chancellors for squeezing graduates and hides the lack of public subsidy

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Keeping systems and buildings in working order takes investment and time. For AUDE's Syd Cottle both are in worryingly short supply

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Culture isn't about economic growth but sometimes it is economic arguments that secure its future. James Coe squares this very big circle

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The Westminster government has announced that interest on Plan 2 and 3 student loans in England and Wales will be capped at six per cent for a year from 1 September.

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With "close to home" now the fourth most important factor in university choice, Mack Marshall and Jim Dickinson argue that DfT's failure to recognise students as a transport user group is becoming an access and participation problem

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Exams are everything in the compulsory sector, but higher education is moving towards authentic assessment. Gianina Harvey-Brewin asks why we can't be consistent

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Spaces designed specifically for students from widening participation backgrounds offer a scalable way to build the social capital that traditional support structures struggle to provide. Amara Anyogu and Emmanuel Adukwu explain

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For the past few months I’ve been waiting patiently for the Department for Education’s (DfE) annual equality impact assessment on its changes to student financial support.

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James Coe has been on his travels and has lessons from Serbia on the future of UK research

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James Coe has been on his travels and has lessons from Serbia on the future of UK research

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James Coe has been on his travels and has lessons from Serbia on the future of UK research

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Essays used to be a prompt for dialogue, but more recently that conversation has been stripped away. Nigel Francis, David Smith, Kevin Campbell-Karn and Steve Rutherford reflect on how student generative AI use has surfaced a deeper problem

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A report found a correlation between EDI spending and free speech compliance failures that controls for institution size. William Mackesy argues the findings deserve scrutiny, not dismissal

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Just for a minute (well, five or so years), I thought one bit of the UK wouldn't be a laughing stock in Europe on student participation. Alas, it wasn't to be.

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If we have indeed found evidence of DfE plans to prop up the sector, what might such a scheme look like?

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Rita Gardner stresses the benefits of deeper embedding of robust social science evidence and methodologies in the world of government policy

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With universities treating free speech as a compliance problem, Peter McColl argues the sector is missing a chance to improve the culture of debate itself

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We're a few days on from the Department for Education's (DfE) decisive action on weekend course misclassification, and the fallout is starting to build.

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Setting up new international partnerships can sound like an easy win. But for Joe Lyons, where there’s little at stake we should expect little in return

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Danny Clegg argues that equality impact assessments must shift from records of compliance to tools for co-production and foresight

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For a couple of months, it looked like the headline maximum rates for maintenance loans in England (along with everything else linked to forecasts of RPI-X) would be favourable next year.

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The public critique of higher education governance is making some boards anxious. Poppy Short, Matthew Howling, Richard Sykes and Debbie McVitty work through what can reasonably be expected from governors when sustainability is on the line

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The plate glass universities were founded on intimacy, radicalism and community. Adam Wright asks whether an obsession with growth has made those promises impossible to keep

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Media stories about foundation years, entry qualifications and weekend delivery all lead back to the same place. Jim Dickinson follows the data

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Jim Dickinson finds that disadvantaged students use AI as a production shortcut while their better-off peers treat it as a learning tool – and that the hidden curriculum explains why

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Jim Dickinson unpacks the fallout from a DfE crackdown on weekend course misclassification – and finds students caught between forced repayment, forced delivery changes, and a system that is unlikely to accept blame

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Jim Dickinson unpacks the fallout from a DfE crackdown on weekend course misclassification – and finds students caught between forced repayment, forced delivery changes, and a system that is unlikely to accept blame

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Jim Dickinson unpacks the fallout from a DfE crackdown on weekend course misclassification – and finds students caught between forced repayment, forced delivery changes, and a system that is unlikely to accept blame

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With placement students routinely clocking 75-hour weeks across study, unpaid work and paid employment, Mary Lawler, Adrian Wright, Mark Wilding and Martin Lowe argue the system needs safeguards it currently lacks

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Brianah Carter and Kathleen M. Quinlan find that the everyday labour of navigating predominantly white spaces shapes how Black British students see themselves – and their education

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And on what basis?