Leadership Foundation

The UK HE System

The following research projects and stimulus papers have been commissioned:

• Diversity and Change in Modern Higher Education Systems
• The Future University: Four Case-studies in Innovation
• The future of the British doctorate: Challenges for university leaders
• Credit Risk? Reviving credit accumulation and transfer in UK HE

Diversity and Change in Modern Higher Education Systems
Professor John Brennan, The Open University
Stimulus Paper, April 2013

This paper will consider the implications of the findings from the EuroHESC programme’s projects for the strategic development of UK higher education with a particular focus upon institutional differentiation and diversity, comparing UK and European developments. The EuroHESC programme examines the relationships and interconnections between contemporary social and economic changes and transformations occurring within HEIs and the roles of academics.

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The Future University: Four Case-studies in Innovation
Nicola Sayers, Hult Business School 
Stimulus Paper, May 2013

The paper will explore some of the innovations happening in higher education today. Four case studies of very new universities that are pioneering innovative approaches to university education will be presented. The hope is that casting an eye to the horizon, to the out of the ordinary, may provide inspiration to university leaders. Additionally, moving away from the primacy of practical concerns facing leaders on a daily basis, these case studies will be written with an emphasis on re-consideration of the fundamental questions: Why do we educate? What do we hope that education will achieve? What kind of a world do we live in? What kind of a people are we or do we want to become? What kind of a world do we want to create, and why?

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The future of the British doctorate: Challenges for university leaders 
Avril Manners Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA) Graduate School and Professor Dominic Houlihan, University of Aberdeen 
Stimulus Paper, August 2013

The impetus for this paper comes from a recently delivered report on Scottish Universities commissioned by the QAA “International Benchmarking Report: Shaping the 21st Century Doctorate”. The paper will review the challenges that face University management and will discuss the critical decisions that University leaders must make in relation to the following:

1. Financial investments in doctorates and the strategic issues involved.
2. International recruitment of PhD students not just for token efforts but as a strategy.
3. The quality of the UK PhDs and the PhD graduates’ employability and what their institution is offering to PhD applicants.
4. In an ever increasing variety of PhD training types university mangers need to monitor the quality of these programmes, their success rates and value to the institution.
5. The advantages and disadvantages of PhD researchers being university staff members.

The paper will address these issues based upon extensive research already conducted. Moreover, the authors will consult with leaders of graduate schools.

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Credit Risk? Reviving credit accumulation and transfer in UK HE 
Professor Sir David Watson, Green Templeton College – Oxford University
Stimulus Paper, October 2013

This stimulus paper will address one of the unfinished business in UK higher education over the past four decades the failure to make Credit Accumulation and Transfer (CATS) work. The paper will build on Chapter Seven of the Report of the Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, Learning Through Life (Schuller and Watson, 2009: 145-162) and will examine the current performance of the UK system, using HESA (and possibly UCAS) data to update a report by HEPI (Bekhradnia, 2004). The international example will also be discussed. The paper will conclude with a set of progressive proposals about how to revive and more securely embed the opportunities for learners, their sponsors and institutions that could be brought about by a more generous and less risk-averse approach to credit.

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For further details about the projects contact:
Eleni Stamou, Research Manager
T: 020 3468 4829