UK universities have, historically, been strong in the Humanities as well as other disciplinary areas. So the country is well-placed to benefit from the global shift towards interdisciplinary ways of working. This report looks at the current health of Humanities throughout the UK, in both teaching and research, and uncovers numerous examples of…

This dissertation utilizes performance-based funding for higher education in Europe as the mechanism through which to interrogate broader relationships between universities and their external resource environments. Structured as three distinct journal-length articles, I first explore the emergence of performance-based funding systems for higher…

This paper provides an overview of government policy on young people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) across the four UK nations. The paper argues that policy in England on this topic is less well-developed and coherent than in the other UK nations, and that the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic will serve to amplify the…

This is the first briefing in a new European University Association (EUA) series focused on evolving university governance. The present publication explores the governance set-up of the European University Alliances formed under the EU's European Universities Initiative. For the first time, the document presents a comparative overview of the…

This work attempts a comparative description and analysis, focusing on the US, the UK, and Australia on the topic of the Right, educational policy, and schooling. It adopts as its underlying theme the burning fuse in tracing the topic back to Joseph de Maistre a Rightist who fled revolutionary France to seek safety in the company of Tsar Alexander…

Universities UK has been explicit that a 'no deal' exit from the EU would be bad for our students, researchers and 136 member universities. This briefing sets out the consequences of exiting the EU without a deal and the stabilising policies required for the higher education sector.

Britain has funded English language teaching (ELT) initiatives in developing countries for decades, despite changes in government and a series of substantial overhauls in the administration of development aid. This article reveals the relevance of ideational factors in explaining how ELT remained a key part of Britain's aid policy during a period…

The post-incorporation further education (FE) sector has experienced a number of quasi-markets over the past 23 years designed to incentivise college agents (managers and lecturers) to meet government objectives. To create such quasi-markets principal-agent (P-A) solutions have been introduced in the form of a series of funding incentives and…

Reflecting the changing ideological and economic perspectives of the government of the day, the expansion of higher education in England has prompted numerous reforms aimed at reshaping and restructuring the sector and its funding. Leading to student riots and sparking some of the sharpest controversies in British higher education the reforms…

The rise in UK government funding for information and communications technologies (ICTs) since 1997 has created a large capital infrastructure, which schools are required to support with their own funds. Simultaneously, both nationally and internationally, the model of self-managing schools gathers momentum. In the UK, the government supports the…

The model for analyzing the funding system used by the United Kingdom's Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC) is described, focusing on the mechanisms through which tuition policy is developed. It is concluded that a linear programing approach is useful in analyzing the impact of funding policy on institutions. (MSE)

Examines effects on higher education in the U.K. of recommendations in the Dearing Report (Report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education) a year after publication, suggesting that while the report effectively analyzed higher education's financial needs, its recommendations have been only partially implemented. The Report's…

This discussion paper is from the Adult Learners Week National Seminar on Lifelong Learning Policy (Canberra, Australia, September 1999) that identified a number of ideas about how to foster national policy development on lifelong learning. It consists of three sections. Part 1 contains "A National Lifelong Learning Policy for…

This paper discusses the cost and purpose of regulation in the higher education sector in the United Kingdom. Higher education is changing fast, facing competition from around the world and offering new economic drive in Britain's regions. Tuition fees bring much needed investment to this growing sector. This means a new challenge for funding…

Describes a British study of education and training for older adults. Briefly reviews older adults' participation in education and training, and identifies issues and obstacles. Defines a policy agenda, puts forth initial policy proposals, and discusses issues of quality and cost effectiveness. Refers to exemplary practices among employers and…