The Race Disparity Audit (RDA) was published in 2017 by the then Conservative government of the UK. The proclaimed aims were to 'reveal racial disparities and to help end the injustices that many people experience'. This paper adopts a critical discourse analysis approach to analysing the RDA and associated webpages, to critically examine the…

In aggressively neo-liberalized higher education systems and in 'high-performing' research units--typically academic schools in high-ranking research universities--research assessment has come to dominate the daily organization and enactment of research and research culture. So much so in fact that academics' research praxis, their employability,…

This essay suggests an alternative accountability process on the basis of critiques of current evaluation practice in higher education. Using cases in the British university system, with some international commentary and thinking through experience in Asian universities in four countries in the wake of 'audit culture', the work of Thorstein Bunde…

This paper considers the likely shape of the next UK Research Excellence Framework (REF). It explores some of the recommendations from the 2016 Stern Review (those concerned with "outputs") and their envisaged impact on the exercise. Drawing on lessons learnt from the previous round of the REF, and some wider commentary, the paper…

This article examines the monitoring of third-party education agents employed in international student recruitment. Agency theory identifies comprehensive monitoring as one way to ensure that agents work in the principal's best interest. By analyzing best practice guidelines, this article investigates the monitoring mechanisms proposed for…

Checking the identity of students and authorship of their online submissions is a major concern in Higher Education due to the increasing amount of plagiarism and cheating using the Internet. The literature on the effects of e-authentication systems for teaching staff is very limited because it is a novel procedure for them. A considerable gap is…

This mixed methods paper considers whether or not invisible forms of morally resistant collegial leadership are progressively challenging policy and managerial quasi-market instrumentalism in a minority of low trust dysfunctional situations in a stratified United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education system. A theoretical model of stoical critical…

This paper makes the case for fairness as a driver towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of equitable quality education. We outline a dialogic fairness framework attending to the principles of relational justice in both the service of reducing educational inequalities and improving democratic qualities. The prominence of…

Our paper examines the rise of a new category of professional support staff whom we refer to as 'audit-market intermediaries' in the context of a rapidly changing regulatory and funding environment in British higher education. We explore the roles they play in articulating environmental changes in research-intensive universities related to the…

Increased interest in internationalisation of the curriculum (IoC) has led to the development of a range of resources designed to support staff in translating theory into practice. Studies on how such resources are actually used and impact on academic practice are scarce. This article aims to fill the gap by reporting on a cross-institutional…

As universities in the United Kingdom gear themselves up for the next Research Excellence Framework, REF2021, with peer review at its core, we critically re-visit the idea of peer review as a gold standard proxy for research excellence. We question the premise that anonymous peer review is a necessary and enabling condition for impartial, expert…

In this article, I present some of the teaching and learning challenges faced from the perspective of a U.K. business school dean. There are many challenges that I could have chosen, but my focus is on the unpredictable external environment, the conundrum of teaching evaluation, developing teaching staff, and the curriculum issues we face.

The purpose of this study is to understand how lecturers delivering college-based higher education viewed their workloads, and how this (if at all), influenced their engagement in scholastic activities, which may then enable them to become more knowledgeable in their chosen field of study. The research was of a qualitative nature, whereby…

Evidence from 73 programmes in 14 U.K universities sheds light on the typical student experience of assessment over a three-year undergraduate degree. A previous small-scale study in three universities characterised programme assessment environments using a similar method. The current study analyses data about assessment patterns using descriptive…

In the years since the second Thatcher government (1983-87), and continuing until the present, universities in the UK have been subjected to a series of neoliberal reforms which have had a deleterious effect on academics' working conditions and on the kind of research they are required to produce. 1986 saw the introduction of regular sector wide…