Q and A’s from Opening Keynote

by Conor Ryan

Could student ambassadors influence work-based learning for adults?

The success of student ambassadors in mentoring disadvantaged young people – and encouraging them to consider higher education – should inspire the sector to consider a similar approach towards reaching adults in the workplace.
That was the suggestion behind Professor David Green’s question in the Q&A session following David Eastwood’s opening address.
Universities secretary John Denham had already indicated on Friday that a big expansion in student ambassadors is likely to form an important part of the expansion of the Aim Higher programme to encourage wider participation, and is expected to say more on the subject in his address to the conference tomorrow.
David Eastwood said that the Active Community Fund had already helped improve similar employer links, as had foundation degrees and employer co-funded courses – which already had passed the 5000 student mark – but that the issue raised important questions about the future of how teaching was funded, and where.
The Union Learning Fund has shown how adults can be encouraged to take up basic skills courses with some peer pressure in the workplace. Could such peer pressure play its part as workplace learning expands in higher education?

Is HEFCE green enough?

Prof Patricia Broadfoot from the University of Gloucestershire was concerned that David Eastwood had not said enough in his speech about sustainability, although she acknowledged that he had made mention of a new Revolving Green Fund secured in the 2008-11 Funding Review.
Prof Eastwood said that the Fund had been suggested by HEFCE, and he was very pleased to have secured it. Higher Education had, of course, played a big part in identifying climate change and in pioneering approaches to energy efficiency and technology. Capital funding had already been used to promote more sustainable buildings.
Nevertheless, the sector had started to ask itself some searching questions about sustainability in January, and HEFCE were now working closely with Universities UK on the issue. With a new fresh, positive commitment to tackling climate change due later this year, there would be pilots of exemplary approaches in 2009.
All this raises the question of how much more individual institutions and the sector collectively can do to tackle what Prof Broadfoot identifies as the great question of our age.

How do we best encourage adventurous teaching?

Perhaps the issue to exercise delegates most is inevitably funding, and the challenge presented by David Eastwood about whether a new teaching model is needed to recognise and promote diversity. Some delegates were worried that despite funding increases and variable fees, levels of funding per student were still below 1990 levels, impacting on teaching group sizes.
But there was a plea from Professor Michael Brown of Liverpool’s John Moores University for stability in funding. “Adventurousness is easier with stability,” he declared.
This brought a declaration from Prof Eastwood that “it would be folly to move from a degree of predictability to deep uncertainty.” However, some parts of the teaching methodology did not reflect current practice, including employer co-funding. “But the last thing we want to do is to create risk aversion.”
Responding to Prof Michael Wright (Canterbury Christ Church University), who asked what further steps HEFCE would take to promote diversity, Prof Eastwood said that HEFCE’s new corporate plan would seek to reflect the experience of institutions. HEFCE would need to ensure the system provided challenge and incentives as well as stability.

New ways of rewarding research excellence

Prof Elaine Thomas (University College for the Creative Arts) elicited two commitments from David Eastwood for the new Research Excellence Framework which would replace RAE after this year.
There would be broadly the same amount of selectivity as with RAE and the same broad distribution between disciplines.
Detailed breakdowns would need to wait until indicators from the 2008 RAE emerged to give a proper profile of the sector today, but while there might be some individual winners and losers – and HEFCE would provide support if such losses affected institutions, these would not extend to degrees of selectivity or too the disciplinary balance.
After a long debate, the hopes are that the research framework avoids the over-complexity and retains the flexibility that lay behind the RAE review when it started.

Physics boost as conference gets underway

by Conor Ryan

Physics had seemed to be losing its popularity among students – not just at university, but also in school – over the last few decades.
But take-up at A level has started to stabilise and physics applications to HE rose last year, not least as a result of stronger outreach by HE into schools and clearer expectations from employers.
Yet there have also been concerns about the viability of some university departments. So, there will have been a big welcome among South East universities for a new £27.8 million fund – including £12.5 million from HEFCE’s strategic development fund - to promote and sustain physics provision in six South East universities working collaboratively through a new organisation known as the South East Physics Network  - SEPNET.

The announcement was part of Professor David Eastwood’s opening address to some 200 delegates at Hefce’s annual conference at Warwick University today.
The universities involved – the University of Kent, Queen Mary University of London, Royal Holloway University of London, Southampton University, University of Surrey and the University of Sussex – will have four main research themes: condensed matter physics, particle physics, astrophysics, and radiation and detector instrumentation.
Prof Eastwood placed the announcement within a £75 million programme designed to protect high cost lab-based vulnerable STEM subjects, including the sciences. Other projects included Stimulating Physics, led by the Institute of Physics, as well as similar programmes in Chemistry, Engineering and Maths. HEFCE would publish an annual statement on STEM supply and demand in the future.
In his speech, Prof Eastwood said that HEFCE was playing a crucial role in developing a 10-15 year framework for higher education.
He updated the conference on the new Research Excellence Framework, designed to replace the Research Assessment Exercise after this year’s RAE. Prof Eastwood highlighted the differing views of respondents to the consultation on issues like bibliometrics, and noted concerns about the timetable and the potential inflexibility of the proposed twin-track approach with two discrete subject block. Prof Eastwood urged delegates to resist attempts to create a system of ‘baroque complexity’.
He said that higher education had done reasonably well in funding terms at a time of tightening fiscal pressures. HEFCE was also ensuring that 94% of funding was going in block grant to universities and colleges, though this would mean some ‘tough decisions’.

Why the future of fees depends on the future of HE

Universities and colleges were urged to engage with a wide-ranging review of the purposes of higher education that has been prompted by universities secretary John Denham.
“The opportunities here are very considerable,” said Prof Eastwood in his opening address to the HEFCE conference.
He reminded delegates that the government had only committed itself to a ‘social science’ review of the impact of fees to date, and the sector itself needed to make the case for change in the context of the wider review of HE’s future.
“This does not mean that the issue of the fees cap will be resolved in 2009,” he said. “The Secretary of State wants the debate on fees to follow a wide-ranging debate on the purposes of higher education”.
The wide-ranging review was being used to revise and refresh HEFCE’s own strategic plan, and would enable the sector to engage with the Council’s strategic thinking in richer and more diverse ways than before.
There would be a range of consultation opportunities to allow such input, ahead of a formal consultation in the autumn. Among the issues to be debated would be the priorities for funding teaching – should it be around stability or dynamism? Should we expect one teaching funding to deliver it all, or are there ways to reflect the diversity better?
How much should students shape higher education in the future, and is there enough space for student voice? These and other issues including workforce development, the impact of globalisation and the role of regulation would all be for debate. The new strategy would operate from 2009-2014.

Whats happening at HEFCE 2008

This year’s conference aims to explore how we can realise the full potential of higher education to the benefit of society and the economy – a theme inspired by the title of John Denham’s speech to the Universities UK conference last September.  It is also the first annual conference for HEFCE’s new chair Tim Melville-Ross.

Speeches, presentations, session summaries and selected audio highlights will be available on the HEFCE website as the conference progresses.

Highlights on the first day will include a keynote speech from HEFCE’s Chief Executive Professor David Eastwood, followed by a ‘Dragons’ Den’ style facilitated session, where influential presenters will compete for support from delegates who will vote for and ‘invest’ in their ideas.  It promises to be an interesting session with presentations from Lord Dearing, Patrick Dunne, Ann Finlayson, Sir Martin Harris and Gemma Tumelty.  Watch this space for the results…

Later in the day we’ll be hearing from two universities from the city of Cambridge who will be illustrating two different approaches to employer engagement.

On day two there will be a presentation and discussion of the results of the HEFCE-commissioned study of higher education league tables and their impact on institutions. We shall also be holding workshops to explore ways of unlocking the full potential of various areas of higher education. The day will conclude with an address by John Denham, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Welcome to the HEFCE Annual Conference 2008 blog

This blog will be ‘live’ during the HEFCE conference giving near live updates of the sessions and activities taking place.  Comments will be left on (though moderated) during the conference itself and for the following fortnight.  Every effort will be made to reply to queries left in the comments.

This should be considered a ‘beta’ service as it is something of a departure for HEFCE however every effort will be made to ensure its success.