University and College Union will ballot its members to strike once again if they are forced to resume in-person teaching and return to unsafe campuses. Meanwhile, the government has published its highly anticipated response to the Augar review, and rent strikes rage on across the UK. CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!Would you like to write for the...Read More

This blog post was kindly contributed by Professor Dorothy Bishop. It was originally featured on her personal blog, which you can find here. An article in the Times Higher today considers the fate of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).  I am a long-term critic of the TEF, on the grounds that it lacks an adequate rationale,  has little statistical...Read More

Liz Morrish had an unblemished record of 30 years in academia without so much as a late library book to her name. That all changed when she publicly voiced her opinions on the terrible toll managerialism was having on academics’ mental health – and she found herself charged with gross misconduct.Read More

Despite the enormous contribution universities are making to addressing the coronavirus crisis, years of enforced competition have placed them under intense financial pressure. Now is the time for the sector to recover its core purpose, argues Professor James Ladyman of the University of Bristol The teaching and research of our universities continues in the current...Read More

The REF is partly responsible for universities’ present ills, but if we get rid of it, we need to find an alternative model for allocating research funding. Norman Gowar, former principal of Royal Holloway, University of London, suggests a way forward As always it was a great pleasure to read Dorothy Bishop’s proposals for abolishing...Read More

Professor David Midgley reviews English Universities in Crisis: Markets without Competition, by Jefferson Frank, Norman Gowar and Michael Naef   The policy objectives against which this book measures the effectiveness of the current system for funding and regulating universities in England are those of the Browne Review: to improve participation rates in higher education among...Read More

The long-awaited review of university tuition fees might not now be published until May – and vice-chancellors make some robust criticisms of the potential cost of subject-level TEF   £7,500 tuition fees plan faces Brexit delay BBC, 01/03/2019, Sean Coughlan The review of university tuition fees in England has been caught in a Brexit gridlock...Read More

The Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework represents a lamentable failure to engage in critical thinking, argues Professor DV Bishop   If you criticise the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), you run the risk of being dismissed as an idle, port-quaffing don, who dislikes teaching, is out-of-touch with students and resistant to any...Read More

More discouraging news on Brexit, and UK universities’ ties to Saudi Arabia have come under scrutiny   Universities’ Saudi ties under scrutiny after Khashoggi killing Times Higher Education, 26/10/2018, Ellie Bothwell Western universities are under increasing pressure to reject funding from Saudi Arabia and terminate their partnerships with the country in the wake of the...Read More

Now that all the data used to inform TEF ratings is publicly available, argues Professor D V M Bishop, TEF itself becomes redundant   I have been vocal in my criticism of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF): its rationale is disingenuous, it is based on measures that manage to be simultaneously invalid and unreliable, and...Read More