The themes playing out in the higher education debates in the houses of parliament seem strangely familiar, writes Professor David Midgley HERB 2.0 (the Higher Education Research Bill) has been playing in both houses of parliament recently. Like HERB 1.0, which enjoyed a twelve-month run between May 2016 and April 2017, HERB 2.0 has tended...Read More

The universities minister says that students should be compensated for missed teaching time as a result of the pensions strike, and a report says that there should have been greater scrutiny in the appointment of Toby Young to the board of the Office for Students   EU ‘should forge wider research community after Brexit’ Times Higher...Read More

The appointment process for the new Office for Students has been heavily criticised in a new report, writes Professor David Midgley – and it hasn’t even launched yet When the membership of the Board of the Office for Students (Ofs) was announced on 1 January 2018, a furious public controversy ensued over the appointment of...Read More

Professor Jo Wolff goes hunting for positive remarks from Jo Johnson about universities – and offers some advice to successor Sam Gyimah ‘Farewell unis and science’, tweeted Jo Johnson, channelling Private Eye’s E.J. Thribb. Academics were astonished by such an honest statement of government policy. Relief flooded in when it was realised that it was...Read More

[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text] Professor DVM Bishop bids a not-so-fond farewell to universities minister Jo Johnson. So Jo Johnson is gone, brought down by poor judgement demonstrated by, first, the appointment of Toby Young to the Board of the Office for Students, and second by his obstinacy in defending that decision to the bitter end. The...Read More

The launch of the new higher education regulator at the beginning of January was dominated by a single story – the controversy over the appointment of Toby Young to its board. In this opinion piece, Professor GR Evans and Professor DVM Bishop look at the challenges facing the OfS and ask whether the board members...Read More