Universities are crucial to sparking growth and opportunity, by bringing together student populations, research partners, local businesses, and employers to create vibrant communities, jobs, and opportunity across the UK. This series of briefings takes a look at how universities are generating growth and opportunity across the nine regions of…

Universities are crucial to sparking growth and opportunity, by bringing together student populations, research partners, local businesses, and employers to create vibrant communities, jobs, and opportunity across the UK. This series of briefings takes a look at how universities are generating growth and opportunity across the nine regions of…

Universities are crucial to sparking growth and opportunity, by bringing together student populations, research partners, local businesses, and employers to create vibrant communities, jobs, and opportunity across the UK. This series of briefings takes a look at how universities are generating growth and opportunity across the nine regions of…

Many studies have highlighted the limited 'opportunity structures' of working-class undergraduates. However, there have been few studies exploring how students' agentic internal conversations mediate societal structures. Internal conversation is a reflexive process in which thoughts and decisions are considered in relation to social circumstances.…

Universities are committed to offering high-quality higher education that delivers value to students and taxpayers. This means ensuring students can access higher education, whatever their background, circumstances or location. It also means delivering courses that develop the skills and knowledge our economy needs to drive local and national…

This dissertation studies the effect of higher education costs on students' outcomes in the labor market, particularly when credit constraints are absent. It utilizes the UK's institutional setting to identify such an effect. The key findings are as follows. (i) Increasing tuition fees does not have adverse effects on students as long as credit…

The UK's Quality Assurance Association for Higher Education (QAA) recommend that all undergraduate courses at UK universities include in their curricula elements of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education; and Education for Sustainable Development. This paper examines the detail of the QAA's recommendations and…

Universities may offer students from disadvantaged personal or socioeconomic contexts a lower threshold for entry compared to students from a more stable or affluent background; this is termed a contextual offer. Examples may include having a health condition, disability or living and going to school in a less affluent area. While there has been…

This report puts forward practical actions to address economic and social disparities across the United Kingdom (UK). It sets out the evidence of the impact universities are making across three main themes, outlines the potential to go further, and makes recommendations for how the government can work with universities to maximise their…

Collegiality and the contribution to the sustenance of the academy through academic citizenship are central to commonly held conceptions of what it is to be a university. This study investigates the articulation and recognition of academic citizenship through institutional promotion criteria, including both traditional research and…

In this collection, different experts from a range of backgrounds consider the current plan to defund many Business and Technician Education Councils (BTECs) and other popular Level 3 Applied General qualifications. Together, the chapters argue this could close off a useful and proven route for students from a wide range of backgrounds, including…

This paper feeds into scholarly interest on place-based creative industrial development. It considers the creative-led economic development of two UK cities, Dundee and Chatham as emerging through a series of interdependent relationships between locally based higher education institutions (HEIs) and cultural and creative industries (CCIs) that are…

Using UK data supplied by universities, this paper confirms that women academics earn less than men, even after controlling for a range of covariates. Despite narrowing after 2004/05, the observed (unconditional) pay gap was still -0.089 in 2019/20, while the conditional pay gap was relatively unchanged remaining at around -0.050 in 2019/20. The…

Anecdotal reports of student parents' challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted this explorative study; investigating the lived experiences of UK student parents and the provision of Higher Education support. Data was derived from 91 online surveys, 20 follow-up interviews, and analysis of 100 university websites. This occurred during the…

Affect and habitus are used in the paper to harness the intermingling of race and class in the young people's everyday identity practices at school, as they aspire to embody 'Black excellence'. This paper draws on ethnographic data collected with working-class Black-British young people aged between 16 and 18. Through the careful management of…