Centre for Fusion Learning Innovation and Excellence
Embedding excellence through fusion of education, research and professional practice
New Parliament – On Monday we sent out a special edition policy update to keep you current on the political arrangements as the new government is formed. If you missed it you can read it here. Locally, all the incumbents were re-elected, meaning the whole of Dorset continues to be represented by Conservatives. A breakdown… Read more » about HE policy update w/e 16th June 2017
A series of short, reflective pieces about widening participation projects is being published from within the Fair Access Research (FAR) initiative, which aim to share ideas and experiences on widening participation projects from across the university, to provoke thought and to inspire. Think Piece One is written by Dr Jacqueline Priego, postdoctoral research fellow in CEL, about a co-production… Read more » about FAR Think Piece One: All of us put other people first
The Fair Access Research (FAR) team have been working with students to explore what it means to be a non-traditional student at university through the student voice, using photovoice, a participatory photographic and story technique. The undergraduates involved in the research, who were from widening participation (WP) backgrounds, became research co-creators. They took photographs to represent their experiences… Read more » about My voice, my story: the lived experience of being a non-traditional student at university
A focus on manifestos this week, but some other interesting things first: Data protection within data analytics – The Information Commissioner has opened a formal investigation to assess the potential risk to data protection when using data analytics for political purposes. It will consider the practices deployed during the UK’s EU Referendum campaign and potentially… Read more » about HE policy update w/e 19th May 2017
Higher Education and Research Act 2017 – the final text has now been published online and in a pdf version. The next step will be implementation of the many changes in the Act, which cannot move on substantially until after the election – and of course in the unlikely event of a Labour victory, implementation… Read more » about HE policy update w/e 12th May 2017
Higher Education and Research Bill: the Bill passed its third reading in the House of Lords this week with little fanfare. An amendment relating to the ‘transparency duty’ (publishing further information on applicants’ backgrounds for better WP policy targeting and transparent admissions) was moved but withdrawn. This followed reassurance from the government that they will… Read more » about HE policy update w/e 7th April 2017
On 23 February, CEL held a research dialogue session about Fair Access and Widening Participation. Maggie Hutchings, HSS, presented findings and the overall methodology being followed by the BU Fair Access Research Project. Jacqueline Priego, CEL, presented the findings of her project ‘Students who bounce back’ and recommendations for practice. We will follow up on… Read more » about CEL research dialogue session on Fair Access
Higher Education and Research Bill – the House of Lords committee stage has finished with no further amendments (other than non-controversial and welcome government amendments). Unlike in the House of Commons, where time was more limited and there was a great deal of focus on the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), student loans, the impact of… Read more » about HE Policy update w/e 3rd February 2017
Industrial Strategy Green Paper The Government launched the Industrial Strategy Green Paper and consultation this week. The paper focuses on improving Britain’s innovation and productivity in key areas alongside upskilling the workforce to become world leading. The government suggest a number of areas of industry specialism that should be supported: clean energy robotics healthcare space… Read more » about HE policy updated 27th January 2017
Maggie Hutchings and myself went to the SRHE’s international conference in Wales to present our research exploring ideas of organisational learning and widening participation. Jacqueline Priego presented her research on participatory learning and undergraduate research assistants. The theme of the conference was Exploring Freedom and Control in global higher education. The thread running through the whole event was… Read more » about SRHE International Conference on Research into Higher Education – quick write up
