Blogs, comment, and news

My first book, Universities and the Purpose of Higher Education launched earlier in January and I'm running a number of blogs and bits and pieces around it: 22/01/2026: Blog: How we understand the purpose of education , Edge Foundation 09/02/2026: Blog: How did skills take over higher education? One short history , HEPI The book launch will be hosted by SKOPE at the University of Oxford on Monday 2 March 2026, see here for further details . See the banner above for 20% off f

New from me on  Higher Education Policy Institute  blog: given the apparent turn to tertiary in England, what do we know about how partnerships across HE and FE function, and what incentivises institutions to collaborate? In recent research with  Edge Foundation  I argue that in conditions of resource scarcity, the dichotomy between collaboration and competition is not clear cut: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/10/29/tertiary-collaborations-in-practice-what-partnerships-between-c

Pleased to share new research on the development of ‘tertiary’ pathways between further education colleges and universities in England...

I recently launched this site and, now that I have the space and the blog to jot down longer thoughts, I thought I might as well make...

In May, I shared a thread on BlueySky discussing Hayek's Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right  by Quinn Slobodian. The...

In February, as part of my role curating Edge's Skills Shortages Bulletins, I pulled together our annual summary piece, reflecting on the...

To coincide with the launch of Edge's report on Degree Apprenticeships in England: What can we learn from the experiences of apprentices,...

Following my presentation at the SRHE Student Access and Experience Network in June 2024, I wrote a blog reflecting on the personal...