When I wrote about the NUS the other day, I mentioned Hefce's catalyst fund as this was the source of the students' windfall. The fund has two major goals, both now focused on delivering the public and collective student interests in HE:
- To manage transition – to and through the new finance arrangements in HE, so that Hefce protects students and sustains important activities, thereby minimising any unintended consequences.
- To support key objectives – to promote and enhance activities that address Hefce's and/or the Government’s key policy priorities where an innovation could lead to a step change in achievement and efficiency widely across HE.
Hefce says that, in order to achieve ...
"best value from our funding, investments through the fund will follow our and government priorities closely. But investments will be based on ideas from, and negotiation with, institutions. To help proposals focused on supporting key objectives we have set out the key objectives and themes for the fund. We will update this information periodically as our objectives change."
The fund's current key objectives focus on:
- Student Engagement
- Enhancement of learning and teaching
- Student participation and success
- Strategically Important and Vulnerable Subjects
- Research
- Knowledge exchange
- Leadership, Governance and Management
Whilst I do not wish to criticise the catalyst fund, knowing something of how it has been used up to now, I will just note two things in the graphic:
[1] the emphasis on students and on economic growth, each a sign of the times at the Council; and
[2] the lack of any mention of sustainable development / sustainability (etc / etc) which do not feature as key objectives.
Actually, sustainable development does get a mention under Leadership, Governance and Management which says Hefce will support; "proposals with a focus on improving practice in leadership, governance and management, including sustainable development and equality and diversity." It was under this aspect of the fund that all that recent, hugely expensive, and quite fruitless, work on quality was funded. Judging by the outcomes I have seen and heard reported, there will be scant impact on anything, let alone the improvement of practice.
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