STUDENT OUTCOMES
The Department for Education has published data on graduate, postgraduate and non-graduate employment rates and earnings in England. The graduate employment rate has fallen to 86.4%, with the postgraduate rate falling to 88.2%, although the median graduate salary has risen to £35,000, with the graduate premium up to £9,500. The Guardian has a rather bleak analysis.
REGULATORY AND GOVERNANCE
OfS has announced an extension to the validity of existing Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) awards until September 2023: they had originally been due to expire in September 2021. As the extended awards will be “historic” for the duration of the extension period, OfS has asked that universities remove all references to existing awards from promotional and marketing material.
This week OfS published its annual report and accounts for 2020-21.
KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) has released annual data on knowledge exchange, which shows, amongst other things, that the number of patents awarded to HEIs are up 9% on last year, with the value of contract research up 6%. If datasets are not your thing, Wonkhe has some interesting thoughts on the data.
EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
OfS has updated its equality, diversity and inclusion data on student characteristics. These data sets are complex but there are some discernible trends. For example, the proportion of UK-domiciled undergraduate entrants who are white has fallen 8.7 percentage points from 2010-11 to 70% in 2019-20. Meanwhile, the proportion of students from each minority ethnic group has risen.
The Advance HE blog has a post on recent developments in the Athena Swan award scheme.
Durham University has conducted a survey which indicates that the pandemic has taken a toll on the careers and mental health of mothers working in higher education.
COVID
THE has taken a look at new working practices that might outlast the pandemic, focusing particularly on the complexity of managing a hybrid working model for researchers. Meanwhile, Wonkhe looks into the issue of online lectures.
FINANCE AND FUNDING
THE has some thoughts on the government’s pledge, made in its first budget, to increase public funding for basic research and innovation to £22 billion by 2024-25.
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