Breaking news

By Paul Fain for Inside Higher Ed

The Institute for Public Policy Research has put out a call for evidence for its Commission on the Future of Higher Education in England.

A cross-party group of MPs has recommended a change in the law to prevent unpublished research data being released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Regent's College has become the latest private institution to be granted degree-awarding powers, and it now aims to become only the second private university in the UK.

A university has launched an online petition in a bid to persuade the Law Society not to break up a unique historic collection of about 5,000 manuscripts, early and rare ecclesiastical books and pamphlets that is held by the institution.

The Home Office has confirmed it will continue with the system of “educational oversight”, which requires private higher education colleges to pass inspections carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency.

Universities need to toughen up the mathematical content of their entry requirements for science students if employers’ needs are to be met.

A cross-party group of MPs has said that students should be excluded from net migration statistics.

The Royal Society of Chemistry is to waive its open-access publication fees for researchers from universities that subscribe to all its journals.

De Montfort University has confirmed that it has secured funding from private investors via a £110 million public bond, with other universities expected to follow it into the bond markets.

Queen Mary, University of London is advertising for up to 30 new academic staff in a school that is in the midst of an acrimonious redundancy programme.

Mentoring students in “emotional resilience” could improve graduate employability, according to Labour’s shadow higher education minister, who recalled her own challenges as the sole barrister in her chambers from an “immigrant, working-class” background.

Wales’ education minister is to consult on the dissolution of Cardiff Metropolitan University despite the institution’s governing body's rejection of his plans to merge it with two other universities.

Research funded through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme from 2014 will have to be published through either the “gold” or “green” open-access routes, it has been confirmed.

The University of Edinburgh has joined major US universities including the California Institute of Technology in offering its online courses for free.

The UK research councils have announced that they will provide block grants to help organisations cover the cost of open-access article fees after the government confirmed that it wants to see all publicly funded research made open access.

By 2020, more than four in 10 young graduates in countries that are members of either the G20 or the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development will be Indian or Chinese, according to a report.

Lecturers are set to protest at the University of East London next week to mark a decision by union members to strike this autumn.

The business secretary has said he “accepts” that changes to the student visa system have damaged perceptions of the UK overseas and called for a “liberal attitude to immigration”.

The governor who represents academic staff at Cardiff Metropolitan University voted for the institution to merge in a crucial ballot on independence, it has emerged.

The immigration minister has told a cross-party group of MPs that any reports suggesting that the government will remove international students from net migration figures are not true.

The number of animals used in scientific research in the UK rose by 2 per cent last year, figures from the Home Office show.

An academic psychologist has joined forces with a former Bond girl and her film director husband to create a television documentary about the after-effects of brain injury.

The European Union will tomorrow launch a call for bids for €8.1 billion (£6.4 billion) in research funding as part of the final year of its Framework 7 programme.

University applications by English students have dropped by 10 per cent, according to the latest figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.

The government has announced plans to give border staff new powers to refuse international students a visa as part of a programme of targeted interviews for applicants.

Students in Cornwall could receive up to £3,000 each from their county council to support their university studies in a first for local authorities under current funding arrangements.

Some post-1992 universities have outperformed traditional institutions in the latest set of graduate-destination statistics.

A former journal editor has lost his libel claim against the journal Nature over an article reporting allegations that he had abused his position to publish numerous self-authored papers without subjecting them to peer review.

The universities and science minister has said that a higher education bill will be needed to allow "dissolution" for post-1992 universities and to give new powers to the Office for Fair Access.

The discovery of a particle with all the hallmarks of the long-sought Higgs boson is a “breakthrough in world science”, universities and science minister David Willetts said today.

The average starting salary in graduate-level jobs has increased by 6 per cent to £26,500 a year, according to a survey by the Association of Graduate Recruiters.

Students at new universities are almost twice as likely to get a full student grant as their peers at Russell Group institutions, figures show.

University of Birmingham vice-chancellor David Eastwood has been selected as the new chair of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities.

Applications by international students to study MBAs in the UK have been hit by unwelcoming government changes to visa policies, according to a survey from the Association of MBAs (AMBA).

The Welsh funding council will assess how the quality of higher education in the country’s universities can be improved in changes to its powers outlined in a White Paper released by the Cardiff government.

The University of Birmingham has withdrawn a job advertisement for an “honorary” unpaid research assistant after critics claimed the position was exploitative.

London will host the pharmaceuticals division of a new European court designed to handle patent disputes, the heads of European Union states agreed on 29 June.

A distinguished organisational theorist has called on academics to be far more willing to engage with business in order to co-produce work that can traverse the “double hurdle of scholarly and policy-practice impact”.

University admissions officers are most impressed by applicants who demonstrate a desire to study independently, a new poll has found.

With the finals done and dusted for another year, Times Higher Education is making a final call for entries to its “exam howlers” competition, in which lecturers share their favourite examples of students’ mistakes and misunderstandings.

Universities do not discriminate against poorer students and differences in participation are instead driven by exam results, a study suggests.

Sir Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, has been appointed as the UK’s next chief scientific adviser.

The government should resist changing copyright law to allow free “mining” of data and text in scientific papers, a cross-party group of MPs has said.

Cardiff University is investigating reports that a prospective Chinese student was told by a recruitment agent that she could win a place at the institution despite not meeting its entry requirements.

More than one in six international students coming to study at universities in the UK have question marks over their “genuineness”, according to the results of Home Office interviews given to a cross-party group of MPs today.

Biologists tend to overlook research that is packed with mathematical equations, a study by researchers at the University of Bristol has found.

The Council for Industry and Higher Education has announced plans to launch a National Centre for Universities and Business to strengthen links between the two sectors with the aim of driving economic growth.

Stonewall, the equality charity, has published its latest guide to the universities it considers to have the most gay-friendly policies and support for students.

The universities and science minister has appealed to private investors to support overseas expansion for UK universities and stated that investment bank Goldman Sachs is “keen to investigate this possibility”.

Queen Margaret University has scooped the top prize in the annual awards honouring the sector’s finest leaders, managers and administrators.

A-level courses could require a stamp of approval by learned societies or “a subgroup of universities” under plans put forward by the exam regulator Ofqual.

The Welsh government has drafted a 63-point plan to bolster the employability of the country’s university graduates.

A transition to full open-access publishing will cost UK higher education an extra £50 million or £60 million a year, according to a long-awaited report on how the country should make the change.

The government has defended the public financing of for-profit higher education providers and has said that it wants widening participation funding to be “better targeted”.

A mathematician who led the boycott in the UK of a major publisher over the issue of open access and a vice-chancellor who served on the Browne Review are among the higher education figures recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

The world’s largest telescope is a step closer to being built after organisers gave the go-ahead to its plans at a meeting last week.

The new student loans system designed by the government to support higher tuition fees is “unsustainable in the long term”, according to a survey of senior figures in higher education conducted by Barclays.

The vice-chancellor of the University of Central Lancashire, Malcolm McVicar, is to step down after more than 14 years in charge at the institution.

The next government spending review and general election could bring changes for universities that would make recent reforms look like “marginal tinkering”, the new head of a mission group has warned.