The Higher Education Statistics Agency charges for access to data to cover its costs and to keep down the subscription fees paid by higher education providers (“FoI costs? University ‘spies’ only add to them”, Opinion, 12 May).
Data supplied to academic researchers is charged on a cost-recovery basis, and to students for an admin fee only. Hesa does not make a profit, and any surpluses are reinvested to achieve the charitable objective of the agency.
Hesa’s strategy for 2016-21 highlights our ambition to make as much of our core data as possible freely available as open data (subject to data protection and confidentiality concerns). We will shortly be launching a consultation on our approach to open data and welcome all suggestions for achieving this ambition.
Paul Clark
Chief executive
Higher Education Statistics Agency
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