On Friday 5 September 2025, the UK Science Minister Patrick Vallance announced a three-month pause on the work of the 2029 Research Excellence Framework (REF). This was to evaluate and reflect on how the framework can best assess research excellence by reducing bureaucracy. On Wednesday 10 December 2025 at the Universities UK Research and Innovation … Read more…

The government’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper sets out an ambitious and largely welcome agenda: a more joined-up system, clearer pathways, stronger employer engagement and a renewed focus on higher-level skills as a driver of growth. Many of its core themes will feel familiar to those working across higher education, further education and cultural organisations. In fact, much of what is proposed … Read more…

Not all casual encounters with/at academic institutions with infrastructure can result in ‘outcomes’. Yet for me in a rare serendipitous meeting it ‘did’! In my case it was slow sprinkled with prolonged silences of not-knowing, unknown/erratic eruptions of thoughts, vague discussions sometimes random conversations but at other times a quiet, simmering marination evolving deep within … Read more…