CGHE Annual Conference 9

CGHE Annual Conference 2024 – The Future of Higher Education

Date: Thursday, 15 February 2024 8:30 am - 5:45 pm

Location: Jeffrey Hall, UCL Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL

Speaker(s):

The CGHE Annual Conference returns for its ninth edition on 15 February 2024. This is the final conference during the period of CGHE’s UKRI Economic and Social Council funding award (1 November 2015 to 30 April 2024), where CGHE researchers will discuss key insights arising from their projects. There are exciting plans to maintain and develop CGHE as a self-supporting research centre after that date, with your active participation. More information will be provided on 15 February.

The conference will be provided in both in-person and on-line live-stream mode via Zoom. The in-person conference, which is highly participatory, will take place in London at Jeffrey Hall, UCL Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL.

Those who attend the in-person conference will have the opportunity to take part in breakout discussion groups following the two main panel sessions at the conference. The on-line live-stream mode is broadcast only.

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Thursday 15 February 2024
Jeffery Hall, UCL Institute of Education

8.30-9.00
Coffee and registration

9.00-9.05
Conference opening and welcome
Chair and speaker: Claire Callender (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society and Birkbeck)

9.05-10.15
Opening keynote and 2024 Burton R. Clark Lecture – The three dilemmas of higher education: Reflections on Clark, CGHE and higher education research
Chair: Paul Ashwin (Lancaster University)
Speaker: Simon Marginson (University of Oxford)

WATCH RECORDING FOR CONFERENCE OPENING, OPENING KEYNOTE AND 2024 BURTON R.CLARK LECTURE

Abstract
The leading modernist scholars of higher education were all from the University of California in the 1960s-1980s: Clark Kerr, Martin Trow and Burton (Bob) Clark. They tracked the massification of the sector, the growing role of research and the transformation of the university, first in the United States and then beyond. Clark’s legacy was a fulsome and subtle insight into departments, institutions and national systems. But as mass tending to universal higher education has spread across the world, a process still unfolding, three fundamental dilemmas have become apparent, playing out in different ways in varying national-cultural contexts. First, is equality of opportunity impossible? Growth and equitable access have been unable to secure a lasting equalisation across national populations of social opportunity, while higher education’s role in reproducing social hierarchy has become a driver of reactionary populism. Second, is higher education economic or cultural? The intrinsic function of higher education is the cultural formation of students in classroom learning and knowledge, yet the neoliberal policy revolution that began in the 1980s, and coloured Clark’s later work, positions higher education as a branch of the economy, managed as a competitive business and producing employability as a commodity. This has generated unresolvable tensions. Third, are higher education and knowledge essentially national or global? Knowledge sharing and creation across borders, cosmopolitan world citizenship, decolonisation, and learning through the other contend with nationalist and nativist governments, neo-colonial science, geopolitics and decoupling, and the hierarchies and barriers that limit access to mobility.

The three dilemmas shape the politics and practice of higher education across the world and have often preoccupied higher education studies/research as a field. Research on higher education is predominantly instrumental and often limited to institutional agendas, but in their high minded moments researchers adopt a critical outlook and investigate more equal power in education and society, intrinsic learning and knowledge as means of advancing student agency and enlightening society, and a relational and inclusive global. The Lecture reviews CGHE’s work in the higher education studies field, in the light of the three dilemmas, and suggests ways of taking the research agenda forward in a changing environment. The climate-nature emergency, and its fallout in the destabilisation of government and politics, is rapidly creating a fourth challenging dilemma.

10.15-10.30
Coffee/tea break

10.30-11.45
Theme Panel 1: What are the effects of higher education for graduates?
Chair: Chris Millward (CGHE Advisory Board) (University of Birmingham)

Speaker:
Paul Ashwin (Lancaster University), leader of CGHE project “Graduate Experiences of Employability and Knowledge”

Speaker:
Claire Callender (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society and Birkbeck), leader of CGHE project “Student loan debt and graduate decision-making”

Speaker:
Golo Henseke (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society), leader of CGHE project “Graduate labour market and equity”

Speaker:
Ka Ho Mok (Lingnan University Hong Kong), leader of CGHE project “UK international graduates in mass media and public perceptions: A comparative study of the UK, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan”

WATCH RECORDING FOR THEME PANEL 1

11.45-12.45
Discussion in 4 breakout groups: What are the effects of higher education for graduates?
Rooms and chairs of breakout groups:
Jeffrey Hall – Debbie McVitty (Wonkhe)
Nunn Hall – Nick Hillman (HEPI, University of Manchester, University of Buckingham, National Foundation for Educational Research)
Drama Studio – Lorraine Dearden (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society)
Elvin Hall – Jurgen Enders (University of Bath)

12.45-1.45
Lunch

1.45-3.30
Theme Panel 2: Worldwide higher education? What are the similarities and differences between national systems?
Chair: Jenni Case (Virginia Tech US)

Speaker:
Vincent Carpentier (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society), leader of CGHE project “A historical lens on higher education staffing: UK and France”

Speakers:
Maia Chankseliani (University of Oxford), David Mills (University of Oxford), Tristan McCowan (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society), CGHE project “Mapping supranational higher education space”

Speakers:
Diana Laurillard (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society), Eileen Kennedy (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society), CGHE project “Realising the potential of digital technology for scaling up higher education”

Speaker:
Simon Marginson (University of Oxford), leader of CGHE project “Local and global public good of higher education: 10 nation study”

Speaker:
Alis Oancea (University of Oxford), leader of CGHE project “Research on Research: the research function and mission of higher education”

Speaker:
Mike Shattock (University of Oxford), leader of CGHE project “The governance of higher education: a comparative study”

WATCH RECORDING FOR THEME PANEL 2

3.30-4.30
Discussion in 4 breakout groups: Worldwide higher education? What are the similarities and differences between national systems?
Rooms and chairs of breakout groups:
Jeffrey Hall – David Sweeney (University of Birmingham) and Ellen Hazelkorn (BH Associates)
Nunn Hall – Vivienne Stern (UUK)
Drama Studio – Joanna Newman (SOAS)

4.30-4.45
Break

4.45-5.45
Closing plenary: Future research on higher education
Chair: Simon Marginson (CGHE Director)
Speakers:
Aline Courtois (University of Bath), Janja Komljenovic (Lancaster University), Lee Rensimer (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society), Xin Xu (University of Oxford)

5.45
Conference close
Chair and speaker: David Mills (CGHE Deputy Director)

WATCH RECORDING FOR CLOSING PLENARY AND CONFERENCE CLOSE

Event Notes

For any further queries about the conference, please contact
Emily Betz (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society)
e.betz@ucl.ac.uk
or
Kristina Khoo-Rhodes (Department of Education, University of Oxford)
kristina.khoo-rhodes@education.ox.ac.uk

Please find the General Privacy Policy of UCL, one of our partner universities, here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/legal-services/privacy/general-privacy-notice

Professor Claire Callender

Claire Callender is Professor of Higher Education Studies at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. She is a Deputy Director of CGHE. Claire led on CGHE Project 5, ‘Student loan debt and graduate decision-making’ which explored the impact of income-contingent student loan debt on English graduates’ lives using both quantitative and qualitative methods. It showed how loan debt can have negative effects on graduates’ lives.

Professor Paul Ashwin

Paul Ashwin is Professor of Higher Education, Lancaster University. He played a key role in creating CGHE, was a CGHE Deputy Director and led the Centre’s Graduate Experiences of Employability and Knowledge project.

Professor Simon Marginson

Simon Marginson is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Oxford, founding Director of the ESRC/RE Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), Joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education, and a Professorial Associate with the University of Melbourne. Simon’s research is focused primarily on global and international higher education, the global science system, higher education in East Asia, the contributions of higher education, and higher education and social inequality. Simon led CGHE’s project 8 which investigated the public good role of higher education in ten countries. The project found that while a broad notion of public good has been largely emptied out of policy in the English-speaking countries, where economic definitions of individualised pecuniary value are dominant, recognition of the broader individual and collective outcomes of higher education continues in different ways in other jurisdictions including France, Finland, South Korea and China. The study in England discovered however that despite the narrow economic framing used by Westminster policy makers, both higher education practitioners and policy professionals believe that higher education makes a large and multiple contribution to both national and global public goods.

Chris Millward

Chris Millward is Professor of Practice in Education Policy at the University of Birmingham where he leads a group of researchers working on educational equity in policy and practice. He is a Deputy Director of CGHE .

Dr Golo Henseke

Golo Henseke, an Associate Professor at UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society (IOE), is an applied economist with a track record of publications in leading journals and leadership in diverse, externally funded research projects.

Professor Ka Ho Mok

Professor Ka Ho Mok, Joshua is currently Provost and Vice President (Academic & Research) of the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (HSUHK). Before joining HSUHK, he was the Vice President and Chair Professor of Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Since the inception of CGHE, Professor has worked closely with colleagues of the centre for promoting higher education research with focus on Asian education and development studies. He is also a Deputy Director of CGHE. Before joining Lingnan, he was the Vice President (Research and Development) and Chair Professor of Comparative Policy of The Education University of Hong Kong, and the Associate Dean and Professor of Social Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences of The University of Hong Kong. Prior to this, Professor Mok was appointed as the Founding Chair Professor in East Asian Studies and established the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Ka Ho Mok led CGHE Project 10, ‘UK international graduates in mass media and public perceptions: A comparative study of the UK, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan’.

Debbie McVitty

Debbie McVitty is Editor of Wonkhe.

Professor Lorraine Dearden

Lorraine Dearden is Professor of Economics at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society and was a CGHE Co-Investigator on the former Project 2.2, ‘HE choices and post-HE destinations to age 25: parental background and effects of higher education funding reform in the UK’.

Professor Jenni Case

Jennifer Case is Professor and Head of the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech in the USA. Prior to her appointment in this post she was a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cape Town, where she retains an honorary appointment.

Professor Vincent Carpentier

Vincent Carpentier is a Professor of Higher Education and Society at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. He was responsible for CGHE Project 7, ‘A historical lens on higher education staffing: UK and France’. Key outcomes from this project included papers such as Three Stories of Institutional Differentiation: Resource, Mission and Social Inequalities in Higher Education (Policy Reviews in Higher Education 2021) and Academic Workforce in France and the UK in Historical Perspectives (Comparative Education 2023- with Emmanuelle Picard), recently reported in the Conversation (2023) . He was also a Co-Investigator on Project 8, ‘Local and global public good of higher education: 10 nation study’ examining the French context presented in the paper Public Good in French Universities: Principles and practices of the “Republican” Model of Higher education (Compare 2022- with Aline Courtois).

Associate Professor Maia Chankseliani

Dr Maia Chankseliani, Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, researches tertiary education and development. She is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Educational Research and Chair of the UKFIET Executive Committee. Bluesky: @mchankseliani.bsky.social

David Mills

David Mills is Director of the Centre for Global Higher Education. His current research interests include the political economy of academic research and publishing in Africa. His most recent book is ‘Who Counts: Ghanaian Academic Publishing and Global Science’, co-written with colleagues from the University of Ghana and Oxford.

Professor Tristan McCowan

Tristan McCowan is Professor of International Education at the Institute of Education, University College London. His work focuses on higher education in the international context, including issues of access, curriculum, alternative models and sustainability. His CGHE Project 9 explored the supranational space in higher education – the ways in which this space is formed and developed above or beyond nation-states, the actors that form this space, and the resource and knowledge flows within this space, and between the national, regional, and supranational spaces.

Professor Diana Laurillard

Diana Laurillard leads CGHE Project 2, ‘Realising the potential of digital technology for scaling up higher education’. Diana is Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies, UCL Knowledge Lab. Formerly Head of the e-Learning Strategy Unit at Department for Education and Skills (2002-5); Pro-Vice Chancellor for learning technologies at the Open University (1995-2002). Recent book: Teaching as a Design Science, Routledge. Researching MOOCs, learning design, and digital games for dyscalculia.

Dr Eileen Kennedy

Eileen Kennedy is a Principal Research Fellow at UCL Knowledge Lab, where she leads the MA in Education and Technology. Eileen researches learning design for online and blended higher education and professional development, including caring approaches to online pedagogy.

Professor Alis Oancea

Alis is Professor of Philosophy of Education and Research Policy at the University of Oxford, where she has also been Director of Research in the Department of Education. Her interests are in research on research and philosophy of research. Her research has focused on research policy and governance, research assessment and evaluation, incentives and criteria for worthwhile research (including openness, quality, impacts), methodological theory and research capacity building; higher education policy and reform, including the reform of teacher education in international contexts; and empirical, theoretical and philosophical exploration of different modes of research.

Professor Michael Shattock

Michael Shattock is a Visiting Professor at UCL Institute of Education and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Education at Oxford. He was formerly Registrar of the University of Warwick. He holds Honorary Degrees from Aberdeen, Leicester, Reading and Warwick Universities and from the University of Education, Ghana and is an OBE. He led the Governance group within CGHE which has been responsible for the following books published by Bloomsbury: The Governance of British Higher Education—The impact of governmental, financial and market pressures (2019), The Governance of European Higher Education—Convergence or Divergence? (2023), and Universities and Regions—The impact of locality and region on university governance and strategies (2023).

MBE Vivienne Stern

Vivienne Stern took up the role of UUK Chief Executive in September 2022. Vivienne was previously the Director of Universities UK International (UUKi), which represents UK universities around the world and works to enable them to flourish internationally. Vivienne has over 20 years’ experience of working in higher education policy and politics at national and international level.

Professor Joanna Newman

Professor Joanna Newman joined SOAS as Deputy Director and Provost in September 2023. In her role she provides academic and strategic leadership to support the School’s overall strategy and lead on its Education Strategy 2021-26 that sits at the heart of the Strategic Plan 2021.

David Sweeney

David Sweeney is Professor of Research Policy at the University of Birmingham. Previously he was founding Executive Chair of Research England within UKRI, the agency responsible for creating and sustaining the conditions for a healthy and dynamic research and knowledge exchange system in English universities.

Professor Ellen Hazelkorn

Professor Ellen Hazelkorn is Joint Managing Partner, BH Associates education consultants. She is Professor emeritus, Technological University Dublin (Ireland), and Joint Editor, Policy Reviews in Higher Education. She is a member of the CGHE Leadership Forum and Research Fellow, Centre for International Higher Education, Boston College. Ellen is, inter alia, a member of the Quality Board for Icelandic Higher Education, the EU Higher Education for Smart Specialisation (HESS) Advisory Group, and the Committee for Strategic Advice, EURASHE – the European Association of Institutions in Higher Education. She was a member of the Commission for the College of the Future (UK) and the Tertiary Education Future Initiative (Royal Society of Edinburgh & Young Academy of Scotland). She reviewed Post-Compulsory Education in Wales recommending the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (CTER), now being established by the Welsh Government. Ellen Hazelkorn is a member of the CGHE Research Management Committee and a CGHE Co-Investigator on Project 6, ‘The impact of locality and region on university governance’.

Dr Aline Courtois

Aline Courtois is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of Bath. She holds a PhD in Sociology from University College Dublin and Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.

Dr Janja Komljenovic

Janja Komljenovic is a Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University, where her research focuses on the political economy of higher education; and the digitalisation, datafication and platformisation of universities.

Dr Lee Rensimer

Lee Rensimer is a Lecturer in Education Studies at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society and a Deputy Director of CGHE. He was previously a Research Associate on CGHE Project 9, ‘Mapping supranational higher education space’, and continues to work with the co-investigators of that project on the geopolitics of regional higher education spaces.

Dr Xin Xu

Xin Xu (许心) is a Departmental Lecturer in Higher/Tertiary Education at the University of Oxford. Her research concentrates on higher/tertiary education and research.

Nick Hillman (HEPI)

Nick Hillman is currently a governor of the University of Manchester and the University of Buckingham as well as a Trustee of the National Foundation for Educational Research.

He has been the Director of HEPI since 2014. He worked for the Rt Hon David Willetts MP (now Lord Willetts), the Minister for Universities and Science, from 2007 until the end of 2013, as Chief of Staff and then Special Adviser in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Previously, he was a History teacher and worked at the Association of British Insurers. At the 2010 general election, he was the runner-up in Cambridge.

Professor Jürgen Enders

Jürgen Enders is Professor at the School of Management, University of Bath, UK. His academic interest is focused on the study of institutional change in the field of universities, and their role in society and economy. He has written and (co)edited 15 books and published more than 150 articles in books and journals including Organization Studies, Public Management, Public Management Review, Studies in Higher Education, Higher Education and Scientometrics. He is member of the editorial board of the journals Higher Education and European Journal of Higher Education. Elsevier and University of Stanford released data has recently named him among the top 2% of most highly cited academics in the world in the social sciences. Jürgen is an affiliate of the Center for Global Higher Education, Fellow of the Academia Europaea and of the German Academe of Science and Engineering, and Honorary Fellow of the Society for Research in Higher Education.