The Bologna process has been described by Floud (2005) as being the single biggest change in higher education in Europe since the foundation of the University of Bologna in the eleventh century. Debate about this process continues between an Anglo-Saxon and a continental European tradition, one decidedly more entrepreneurial and market-driven, the…

This paper discusses the cost and purpose of regulation in the higher education sector in the United Kingdom. Higher education is changing fast, facing competition from around the world and offering new economic drive in Britain's regions. Tuition fees bring much needed investment to this growing sector. This means a new challenge for funding…

This paper, the first part of an edited version of a Keynote Presentation delivered at the AUA Annual Conference, Queen's University Belfast, on April 11, 2006, describes the fate of UK higher education during the course of the last parliament and identifies New Labour's two successive and contradictory higher education policies. The author…

Over the last few years there has been increasing interest in process-based approaches in higher education administration, including "business process modelling" for development of information systems, "process redesign" to remove duplication and bottlenecks, and "process management" to improve operational performance. The process perspective is…

The "Times Higher Education Supplement" of 9 February 2006 briefly reported that the Privy Council, tasked with approving the statutes of universities, was now going to leave their internal arrangements in their own hands. These underlying policy directions need to be set in the context of the important change of emphasis from "audit" to "risk…

The introduction of tuition fees in 1998 has transferred more of the cost of higher education (HE) onto students and inevitably their families. As students make a greater contribution towards their education, they have increased expectations regarding the services and facilities that higher education institutions (HEIs) provide in support of their…

League tables have been defined as "weighted combinations of performance indicator scores where the total is used to rank institutions such as schools, universities and hospitals." While publishers of league tables say that their main purpose is to inform students and prospective students, particularly those abroad with limited access to…

This paper explores the following questions: (1) What do those who appoint V-Cs (Vice-Chancellors) look for? (2) What is the empirical evidence regarding whom they choose? (3) What do V-Cs say one needs to do as a V-C and what do they actually do? and (4) What are the fundamental tasks now facing V-Cs as leaders? In answering these questions, the…

Although the world is changing, quality management remains an area of relative calm. Many institutions continue to use elaborated versions of a model that is developed by the Council of Academic Awards and conceived at a time when higher education was not so exposed to market forces, when the policy and regulatory environment was relatively…

This paper is the second part of an edited version of a Keynote Presentation delivered at the 2006 AUA Annual Conference at Queen's University Belfast on 11 April. The first part was published in perspectives 10.3 in July 2006. In the Presentation Sir David commented on three areas of unfinished business with which New Labour has struggled; in the…

The advances in Information Technology (IT) are resulting in greater uncertainty in business and in education not only in the development of a physical infrastructure but in the way people work and communicate. With this, it is proposed that the IT Coordinator in education is in a unique position to facilitate a more informed implementation and…

Implementation of IT "solutions" in the context of changes to business processes and efficiency is a common trigger for using formalised project management techniques. The trigger may include topical activities such as job evaluation schemes or quality assurance accreditation. This has led to a blurring of the boundary between projects and…

In this article, the author explores the experiences of teaching staff on the conflicts and contradictions of working in a mass higher education system in the UK. The author conducted an in-depth interview with members of staff working in the area of the social sciences at different universities in the UK. She focuses on how her interview…

The British White Paper "Education and Skills: the Future of Higher Education" (2003) proposes overhauling the way the UK funds its higher education systems. (From a formal and legal point of view, following the creation of separate Parliaments for Wales and Scotland in 1996 with responsibility amongst other areas for higher education, the UK now…

This is one American's account of the British "fear and loathing" of tuition fees. It comes from the perspective of one who has been examining international comparative higher education finance for some twenty years. In this article, the author discusses the recent policies and debates in the UK about higher education finance and presents some…