#notallproviders, right? But concerns over problematic practices in franchised provision of higher education have been expressed this year from the National Audit Office, the Commons Public Accounts Committee, and as a result, the Office for Students. These point to a system that is vulnerable to exploitation by bad actors at the extremes, and even in the ostensibly legitimate end, realising generous profits from exactly the same unit of resource that universities argue no longer comes close to meeting the real costs of teaching. We’ll break down exactly what is going on, and what can be done about it.

Every policy agenda for higher education seems to demand a “whole-institution approach” to solving it, but what does that actually look like? Liz Thomas has been researching a whole institution approach to access and participation and will explore what lessons can be learned for other hitherto siloed and orphaned institutional agendas.

Jonathan Grant hosts an expert discussion testing received wisdom on all the sacred cows of research: peer review, full economic costing, bureaucracy, and innovation infrastructure

The hype is easing and we’re learning a bit more about how students and university staff might use AI-assisted technology as part of legitimate learning and teaching activity. Preparing students for the reality of a world that is AI-infused and more likely to be automated, but still fundamentally requiring human intelligence requires understanding what AI makes possible in learning, where the risks are, and how can they best be navigated. How does the availability of AI tools reshape our sense of what learning is and what sort of productive activities contribute to it?

The UPP Foundation has recently published a collection of essays in memory of former Sheffield Hallam University chair and public servant Bob Kerslake. UPP Foundation executive chair Richard Brabner will be joined by contributors to the collection to assess Bob’s legacy and new ideas from the essays.