srhe

The Society for Research into Higher Education

Monthly Archives: February 2022


by Leave a comment

“Levelling Up the United Kingdom”: Examiner’s report

By Paul Temple

This thesis deals with a topic – the large variations in economic and social conditions across the UK – that is of great interest both to policy-makers and to researchers. Although the present submission unfortunately falls some way short of the standard required for doctoral research, in terms of content, analysis, and presentation, I hope the author can be encouraged to pursue his work to produce a thesis that will do justice to the significance of the topic.

The first difficulty with this thesis is its lack of a clear research question. I think that the author has mistaken the collection of data of a vaguely relevant kind (12 tables and 80 diagrams of various sorts) for research which properly informs the topic under review. The author also makes the basic error of presenting data without showing its relevance: telling us, for example, that Jericho was the largest city in 7000 BC might be relevant if the topic was to do with ancient civilisations, but it verges on the bizarre when the topic is modern Britain. The purpose of the un-captioned pictures of apparently random urban scenes is unclear.

The central research question that might be inferred appears to be something about getting the various intangible “capitals” – human, social, institutional, and so on (as well as the tangible ones) – that social scientists have been developing for nearly half a century to work together more effectively. One of the important policy implications that the thesis then identifies is that achieving this integration requires some serious devolution of power: it notes that levelling-up “requires a further devolution of decision-making powers to local leaders where decisions are often best taken” (Foreword); and that “levelling up will only be successful if local actors are empowered to develop solutions that work for their communities” (133) – and much more in the same vein.

The thesis shows all too clearly, however, that centralised decision-making is so embedded in government thinking that the resulting policy contradictions which are reported on here are seemingly invisible to the author – at least, he does not comment on them. So although the planning of schools is a fundamental task devolved downwards in nearly all countries, here we read that “The UK Government will drive further school improvement in England through 55 new Education Investment Areas (EIAs )in places where educational attainment is currently weakest. The Department for Education (DfE) will support strong multi-academy trusts to expand into these areas” (xxii). In other words, micro-level educational change is still to be controlled centrally, despite the fine words about local devolution of powers. There are many other examples of central decision-making supposedly supporting local initiative when actually it will undermine it. It appears also that simply relocating central government functions from London is regarded as devolution: for example, “taking decision-making closer to the communities the Government serves, including…[moving part of, presumably,] the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to East Kilbride” (xiii). Quite how the people of East Kilbride might influence international policy is not made plain, nor why their voices should be heard in preference to those of other UK citizens. This kind of unreflective thinking undermines the claims of the thesis.

The academic study of social capital has struggled with the problems of direction of causation and circularity: in other words, are better health outcomes (for example) caused by higher levels of social capital, or do we identify levels of social capital by reference to health outcomes? This difficulty is not mentioned in the thesis: so although we are told that “Smoking rates in England range from 8% in Richmond upon Thames to 23% in Blackpool” (63), it is not clear if the implication is that reducing smoking in Blackpool will cause it to become more like Richmond in other respects; or whether making Blackpool more like Richmond, perhaps economically, will reduce the level of smoking there. Clearly, the policy implications will be different depending on which alternative is favoured; but we are not told which way round the causation works.

The role of higher education in levelling-up is mentioned only in passing, and the institutional significance of universities in their cities – as employers, as forces for internationalisation, and as contributors to the cultural lives of their cities – is not discussed at all. Graduate mobility is examined (90), but the implications of these movements are not explained. The significance of “the Cambridge phenomenon”, and the possibilities of replicating it, are not discussed.

The thesis presents a large number of maps and diagrams showing the concentration of high-value-added economic activities in London and the south-east. What is nowhere mentioned is what has been a truism of economic geography for over half-a-century, namely that the strength of this region derives in substantial part from its proximity to the European economic heartland of north-western Germany, the Low Countries, and the Paris region. The proverbial visitor from Mars, on reading this thesis, might be excused for assuming that Kent looks out on an empty ocean. This obvious omission is hard to explain, and further weakens the argument of the thesis.

Examiner’s decision: resubmit within twelve months, with major amendments.

Dr Paul Temple is Honorary Associate Professor in the Centre for Higher Education Studies, UCL Institute of Education.


by 1 Comment

What makes a good SRHE Conference abstract? (some thoughts from a reviewer)

by Richard Davies

Dr Richard Davies, co-convenor of SRHE’s Academic Practice network, ran a network event on 26 January 2022 ‘What makes a good SRHE Conference abstract?’. A regular reviewer for the SRHE Conference, Richard also asked colleagues what they look for in a good paper for the conference and shared the findings in a well-attended event.

Writing a submission for a conference is a skill – distinct from writing for journals or public engagement. It is perhaps most like an erudite blog. In the case of the SRHE conference, you have 750 words to show the reviewer that your proposed presentation is (a) worth conference delegates’ attention, and (b) a better fit for this conference than others (we get more submissions than the conference programme can accommodate so it is a bit competitive!).

Think of it as a short paper, not an abstract

It is difficult to summarise a 5-6000 word paper in 750 words and cover literature, methodology, data and findings. As a reviewer, I often find myself unsatisfied with the result. It is better to think of this as a short paper, that you can present in 15 minutes at the conference. This means focussing on a specific element of your study which can be communicated in 750 words and following the argument of that focus through precise methodology, a portion of your data, and final conclusions. Sure, tell the reviewers this is part of a large study, but you are focusing on a specific element of it. The short paper will then, if well written, be clear and internally coherent. If I find a submission is neither clear nor coherent, then I would usually suggest rejecting because if I cannot make sense of it then I will assume delegates will not be able to as well.

Practical point: get a friend or colleague to read the short paper – do they understand what you are saying? They don’t have to be an expert in higher education or even research. As reviewers, most of us regularly read non-UK English texts, as an international society we are not expecting standard English – just clarity to understand the points the author is making. Whether UK-based or international, we are not experts in different countries’ higher education systems and so do not assume the reviewer’s prior knowledge of the higher education system you are discussing

Reviewer’s judgement

Although we work to a set of criteria, as with most academic work, there is an element of judgement, and reviewers take a view of your submission as a whole. We want to know: will this be of interest to SRHE conference delegates? Will it raise questions and stimulate discussion? In my own area of philosophy of education, a submission might be philosophically important but not explicitly about higher education; as a result I would tend to suggest it be rejected. It might be suitable for a conference but not this conference.

Practical point: check you are explicitly talking about higher education and how your paper addresses an interesting area of research or practice. Make sure the link is clear – don’t just assume the reviewers will make the connection. Even if we can, we will be wary of suggesting acceptance.

Checking against the criteria

The ‘Call for Papers’ sets out the assessment criteria against which we review submissions. As a reviewer, I read the paper and form a broad opinion, I then review with a focus on each specific criterion. Each submission is different and will meet each criterion (or not) in a different way and to varying degrees. As a reviewer, I interpret the criterion in the light of the purpose and methodology of the submission. As well as clarity and suitability for the conference, I also think about the rigour with which it has been written. This includes engagement with relevant literature, the methodology/methods and the quality of the way the data (if any) are used. I want to know that this paper builds on previous work but adds some original perspective and contribution. I want to know that the study has been conducted methodically and that the author has deliberated about it. Where there are no data, either because it is not an empirical study or the paper reports the initial phases of what will be an empirical study, I want to know that the author’s argument is reasonable and illuminates significant issues in higher education.

Practical point: reviewers use the criteria to assess and ‘score’ submissions. It is worth going through the criteria and making sure that you are sure that it is clear how you have addressed each one. If you haven’t got data yet, then say so and say why you think the work is worth presenting at this early stage.

Positive news

SRHE welcomes submissions from all areas of research and evaluation in higher education, not just those with lots of data! Each submission is reviewed by two people and then moderated, and further reviewed, if necessary, by network convenors – so you are not dependent on one reviewer’s assessment. Reviewers aim to be constructive in their feedback and to uphold the high standard of presentations we see at the conference, highlighting areas of potential improvement for both accepted and rejected submissions.

Finally, the SRHE conference does receive more submissions than can be accepted, and so some good papers don’t make it. Getting rejected is not a rejection of your study (or you); sometimes it is about clarity of the submission, and sometimes it is just lack of space at the conference.

Dr Richard Davies is an academic, educationalist and informal educator. He is primarily concerned with helping other academics develop their research on teaching and learning in higher education. His own research is primarily in philosophical approaches to higher educational policy and practice. He co-convenes SRHE’s AP (Academic Practice) Network – you can find out more about the network by clicking here.


by Leave a comment

Professor Sir Robert ‘Bob’ Burgess, 1947 – 2022

Professor Sir Robert Burgess in front of the David Wilson Library, University of Leicester

SRHE Elected Trustee 1999 – 2012
SRHE Honorary Secretary 2004-2008
SRHE Vice President 2008-2013
SRHE President, 2013-2017

The Society for Research into Higher Education is deeply saddened to report the passing of Professor Sir Robert Burgess, always most affectionately known as Bob. During his tenure as Vice Chancellor at the University of Leicester he was also coined ‘Bob the Builder.’ This derived from his commitment to improving facilities at the university, overseeing many new buildings and campus developments.

Bob was an active and engaged President for the Society, meeting often with the Chair of the Society Professor Jill Jameson (University of Greenwich) and myself as Director of SRHE during his tenure, to discuss strategy and current issues and bringing his deep knowledge of higher education and of the Society to bear in his advice and guidance. Bob was a supportive and willing facilitator of others’ work on higher education topics, and his own writing on aspects of social science qualitative research methods, particularly case study, have been widely cited by higher education researchers.

It was a very special pleasure to have Bob preside over the Society’s 50th Anniversary Colloquium, held in June 2015 to mark 50 years from the founding of the Society. It was an occasion to celebrate in every sense, when the Society staged the Anniversary Colloquium at Church House in Westminster on 26 June 2015, 50 years almost to the day on which the society was formally created by a Memorandum of Association on 31 December 1965. The Colloquium then adjourned to a Reception at the nearby House of Lords, hosted by SRHE Vice-President, Baroness Sharp of Guildford and SRHE President Professor Sir Robert Burgess.

It is very sad indeed to lose a great friend, colleague, and supporter of the Society much too soon and our hearts and condolences go out to his wife, Hilary, and to his colleagues at Leicester.     

Helen Perkins, SRHE Director helen.perkins@srhe.ac.uk  

We will share a remembrance message about Bob in the April issue of SRHE News. You are warmly invited to e-mail the editor of SRHE News and the SRHE Blog, Rob Cuthbert (rob.cuthbert@uwe.ac.uk) with your thoughts and memories of Bob, or to share these in the comments below this blog post.


by Leave a comment

Beware efficiencies! Assetisation as the future defraying of costs savings in the present

by Kean Birch

This blog is based on a presentation to the 2021 SRHE Research Conference, as part of a Symposium on Universities and Unicorns: Building Digital Assets in the Higher Education Industry organised by the project’s principal investigator, Janja Komljenovic (Lancaster). The support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is gratefully acknowledged. The project introduces new ways to think about and examine the digitalising of the higher education sector. It investigates new forms of value creation and suggests that value in the sector increasingly lies in the creation of digital assets.

What makes learning more efficient? And what makes teaching more effective? According to EdTech providers and their champions, it is the digital transformation of higher education. The consulting company Gartner – which releases regular EdTech industry reports – defines this transformation as a shift from a ‘collectively-defined’ quality model in which universities provide their services – theoretically – to anyone, to a model in which quality is personally defined and delivered at scale through MOOCs or other means. In fact, Gartner emphasize the importance of EdTech providing scalable technologies for ensuring ‘cost effective education for the benefit of society’. And this seems to be the concern of many EdTech firms themselves; they aim to provide technologies that make life and work more efficient and effective for higher education institutions, managers, faculty, students, and staff.

But what does this actually mean?

I am part of a project, led by Dr Janja Komljenovic, looking at how value is increasingly being created in the higher education sector through the transformation of ‘things’ into digital and other assets – it could be students’ data, it could be research, it could be lectures, and so on. Part of our concern about these changes is the way they can end up reconfiguring societal, public, or commonly held resources as private assets from which companies can exact an economic rent. An important reason for examining this assetisation process is to analyse exactly how things are turned into private assets as a way to open them up to public scrutiny, and political intervention, should we so desire. While assets are constituted by legal forms, like property rights, and technical changes, like digital rights management, they are also the result of broader narratives about how we should or should not understand the world. Epistemic justifications matter. The World Economic Forum highlights what I mean here. They support the deployment of education technology as a way to “create better systems and data flows”. And this means more efficient and effective learning and teaching. But, what does efficiency and effectiveness mean in the case of higher education?

As we have interviewed EdTech providers in our project, we have noticed how they emphasize ‘efficiency’ as one of the key contributions of their technology, where this seems to be equated with producing an outcome at lower cost, whereas this is understood – in common sense terms – as doing something ‘better’ than before. It is important to see how the concept of efficiency is enrolled in the transformation of higher education into a range of assets. Assetisation in higher education depends on the development and promotion of a set of analytics that can identify efficiencies, understood as cost savings that someone or some institution can benefit from. Key to this assetisation process is the characterisation of efficiency as a common-sense goal for universities, managers, faculty, students, staff, and governments; in fact, efficiency can appear to be the very thing that education technologies are turning into an asset. For example, making it cheaper for students to study by enabling them to rent their textbooks, rather than have to buy them. Or making it cheaper for universities to pay subscription only for those electronic texts – or even parts of those texts – that are actually read and used by their staff and students. But this raises an important question: how do EdTech companies make money, if they are simply reducing costs all around?

EdTech companies look to the future for their success. Assets are temporal entities, entailing the creation of a stream of future revenues that can be capitalised in the present, thereby enabling investors to put a value to them that does not depend on being profitable now, or even generate significant revenues now. Efficiencies in the present often end up as defrayed costs in the future as those cost savings today compound into increased revenues for someone (eg EdTech) in the future. The future revenue expectations of EdTech companies come from the illusion of efficiency as cost savings at this point in time; for example, students can save on textbooks now but will be induced to subscribe to lifelong learning resources, or their personal data might be exploited in the future in multiple ways, or their reading habits will be used to sell something to universities, or any manner of revenue generating schemes. Someone is paying in the future.

EdTech companies have to make money somehow, and how they make money is the interesting question. Ideas about the current and future state of higher education and EdTech matter as they provide imaginaries of what is possible and desirable, which we discuss in this report. Claims to efficiency are part of how they make money; they are part of the way that EdTech companies construct new asset classes out of universities and their students, faculty, and staff. Interrogating how these supposed efficiencies are monetised is critical for getting a grip on the implications of EdTech for higher education in the longer term. It is essential we analyse this dynamic now to allow for timely public scrutiny, democratic debate and social intervention.

Kean Birch is Associate Professor at York University, Canada. He is particularly interested in understanding technoscientific capitalism and draws on a range of perspectives from science & technology studies, economic geography, and economic sociology to study it. More specifically, his research focuses on the restructuring and transformation of the economy & financial knowledges, technoscience & technoscientific innovation, and the relationship between markets & natural environments. Currently, he is researching how different things (e.g. knowledge, personality, loyalty, etc.) are turned into ‘assets’ & how economic rents are then captured from those assets – basically, in processes of assetisation and rentiership.


by 1 Comment

New higher education institutions: a real chance to innovate?

by Katherine Emms

Since the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act, England has seen a surge of new higher education institutions adding to the traditional higher education  landscape. The Act made a number of major changes to the sector, one of which was the introduction of the Office for Students (OfS), which was given responsibility to grant degree-awarding powers to providers and the right to use ‘university’ in their title. The Act was intended to make it easier for more providers to enter the market, and in the words of the 2018 Universities Minister, Sam Gyimah, it was “designed to facilitate innovation, avoiding overly-prescriptive, process-focussed approaches that might place limitations on creativity”. The invitation was welcomed by a number of providers and now, a few short years later, some are already taking in their first cohorts of students. But are these institutions truly offering something different to students, facilitating innovation and diversification in a crowded marketplace, or just replicating existing models?

At The Edge Foundation we wanted to investigate the early experiences of these new higher education institutions (HEIs) and understand what their guiding principles and reasons for setting up were, as well as how they were interpreting their visions and putting these into practice. We have conducted a number of semi-structured interviews with founders and staff across several new HEIs, with more dialogue to follow as these institutions move through their early stages of operation.

Employability is increasingly seen as a responsibility of HE, not just as a separate task of the careers services but one which should be an integrated element within academic learning (Crammer, 2006). New HEIs have highlighted the gap between existing provision and employers’ needs, and see their offering as a way to address this issue, claiming that their innovative approaches could better support the employability of students. One way this has been tackled is through strong collaboration with employers from the outset of designing the course and its content. Some new HEIs emphasised the importance of a ‘backwards design’ which is demand (employer)-led rather than supply (academic)-led. Having industry experts involved in skills gap workshops and continuously having employer representatives as part of the validation process were some of the ways that supported this.

Most of the new HEIs we spoke to focus on broadness of provision in a number of senses. First and foremost, they set aside traditional subject silos and instead are looking to offer interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary degrees, or offer a broader notion to a single subject area (e.g. bringing the social science aspect into engineering). The arguments put forward were that complex world problems are not fixed within a single discipline and require a broad knowledge and skill set that spans disciplines in order to be solved. One way to support this broad provision is through staff recruitment at the new HEIs; staff are recruited partly from industry, partly from the world of academia, but ultimately having the right attitude and a team working ethos to work collaboratively across disciplines are considered key.

The broadness theme also plays out in terms of the development of the student. Looking beyond academic and knowledge-based learning, the development of the whole student is seen as core to their provision. All aspects are important – from ensuring the development of transferable skills that are integrated into the curriculum, to ensuring students take part in meaningful placements and have employer interactions to develop the ‘professional’ skills they need after graduation.

Another way these new HEIs are pushing back against traditional modes of delivery is through their focus on team work, and problem-based learning or project-based learning. Almost all our participants emphasised that their HEI has no lectures, instead focussing on students working together on authentic real-world issues often set by an external client, making them relevant to industry. Alongside this, exams are not the main form of assessment, instead a range of more ‘authentic’ methods were discussed including reflective portfolios, podcasts, blogs, and pitches to businesses.

These new HEIs vary across their stage of development, their size, mission, and delivery, although some common factors have been set out above. One thing that all the new HEIs have had to navigate was the registration and policy landscape. Some of these were partnering with or being ‘parented’ by an established university to go through the process and some were going at it alone. This brought differing issues and seemed to influence the degree of innovation they could deliver. To some extent working within the parameters of another university can stifle the innovation by having to fit their delivery into traditional and established ways. On the other hand, these established universities have the advantage of bringing credibility to the new HEIs, which can be beneficial both in terms of the registration process and the attractiveness to new students.

Ultimately these HEIs are new and are yet to see a full cohort of students graduate, therefore we have limited markers of success so far on which to evaluate them. Likewise it is difficult to see how innovative these providers are, as one stakeholder remarked: “innovative might be a great idea, but until it’s tested is much harder to understand whether it really is innovative”.Edge will continue with our research over the next year and beyond to understand more about the experiences of these new HEIs and their students.

Katherine Emms is a Senior Education & Policy Researcher at the Edge Foundation. Her main areas of research are in higher education, vocational education, skills shortages in the economy and employability skills. Current and published research can be seen here: https://www.edge.co.uk/research/research-team/kat-emms/. Twitter @kat_emms


by Leave a comment

Mapping financial investment flows in digital higher education: a focus on data-rich operations

by Janja Komljenovic

This blog is based on a presentation to the 2021 SRHE Research Conference, as part of a Symposium on Universities and Unicorns: Building Digital Assets in the Higher Education Industry organised by the project’s principal investigator, Janja Komljenovic (Lancaster). The support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is gratefully acknowledged. The project introduces new ways to think about and examine the digitalising of the higher education sector. It investigates new forms of value creation and suggests that value in the sector increasingly lies in the creation of digital assets.

Universities worldwide are increasingly interested in digital technologies and how they can support higher education. A recent study by the European University Association found that most European universities are already using or planning to use data-rich products and services, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, learning analytics, big data, and the internet of things (see Figure 18 on page 36). Indeed, it is precisely these data-rich operations that are central to the idea of the disruptive potential of education technology (edtech), as argued by my colleague, Javier Mármol Queraltó, in the recent UU project report. The discourse of investors and edtech companies promises thoroughly improved higher education based on personalisation, automation and efficiency. But how deliverable are these promises? Who innovates in the space of data-rich operations, for which services and for which users? Who profits? These are some of the questions we address in the Universities and Unicorns project, which aims to understand forms of value and ways of creating it in digital higher education. In this blog post, I will address three possible trends that can be identified from the interim findings of our quantitative analysis. But before proceeding to discuss these trends, I will contextualise our analysis.

We used Crunchbase to build three databases covering 2,012 edtech companies, 1,120 investors in edtech, and 1,962 edtech investment deals. We identified those relevant to the higher education sector, and our data reflects the state of the sector as of July 2021. Based on this analysis, we identified four key service models in the higher education edtech industry. First, the business to business (B2B) model includes digital platforms serving universities and companies, such as virtual learning environments. Second, the business to customer (B2C) model includes platforms targeting individuals directly. Third, the business to business to customer (B2B2C) model serves institutions that use or further develop the platform to reach individuals, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) or Online Programme Management platforms (OPM). Finally, the business to the customer to customer (B2C2C) model includes platforms that connect individuals, such as skills and knowledge sharing platforms. B2B2C and B2C2C platforms, in particular, act as the kind of infrastructural intermediaries that are so popular in other sectors of our social and economic lives.

Our analysis found that half of all investment went into B2B platforms, followed by investment into B2C, while B2C2C and B2B2C together received just under a quarter of all investment. However, platforms with the fastest pace of increasing investment are those targeting individuals directly or through intermediation, ie B2C and B2C2C models. This might indicate emerging parallel or alternative higher education products and services that compete with traditional university provision, especially in the context of lifelong learning.

Digital platforms that say they incorporate data-rich operations in their products and services are not the priority area for investors. While we noticed an increasing investment in data-rich platforms, it was still only less than a quarter of all investment going into innovating such products. Nevertheless, we identified three possible trends that are especially worthy of our attention: (1) data-rich operations are being innovated largely in B2B platforms; (2) there is notable unevenness in terms of the location of edtech companies and investments in those platforms who innovate in data-rich operations; and (3) there might be potential for monopolies in data-rich innovation. Let’s delve into each of these possible trends.

Almost all investment in the companies developing data-rich operations in their platforms went to the B2B service model. Looking only at higher education institutions as the target customer, already half of the investment supports data-rich innovation. Most of that went into platforms that act as the institutional digital backbone, indicating that the intention might be to support all institutional functions beyond teaching with data-rich operations, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and various kinds of analytics beyond learning analytics. There seems to be a trend towards data-rich digital ecosystems at universities that harvest all user and other data in the near future.

There is high unevenness in where the investment in data-rich platforms is allocated. Regarding the number of companies, 239 in our database declare that they offer data-rich operations on their platforms. Almost half of those (101) are based in the USA, 21 in the UK and 19 in India. Companies based in Africa are entirely missing from the list. In terms of investment amounts, 88% of all investment in companies offering data-rich services in their platforms went into companies based in the USA, 3% each to those based in Norway and the UK, and 6% to the rest of the world. The discrepancy between the number of companies and investment size indicates that investment amounts are higher in the USA than elsewhere in the world.

Finally, if we compare different indicators of investment in companies that innovate data-rich solutions for higher education institutions, we notice interesting dynamics. Looking at the money raised, half of B2B investment went into those companies with a platform that included data-rich operations. But this is only 30% of deals and 25% of companies. This indicates that the concentration of investment in data-rich operation platforms for higher education institutions goes into a smaller number of companies who get higher investments. We wonder if this signals potential for monopolies in the future. Moreover, if we compare granted patents, we notice that a higher percentage of companies offering data-rich solution platforms own patents (30%) versus those offering other kinds of service or product platforms (10%). Digital platforms are typically still protected by a licence, but that differs from a more restrictive patent protection. We wonder if such discrepancy in patent share might indicate black-boxing of data-rich operations in higher education?

Our research on digitalising higher education is showing the complex impact of digital technology and datafication on the sector. This impact includes potential positive and supportive measures, but also many potentially worrying trends. However, further research is needed into these trends and the role of different actors, particularly financial investors and edtech companies. Please follow our project in which we will share the findings from this further work as it unfolds.

Janja Komljenovic is a Senior Lecturer and co-Director of the Higher Education Research and Evaluation at Lancaster University in the UK. She is also a Research Management Committee member of the Global Centre for Higher Education with headquarters at the University of Oxford. Janja’s research focuses on the political economy of knowledge production and higher education markets. She is especially interested in the relationship between the digital economy and the higher education sector; and in digitalisation, datafication and platformisation of knowledge production and dissemination. Janja is published internationally on higher education policy, markets and education technology.


by Leave a comment

Pathways to inclusivity and diversity: building communities for women in science

by Jennifer Leigh and the Board of WISC

Talking about the gender imbalance in STEM is not new. Patricia Fara wrote a book on the history of women’s participation in science and explained clearly that women have always been interested in science – the fact is they have not always been given the opportunities to be scientists.

These days we can look at the lack of diversity in science and see that as well as barriers for women and other marginalised genders, there are barriers for anyone who does not fit the mythical stereotype of what a scientist might be. This might be because they are Black, or because they are disabled, or from a minority ethnic group, because of their sexuality, religion, or because they are the first in their family to enter higher education. Kimberlé Crenshaw described the way that these barriers accumulate and multiply as intersectional.

There has been a plethora of programmes designed to increase numbers of women in science, from the ADVANCE programme in the USA to the Athena Swan Charter used in the UK and globally. But there is still underrepresentation of women. Leading scientists such as Professor Rita Colwell, and advocates for women in science like Professor Sue Rosser, would say that in fact progress towards gender equity has stagnated. So, what can we do?

The approach taken by the International Women in Supramolecular Chemistry (WISC) network was to do things differently in order to effect immediate change. WISC was launched in November 2019 by Dr Jennifer Hiscock and colleagues after they realised the invaluable support they gained from an informal peer-support network. Chemistry has particular issues around the retention and progression of women. Whilst outreach has been successful, with women making up around 50% of all undergraduates choosing to study chemistry, less than 9% are full professors. This is a similar proportion to Physics, where fewer than 25% of A level students are girls. Rather than do yet more research that quantifies the numbers that make up the problem, WISC decided to use a novel area-specific approach that embedded qualitative and creative research methods more commonly associated with social sciences and arts. Rather than working on scientists, WISC chose to work with them, to gain understanding of the lived experiences of women who chose to stay in science.

The barriers to retention and progression that face women in chemistry are not new. Senior women and those who have left science have spoken up about dealing with sexual harassment, misogyny, and microaggressions. About balancing the chance to have a family with a career that places pressure on individuals in their late 20s to late 30s to travel, work excessively long hours, and be hyper-productive. They have spoken about the ‘old boys network’ in science where men use their positions of power and influence to help others, and the threat of losing their job or having to leave the field if they were to complain. In this last, science is probably no different from other parts of academia.

What WISC has done is to create a means by which women in the field now have been supported to share their stories with each other, to build a sense of community, kinship and mutual support through using creative and reflective means such as collaborative autoethnography. Then, together with data from qualitative surveys with a wider body of members, and ongoing reflective work with international research groups, they used narrative fiction to create a series of vignettes drawing from the research data. These vignettes allowed WISC to share the lived experiences and embodied responses of women in chemistry with a wide audience, whilst protecting all the participants from the dangers of being seen to complain or whistleblow. They collected these vignettes together in a forthcoming book from Policy Press. Dave Leigh FRS, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Manchester, wrote in the foreword to the book:

“Over my career I have seen many things change for the better in academia: Recruitment and promotion committees take genuine steps to avoid conscious and unconscious bias; schemes have been introduced that target women and other disadvantaged groups for independent positions; the increase in the number of women in chemistry departments has drastically changed the ‘macho’ culture that was prevalent 25 years ago. But the text and vignettes in this book, the latter composed from real experiences of women in supramolecular chemistry, paint a vivid, troubling picture that shows just why further significant change is still needed. The playing field is still not level. Whether that’s the fault of society, academia or supramolecular chemistry itself, I don’t know. But I suspect it’s all three. In reading this the most uncomfortable part of all was the persistent wondering if and how my own behaviour contributes to the inequality and experiences I was reading about. What do I do, or not do, that makes academia less fair on my women colleagues? And my questioning of that is, perhaps, the best reason of all for this book.”

WISC have created a means by which their members and participants can share their own experiences, and then utilise these safely to raise awareness of the challenges and barriers they face as they choose to stay in science. Their aim is not only to connect with women and other marginalised groups, but to use fiction to reach out to men as well, and from there to make change.

SRHE member Jennifer Leigh is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice at the University of Kent. She is Vice Chair of Research in WISC, Co-Lead of the NADSN STEMM Action Group, and sits on the SRHE R&D committee. At Kent she is a Co-Chair of the Disabled Staff Network, Co-Chair of the Visual and Sensory Research Cluster, runs the Summer Vacation Research Competition, and is on the Thriving@Work Working Group. Her books include Ableism in Academia, Embodied Inquiry: Research methods, Conversations on Embodiment and the forthcoming Women in Supramolecular Chemistry: Collectively crafting the rhythms of our work and lives in STEM. See also recent article in ScienceDirect Managing research throughout COVID-19: Lived experiences of supramolecular chemists


by 1 Comment

How should early-career researchers learn about academic writing and publishing?

by Melina Aarnikoivu

In August 2019, a group of 25 early-career higher education scholars convened in a seminar room in Kassel, Germany, to talk about academic writing for an entire afternoon. We were there to help each other write better, and become comfortable with the fact that “everybody struggles with writing, everybody gets rejected”. That quote was just one of the insights that senior higher education scholars had offered us, the organisers, prior to the event via email. In total, we had received 38 responses where senior higher education journal editors and reviewers from all around the world shared their views on what makes a good, publishable article.

What I didn’t know at the time was that this writing workshop would be my last in-person academic event for the next two years. What the event and those 38 responses offered me, however, was a direction for my future research and teaching. And the question I’ve been asking ever since is: how can early-career researchers learn to write good journal articles when even senior scholars — the gatekeepers of academic writing and publishing — don’t agree on what makes a good journal article or how it comes to be?

Rules of academic writing and publishing – are there any?

In my recent SRHE conference talk, titled Rules of writing and publishing in higher education research: are there any?, I presented the preliminary results of a study that I’ve been working on since the Kassel writing workshop. In the study I explore what kind of advice senior higher education scholars provide for early-career researchers regarding academic writing and publishing, and whether these pieces of advice agree with each other. By asking these questions, my aim is to make the ‘publishing gates’ of higher education research more transparent and accessible, so that early-career researchers who want to publish in higher education research journals would not have to submit their first articles with only a “hope-for-the-best-but-be-prepared-for-the-worst” mentality.

Going through the data, however, has been quite eye-opening, as everyone seems to have their own – often very differing – views on how to write articles, what should be in them, or how to choose one’s research topics in the first place. For example, while one scholar seems to think we have to choose our journal before we have written a single word on paper, another one encourages us to first write the paper, then choose the journal. While one scholar cares a great deal about language and style, another claims they do not care about the language at all. Or, while one senior researcher says we should give up if a manuscript is rejected, others encourage us to keep trying as long as the paper is published.

While there are probably no right answers to any of these issues, the conflicting advice might seem incredibly perplexing to those who are about to publish their first papers. What an early-career researcher might ask as a result is: does the fate of my future article depend on luck — on whose desk it ends up landing? What kind of writing and research does that individual scholar in particular appreciate — or not?

There also seem to be some things that senior scholars mostly agree on, such as the well-thought-out focus of the manuscript. However, that is also a highly subjective issue: how many research questions is enough for this particular paper? What if the paper aims to do too much after all? Or, by contrast, what if the paper ends up looking like salami-slicing?

Accept the lack of rules, talk about writing, question your assumptions

What I find even more worrying than the conflicting or ambiguous advice of different individuals, however, is that many early-career researchers might not even be aware that advice is available and should be treated as no more than that. Instead, they treat their supervisors, journal editors, or peer reviewers’ pieces of advice as ‘the ultimate truth’.

What can we do, then?

Accept the lack of rules: Supervisors, mentors, and teachers should be frank with their supervisees, mentees, and students that there is no universal rulebook for ‘good academic writing’. They should acknowledge that there are differences between languages, disciplines, and individuals. What works in my Finnish academic writing, for example, might not work in English. While I appreciate my student trying out something different in their essay, the teacher next door might not be so understanding.

Talk about writing: To improve as writers and researchers, the more we talk about writing with other researchers, the better. Especially early-career researchers should be provided as many opportunities to talk about and share their texts with their colleagues and peers as possible. Moreover, they should be able to do so in a supportive and inspiring environment. In this way, they can become comfortable with others reading their work, even if it is not polished yet.

Question your assumptions: Every now and then, it would be good for any academic to stop for a moment and think how academic writing was taught to them and by whom, and how that affected their views on what ‘good writing’ entails. Would there be more room to break or bend the rules, if we had such rules in our mental academic writing toolbox? Do we welcome a constant challenge to the conventions of academic writing, or are we allergic to any kind of ‘rebelliousness’ in academic articles? Why?

Academic writing is often frustrating because it is difficult. There are no quick fixes to suddenly become an amazing academic writer and to get your papers published without hard work. While it is always beneficial to seek pieces of advice on good writing and publishing, it is equally important to remember not to take them at face value.

But that is just my advice.

Melina Aarnikoivu is a postdoctoral researcher at the Higher Education Studies Team (HIEST) at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research. She has recently received a one-year research grant from the Wihuri foundation to study academic writing practices and writing support of early-career researchers in Finland. Between 2020 and 2021, she taught academic writing at an undergraduate level.