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Monthly Archives: November 2024


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What’s love got to do with neurodiversity and HE art and design?

by Kai Syng Tan

A loveless storm and a love-filled symposium

On 18 November I was ill. I recovered in time to travel to Helsinki for a symposium two days later, but winter storms shut down the airport, delayed flights and lost luggage, including mine. The symposium director Dr Timothy Smith (image 2 below, to the left) had to step in to act as my wardrobe assistant. Like many neurodivergent academics, Tim works across an astonishing range of knowledges, including political science, fine art, public policy and pedagogy. But I’m quite certain that sourcing for clothes to fit 155cm grumpy people isn’t part of their typical repertoire.  

A symposium with person standing to the left holding a microphone; another in the middle, seated, in front of a projection with book cover and QR codes and next to a screen showing live captioning; more people in the foreground on different forms of seating and being
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Image 3: Fidget toys placed on top of a paper file that reads ‘UNIARTS HELSINKI’, with a name tag with a lime green strap and name ‘KAI’. 
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Image 2: A symposium with person standing to the left holding a microphone; another in the middle, seated, in front of a projection with book cover and QR codes and next to a screen showing live captioning; more people in the foreground on different forms of seating and being

Image 3: Fidget toys placed on top of a paper file that reads ‘UNIARTS HELSINKI’, with a name tag with a lime green strap and name ‘KAI’. 

Tim’s Neurodiversity in the Arts Symposium, which took two years of advocacy and planning, and draws on several more of research across neurodiversity and art education, took place at the University of the Arts Helsinki, modelling best practices for inclusivity, not just for neurodivergent folx. Universities, watch and learn. Yes it can be done. So, what does a symposium led by love look like in action? Let’s spell out a few ways how:   

  • Programming not to neo-liberalist but ‘crip time’ (Kafer 2013), enabling us to process our thoughts, with 30 minute breaks between sessions, and a 2-hour lunch break;
  • Employment of live professional CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning – not the still racist AI captioning that does not grasp ‘non-standard’ accents (image 2, to the right);
  • Where divergent modes of being – including horizontally, in motion etc, not just seated or erect – are affirmed (image 2, foreground);
  • Inclusion of fidget toys in the goody bag (image 3);
  • Provision of quiet spaces – no, we’re not talking about a broom cupboard or first aid room doubling, but a (care-)fully decked out sensory rooms for group or solo use, with low lighting, different soft furnishings as well as more sensory objects for people to shut off, calm down and/or regroup (image 4);
  • Detailed maps, diagrams and instructions for ‘walking or wheeling’ to venues; including for a dinner, at a five-star hotel, which was a delicious vegan spread – and entirely free of charge;    
  • Priced at less than one-third the fee of a usual conference at €100 – and that’s for ‘participants receiving full institutional financial support’; otherwise, ‘please select the €0 fee option’;
  • Elevating and celebrating diverse body-minds-worlds whose research, creative and professional practice gather, collide and transcend disciplines, fields of knowledge, cultures, geopolitical borders, and specialisms and in the lineup. This includes shy*play, a pedagogical platform, collective, and art practice comprising teacher-researchers from Netherlands-Spain Antje Nestel and Aion Arribas, who invite us to ‘do neurodiversity’ (images 5a-5b); Estonian-UK PhD candidate Iris Sirendi discussing their Curating for Change curatorial fellowship at the Museum of Liverpool and urging – no, daring – the arts and cultural sector to step up and ‘crip the museum’ (image 6); US-Canadian-Polish feminist researcher and author of several books including Asexual Erotics Professor Ela Przybylo disclosing their new identity/positionality of being autistic, and inviting responses Towards a Neuroqueer Conference Manifesto/a/x.
Image 4: Sensory room, with low blue-green lighting, soft furnishings and soft toys
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Image 5a: shy*play’s Antje Nestel and Aion Arribas, both holding microphones and reading from papers strewn on a long table
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Image 5b: people ‘doing neurodiversity’ in different ways, including by displaying their creations on a wall that acts as a shared canvas
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Image 6: Estonian-UK PhD candidate Iris Sirendi at a long desk speaking to a projection with a slide with the heading ‘What’s Next?’ and a logo that reads ‘The Neurodiverse Museum’.
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Image 4: Sensory room, with low blue-green lighting, soft furnishings and soft toys

Image 5a: shy*play’s Antje Nestel and Aion Arribas, both holding microphones and reading from papers strewn on a long table

Image 5b: people ‘doing neurodiversity’ in different ways, including by displaying their creations on a wall that acts as a shared canvas

Image 6: Estonian-UK PhD candidate Iris Sirendi at a long desk speaking to a projection with a slide with the heading ‘What’s Next?’ and a logo that reads ‘The Neurodiverse Museum’

The above are just a few of the highlights from the in-person session on 22 November 2024, which complements an online symposium with a different programme a week prior on 15 November 2024 for those who prefer the digital interface, both of which are recorded with transcripts which all participants can freely access. 

I’m not singing the praises of the Neurodiversity in the Arts Symposium because I was the keynote speaker.

I’m saying the above as I’ve been a keynote as well as participant in more than 100 conferences – and I’m still allergic to them, not least as someone who is hyperactive and literally cannot sit still. I’m also saying this as someone who’s curated several, including one on running as an arts and humanities discourse that a 2014 Guardian article said ‘other conferences could take a leaf out of’, for its 8-minute sprint formats and multi-modal approaches including film screening, meditation sessions and run-chats.

But Tim’s conference was way better. The symposium is prioritising not just neurodivergent and queer – neuroqueer (Walker 2021) – perspectives. Following the positionality of multiply-minoritised researchers in higher education Angel L. Miles, Akemi Nishida and Anjali J. Forber-Pratt at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Vanderbilt University as expressed in their powerful open letter to White disability studies and ableist institutions of higher education (2017), the symposium focuses on research that counter ‘white supremacy and racism; colonialism and xenophobia; ageism; sexism and misogyny; cisnormativity and transphobia; and heteronormativity and heterosexism’.

And I’m sure that Tim, like me, wants other conferences to come, to even better ours. 

So, take our baton. Run with it.

Why neurodiversity? Why now?

‘Neurodiversity’ – broadly the coexistence of different ways of processing information, learning and being – has exploded as a buzzword in the past few years. If you didn’t know that 15-20% (Doyle 2020) of humans are autistic, with dyslexia, Tourettes, ADHD and other forms of neurodevelopmental processes, you will have run into the extensive media coverage, or seen your Gen-Z students or kids declaring their ‘neuro-spiciness’ on Tik Tok.

It is well-established that neurocognitive variants like dyslexia, ADHD and autism are over-represented in the arts and culture (above 30%, eg RCA 2001; Bacon and Bennett (2013); Universal Music (2020)). This is unsurprising, given how neurodiversity, innovation and change-making are powerfully entangled, being essential for human’s evolution, inventiveness, creativity and more. Networks, academic publications, research centres, educational research centres and conferences by/with/for neurodivergent creative researchers have been emerging in the last years too.

This year alone, I was external examiner for two creative PhDs by/for/with neurodivergence, and helped deliver one PhD candidate to the finish line and whom, since 28 November, can now add ‘Dr’ to their name, likely to the chagrin of those who think that only clinicians are ‘real’ doctors and experts. Collectively, these efforts are countering medicalised and deficit approaches to cognitive difference. By 2050, 1.94 billion of the 9.4 billion population will be neurodivergent – making neurodivergence far from a ‘niche’ phenomena or area of research, but one with substantive critical mass.

Those with social capital wear their difference as proud badges of honour. So far so ‘authentic’. 

But surprise, surprise – for the multiply-minoritised, their difference continues to be demonised, pathologised, infantilised, and/or policed. This includes teachers and researchers who draw on their neurodivergence in their teaching and research. That’s also why many aren’t out – or have/want access to diagnosis (which themselves have long waiting lists, are costly and more), etc, and often aren’t reflected in the official figures and studies. It’s also only recently been understood in leadership studies that when a white heterosexual cis-man expresses his ‘true self’, it’s just not acceptable, or even laudable. For those who are not straight, not white, not of the right class, or the right skin tone etc – authenticity comes at a high cost – including literally so. Being dyslexic, I struggle with normative approaches to reading and writing – but reading and writing are literally bread and butter for an academic! Disclosing that you cannot read or write would be tantamount to career-suicide, especially if you are on a fixed-term contract – if you have been able to survive the ableist, racist and sexist HE system at all, that is.    

Harvard, World Economic Forum, NESTA and other global bodies have been selling neurodivergence as the ‘next talent opportunity in the workplace’, ‘competitive advantage’ and a ‘neuroleadership’ antidote to in tackling wicked challenges for the Fourth Industrial Revolution — but without neurodivergent voices in this discussion, isn’t this objectifying and othering?

Then, there’s a certain cartoon-tycoon who has been dominating the headlines. When not firing their critics from their factories and firms, or firing rockets to colonise the moon and Mars, this person is firing spats on social media — before buying up the site to make it their temple for ‘unmoderated toxicity’. After firing pot-shots at child-free cat ladies, they’re asking ‘high-IQ revolutionaries’ to work for no pay for an incumbent government. The latter call is interesting because this person had announced that they are ‘with Aspergers’, using the outdated terminology still instrumentalised by certain ‘high-functioning’ autistic people, to denote that they are a genius — ie a high-IQ revolutionary themselves!    

Why neurodiversity, love and HE art and design?

As an autistic child-free cat lady, it’s my duty to ask other neurodivergent artists, academics, activists and allies within Higher Education (HE) to do more and do better, to call out on dangerous neurodivergent figures and approaches, and to counter that with love. If Machiavellian misfits and messiahs weaponise their neurodivergence, so must neurodivergent movers and shakers dis-arm them.  

Image 7

Caption: Love-led guidelines for to make spaces more inclusive, in diagram form with 8 blocks of texts. From Tan, Kai Syng. Neurodiversity In/& Creative Research Network shared, LIVE, CO-CREATED Community Guidelines since 2022

For several years, I’ve researched into and discussed the need to dismantle harmful narratives of neurodiversity. Through an art-psychiatry project, founding of a global 435-member network for neurodivergent innovators, I’ve urged for a decolonial  — ie shift of focus away from knowledge and practices in the West and global north — and intersectional — ie consideration of a how multiple, complex contexts interact and intersect  — approach. We’ve come up with love-led guidelines for activities (image 7). I’m editing a publication with a major academic publisher, which is possibly the first book with openly neurodivergent academics ranging from early career researchers to established, newly-‘out’ professors, to discuss our research through the prisms of neurodivergence and creativity (c2027). Along the way, we are introducing and foregrounding neurodivergent approaches to knowledge, creative research and writing with play, lived experience and more, thus challenging the dominant, normative habits demanded by the academic publishing industrial complex that emphasise the linear, causal, and ‘neutral’.   

On this SRHE platform, I’ve previously discussed a neurodivergence-inspired pedagogical approach to transform HE culture, illustrating how this isn’t just an armchair exercise or a theoretical pontification from the ivory tower, with examples I have led, such as a four-day festival for Black History Month 2020 in Manchester. To mark Valentines’ day this year, I discussed the need to build love into HE curricula – standing on the shoulders of great artists, activists and teachers before us, like bell hooks, Paulo Friere and James Baldwin.

My keynote at the Neurodiversity in the Arts Symposium was entitled ‘Neuro-Futurism and Reimagining Leadership’.  My performance-lecture was based on my book of the same title, subtitled ‘An A-Z Towards Collective Liberation’. Grasping how systemic oppressions are interconnected and how liberatory approaches to education must be joined up is vital in this discussion. I postulate a new intellectual agenda and action plan for ‘leadership’ as discourse and practice anchored in visual arts and arts education. Re-claiming the subject from business or arts management, and away from a trait/talent hinged on individualism, hierarchy, genes or luck, the book – and my performance – entangles critical leadership studies with socially-engaged art and relational aesthetics, embedding neuro-queering, futurity, and Chinese Daoist cosmology for the first time, to introduce ‘neuro-futurism’ as a beyond-colonial, (co-)creative change-making framework.

The participants of the symposium grasped this, responding by describing the performance-lecture as ‘phenomenal’. Brazilian artist-researcher Fran Trento, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki, even took live notes and pictures to add to their mobile participatory art installation, and wheeled it around, further spreading love in HE – literally (Image 8). If it hadn’t been snowing so heavily, Fran would have wheeled their installation outside, beyond the ivory tower, to make visible what the abstract yet very simple four-letter word – love – can look like.  

Image 8: Dr Fran Trento standing next to their mobile installation that comprises a jacket onto which participants can make marks onto, scrolls of film, and a pail with cameras and other creative and critical tools to dismantle harmful narratives and approaches
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Image 9: A signboard ‘Neurodiversity in the Arts Symposium’ covered in snow, in a street raging with a snow-storm with cars passing by in front of a building across the road.
Image 9

Image 8: Dr Fran Trento standing next to their mobile installation that comprises a jacket onto which participants can make marks onto, scrolls of film, and a pail with cameras and other creative and critical tools to dismantle harmful narratives and approaches

Image 9: A signboard ‘Neurodiversity in the Arts Symposium’ covered in snow, in a street raging with a snow-storm with cars passing by in front of a building across the road

And love is critical if we want to dis-arm and dismantle violent master (sic) narratives and approaches of neurodivergence. If neurodivergence is a superpower — a trope I have also critiqued as, while useful, it can be reductive/fetishistic, and capitalised by the ‘high-functioning’ to self-select into an elitist club that excludes others — then there are also villains and Machiavellian messiahs who abuse their (super)power. The irony is — and yes, autistic people can grasp irony — is that these self-proclaimed ‘anti-establishment’ ‘outsiders’ are often the very personification and product of the system,as poster boys of capitalism and more. Remember the call for ‘weirdos and misfits’ outside the Oxbridge set to join Number 10 – by figures whose pedigrees were archetypal of the ruling class — private education, Oxford degree, political strategist to a prime minister similarly outfitted?

Now that’s weird!

Braving storms ahead

My luggage got lost – again – on my way back to the UK, but academic and arts and cultural workers must lose neither our focus or hope. As hatred becomes even more mainstreamed and normalised, minoritised body-minds and approaches will remain hardest hit. There will be storms ahead (image 9). We – and that includes you – must step forward and step up. As US author Octavia E Butler (1947–2006) warns, unless we build ‘different leadership’ by ‘people with more courage and vision’, we’ll ‘all go down the toilet’. That’s why the Black science-fiction bestseller, who was also dyslexic, wrote story after story that reimagined different, better realities. 

To not go down the toilet, we must disarm those who weaponise their neurodivergence. Here are some of the things that neurodivergent academics, artists, activists and allies can do:  

  • Shift your curricula to elevate and celebrate efforts that are truly leader-ful, joy-ful and equitable, and directed towards collective liberation. I’ve named several in this article. No excuses.  
  • Stop the hierarchy of normality – within neurodiversity groups in and beyond HE too – that props up antics that are white supremacist, patriarchal, misogynist, racist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, colonialist, capitalist, ableist and extractive. Stop fuelling the misfits and messiahs with ill-intentions. 
  • Instead, invest in and donate your time, energy and skills to support love-led efforts. If you have a voice/ platform and can afford to, mobilise it to push back against the violence. People in senior management paygrades, make use of your position/proximity to the top of the food-chain to action positive change beyond lip service or generic policy statements about the civic duty of HE, and bring to life its promises about equity, social justice and inclusion.

On that latter note, I’m seeking to curate a 3-day international summit in 2026 that re-imagines HE art and design as a change-making and future-making force through neuroqueer, social justice and leadership prisms. This welcomes anyone with a stake in the arts and culture, higher education, social change and inclusive futures, to get together to explore the coexistence of different ways to (un-)learning and being in the world, to share best practices about inclusion, and to collectivise and co-create action plans for more inclusive futures within and beyond the art school and HE. Through quickfire provocations, transdisciplinary speed-dating, reverse-mentoring, co-creation of toolkits, skateboarding tours, running-discourses and other embodied forms of engagement, we will not just learn about ways to make ‘reasonable’ adjustments for neuro-divergent students and staff, but to learn about their innovative approaches, and thus reimagine ways to understand and do ‘leadership’, so as to make positive changes, within and beyond art and design and HE. This shift in paradigm to position art and design higher education is aligned with – and can amplify – other ongoing efforts in the sector, such as the Creative Education Manifesto. Get in touch if you’re keen to help do the work.

All that said, clearly, neither Tim’s symposium or my proposed summit are the only or last word in this matter. You, too, can lead with love, if you don’t already. Prioritise an intersectional approach to neuroqueer the curricula, towards dis-arming stories and approaches that are white supremacist, racist, colonialist, xenophobic, ageist, sexist, misogynistic, classcist, transphobic and heteronormative.

CREDITS: Photographs by Kai. Photograph of Kai by neurodivergent artist-curator-activist-PhD-candidate Aidan Moseby

Kai Syng Tan is an artist, academic, author, and agitator who adores cats and alliteration. Their book Neuro-Futurism and Re-Imagining Leadership: An A-Z Towards Collective Liberation re-imagines leadership as a co-creative, neuro-queered practice centring anti-oppression and futurity: it was published in Summer 2024. See here to join the book tour. Sign up here to participate in the CHEAD Leadership Programme taster entitled What’s love got to do with leadership? led by Kai as a new CHEAD Trustee, which will feature a response by Pascal Matthias, Associate Vice President EDI and Social Justice, University of Southampton and Co-Founder at FACE (Fashion Academics Creating Equality). Kai is Associate Professor in Arts and Cultural Leadership, University of Southampton, UK. All views here are their own.


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University autonomy and government control by funding

by GR Evans

A change of government has not changed the government’s power to intrude upon the autonomy of providers of higher education, which is constrained chiefly by its being limited to the financial. Government can also issue guidance to the regulator, the Office for Students, and that guidance may be detailed. Recent exchanges give a flavour of the kind of control which politicians may seek, but this may be at odds with the current statutory framework.

As Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan sent a Letter of Guidance to the Office for Students on 4 April 2024. She stated her priorities, first that ‘students pursue HE studies that enable them to progress into employment, thereby benefitting them as well as the wider economy’. She also thought it ‘important to provide students with different high-quality pathways in HE, notably through higher technical qualifications (HTQs), and degree apprenticeships’ at Levels 4 and 5. These ‘alternatives to three-year degrees’, she said, ‘provide valuable opportunities to progress up the ladder of opportunity’. As a condition of funding providers were to ‘build capacity’ with ‘eligible learners on Level 4 and 5 qualifications via a formula allocation’.  The new Higher Technical Qualifications were to attract ‘an uplift within this formula for learners on HTQ courses’. ‘World leading specialist providers’ were to be encouraged and funded ‘up to a limit’ of £58.1m for FY24/25.

The change of Government in July 2024 brought a new Secretary of State in the person of Bridget Phillipson but no fresh Letter of Guidance before she spoke in the Commons in a Higher Education debate on 4 November, 2024. Recognising that many universities were in dire financial straits, she  suggested that there should be ‘reform’ in exchange for a rise in tuition fees for undergraduates which had just been announced. That, she suggested, would be needed to ensure that universities would be ‘there for them to attend’ in future.

However, commentators quickly pointed out that Phillipson’s announcement that there would be a small rise in undergraduate tuition fees from £9,250 to £9,535 a year would not be anywhere near enough to fill the gap in higher education funding. The resulting risks were recognised. When the Office for Students reviewed the Financial sustainability of higher education  providers in England in 2024 in May 2024 it had looked at the ‘risks relating to student recruitment’ by providers in relation to the income from their tuition fees.

Phillipson was ‘determined to reform the sector’. She called for ‘tough decisions to restore stability to higher education, to fix the foundations and to deliver change’ with a key role for Government.  Ministers across Government must work together, she said, especially the Secretary for Education and the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology in order to ‘deliver a reformed and strengthened higher education system’. This would be ‘rooted in partnership’ between the DfE, the Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation’.

“… greater work around economic growth, around spin-offs and much more besides—I will be working with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on precisely those questions.”

In the debate it was commented that she was ‘light on the details’ of the Government’s role’.  She promised those for the future, ‘To build a higher education system fit for the challenges not just of today but of tomorrow’. She undertook to publish proposals for ‘major reform’.  There were some hints at what those might include. She saw benefits in providers ‘sharing support services with other universities and colleges’. Governing bodies, she said, should be asking ‘difficult strategic questions’, given the population ‘changing patterns of learning’ of their prospective students. The ‘optimistic bias’ she believed, needed to be ‘replaced by hard-headed realism’. ‘Some institutions that may need to shrink or partner, but is a price worth paying as part of a properly funded, coherent tertiary education system.’ She saw a considerable role for Government. ‘The government has started that job – it should now finish it.’

Like her predecessor she wanted ‘courses’ to provide individual students as well as the nation with ‘an economic return’. She expected providers to ‘ensure that all students get good value for money’. Other MPs speaking in the debate pressed the same link. Vikki Slade too defined economic benefit in terms of the ‘value for money’ the individual student got for the fee paid.  Laura Trott was another who wanted ‘courses’ to provide individual students as well as the nation with ‘an economic return’. Shaun Davies asked for ‘a bit more detail’ on ‘the accountability’ to which ‘these university vice-chancellors’ were to be held in delivering ‘teaching contact time, helping vulnerable students and ensuring that universities play a huge part in the wider communities of the towns and cities in which they are anchor institutions’.

Government enforcement sits uncomfortably with the autonomy of higher education providers insisted on by the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act. This Act created the Office for Students as ‘a non-departmental public body’, ‘accountable to Parliament’ and receiving ‘guidance on strategic priorities from the Department for Education’. Its ‘operations are independent of government’, but its ‘guidance’ to providers as Regulator is also heavily restricted at s.2 (5) which prevents intrusion on teaching and research. That guidance may not relate to ‘particular parts of courses of study’; ‘the content of such courses’; ’the manner in which they are taught, supervised or assessed’; ‘the criteria for the selection, appointment or dismissal of academic staff, or how they are applied’; or ‘the criteria for the admission of students, or how they are applied’.

This leaves the Office for Students responsible only for monitoring the financial sustainability of higher education providers ‘to identify those that may be exposed to material financial risks’. Again its powers of enforcement are limited. If it finds such a case it ‘works with’ the provider in a manner respecting its autonomy, namely ‘to understand and assess the extent of the issues’ and seek to help.

Listed in providers’ annual Financial Statements may be a number of sources of funding to which universities may look. These chiefly aim to fund research rather than teaching and include: grants and contracts for research projects; investment income; donations and endowments. The Government has a funding relationship with Research England within UKRI (UK Research and Innovation). UKRI is another Government-funded non-departmental public body, though it is subject to some Government policy shifts in the scale of the funding it provides through the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Donations and endowments may come with conditions attached by the funder, limiting them for example to named scholarships or professorships or specific new buildings. However  they may provide a considerable degree of financial security which is not under Government control. The endowments of Oxford and Cambridge Universities are substantial. Those made separately for their Colleges. may be very large, partly as a result of the growth in value of land given to them centuries ago. Oxford University has endowments of £1.3 billion and its colleges taken together have endowments of £5.06 billion. Cambridge University has a published endowment of  £2.47 billion, though Cambridge’s Statement for the Knowledge Exchange Framework puts ‘the university’s endowment ‘at nearly £6 billion’.  Cambridge’s richest College, Trinity, declares endowments of £2.19 billion.

The big city universities created at the end of the nineteenth century are far less well-endowed.  Birmingham had an endowment of £142.5 million in 2023, Bristol of £86 million. Of the twentieth and twenty-first century foundations, Oxford Brookes University notes donations and endowments of £385,000 and Anglia Ruskin University of £335,300. The private ‘alternative’ providers of higher multiplying in recent decades have tended to have a variety of business and commercial partnerships supporting their funding. Categories of funding provided by such gifting remain independent of Government interference.

The Review of Post-18 Education and Funding (May 2019) chaired by Philip Augur stated ‘Principles’ including that ‘organisations providing education and training must be accountable for the public subsidy they receive’, and that ‘Government has a responsibility to ensure that its investment in tertiary education is appropriately spent and directed’. ‘Universities must do more to raise their impact beyond their gates’, Phillipson said, so as ‘to drive the growth that this country sorely needs’ including by ‘joining with Skills England, employers and partners in further education to deliver the skills that people and businesses need’.

In the same Commons debate of 4 November Ian Roome, MP for North Devon, was confident that in his constituency ‘universities work in collaboration with FE sector institutions such as Petroc college’. Petroc College offers qualifications from Level 3 upwards, including HNCs, higher-level apprenticeships, Access to HE diplomas, foundation degrees and honours degrees (validated by the University of Plymouth) and ‘in subjects that meet the demands of industry – both locally and nationally’. Roome saw this (HC 4 November 2024) as meeting a need for ‘a viable and accessible option, particularly in rural areas such as mine, for people to access university courses?’ Phillipson took up his point, to urge such ‘collaboration between further education and higher education providers’. Shaun Davies spoke of the £300 million the Government had put into further education, ‘alongside a £300 million capital allocation’, invested in further education colleges’.  

However in an article in the Guardian on 4 November 2024,Philip Augur recognised that ‘the systems used by government to finance higher and further education are very different’. ‘Universities are funded largely through fees which follow enrolments’, in the form of student loans of £9,250, now raised to £9,535. ‘Unpaid loans are written off against the Department for Education’s balance sheet’. At first that would not be visible in the full  government accounts until 30 years after the loan was taken out. Government steering had become more visible following the Augur Report, with the cost of student loans being recorded ‘in the period loans are issued to students’, rather than after 30 years.  

By contrast the funding of individual FE colleges is based on annual contracts from the Education and Skills Funding Agency, an executive agency of the DFE for post-18 education. They may then spend only within the terms of the contract and up to its limit. The full cost of such contracts is recorded immediately in the public accounts. This makes a flexible response to demand by FE colleges far from easy. Colleges may find they cannot afford to run even popular courses such as construction, engineering, digital, health and social care, without waiting lists for places. The HE reform Phillipson considered in return for a rise in tuition fees had no immediate place in FE.

Government funding control maintains a pragmatic but very limited means of means of giving orders to universities. This depends on regulating access to taxpayer-funded student loans. The Office for Students measures a provider’s teaching in terms of its ‘positive outcomes’. These are set out in the OfS ‘Conditions’ for its Registration, which are required to make a provider’s students eligible for loans from the Student Loans Company. Condition B3 requires that a provider’s ‘outcomes’ meet ‘numerical thresholds’ measured against ‘indicators’: whether students continue in a course after their first year of study; complete their studies and progress into managerial or professional employment.

An Independent Review of the Office for Students: Fit for the Future: Higher Education Regulation towards 2035 appeared in July 2024. The Review relies on ‘positive outcomes’ as defined by the OfS’s ‘judgement’,  that ‘the outcome data for each of the indicators and split indicators are at or above the relevant numerical thresholds’. When such data are not available the OfS itself ‘otherwise judges’.

The government’s power to intrude upon the autonomy of providers of higher education continues to be constrained, but chiefly by its being limited to the financial, with many providers potentially at risk from their dependence on government permitting a level of tuition fee high enough to sustain them.

GR Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History in the University of Cambridge.


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A new mission for higher education policy reviews

by Ellen Hazelkorn, Hamish Coates, Hans de Wit & Tessa Delaquil

Making research relevant to policy

In recent years there has been heightened attention being given to the importance of scholarly endeavour making a real impact on and for society. Yet, despite a five-fold increase in journal articles published on higher education in the last twenty years, the OECD warns of a serious “disconnect between education policy, research and practice”.

As higher education systems have grown and diversified, it appears with ever increasing frequency that policy is made on the slow, on the run, or not at all. Even in the most regulated systems, gone is the decades-long approach of lifetime civil servants advancing copperplate notes on papyrus through governmental machines designed to sustain flow and augment harmony. In the era of 24-hour deliberation, reporting and muddling through, it may seem that conceptually rooted analysis of policy and policymaking is on the nose or has been replaced by political expediency.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There has never been a more important time to analyse, design, evaluate, critique, integrate, compare and innovate higher education policy. Fast policy invokes a swift need for imaginative reflection. Light policy demands counterbalancing shovel loads of intellectual backfilling. Comparative analysis is solvent for parochial policy. Policy stasis, when it stalks, must be cured by ingenious, ironic, and incisive admonition.

Governments worldwide expect research to provide leaders and policymakers with evidence that will improve the quality of teaching and education, learning outcomes and skills development, regional innovation and knowledge diffusion, and help solve society’s problems. Yet, efforts to enhance the research-policy-practice nexus fall far short of this ambition.

Policy influencers are more likely to be ministerial advisory boards and commissioned reports than journal articles and monographs, exactly opposite to what incentivizes academics. Rankings haven’t helped, measuring ‘impact’ in terms of discredited citation scores despite lots of research and efforts to the contrary.

Academics continue to argue the purpose of academic research is to produce ‘pure’ fundamental research, rather than undertake public-funded research. And despite universities promoting impactful research of public value, scholars complain of many barriers to entry.

The policy reviews solution

Policy Reviews in Higher Education (PRiHE) aims to push out the boundaries and encourage scholars to explore a wide range of policy themes. Despite higher education sitting within a complex knowledge-research-innovation ecosystem, touching on all elements from macro-economic to foreign policy to environmental policy, our research lens and interests are far too narrow. We seem to be asking the same questions. But the policy and public lens is changing.

Concerns are less about elites and building ‘world-class universities’ for a tiny minority, and much more about pressing social issues such as: regional disparities and ‘left-behind communities’, technical and vocational education and training, non-university pathways, skills and skills mismatch, flexible learning opportunities given new demographies, sustainable regional development, funding and efficiency, and technological capability and artificial intelligence. Of course, all of this carries implications for governance and system design, an area in which much more evidence-based research is required.

As joint editors we are especially keen to encourage submissions which can help address such issues, and to draw on research to produce solutions rather than simply critique. We encourage potential authors to ask questions outside the box, and explore how these different issues play out in different countries, and accordingly discuss the experiences, the lessons, and the implications from which others can learn.

Solutions for policy reviews

Coming into its ninth year, PRiHE is platform for people in and around government to learn about the sector they govern, for professionals in the sector to keep abreast of genuinely relevant developments, and for interested people around the world to learn about what is often (including for insiders!) a genuinely opaque and complex and certainly sui generis environment.

As our above remarks contend, the nature of contemporary higher education politics, policy and practice cannot be simplified or taken for granted. Journal topics, contributions, and interlocutors must also change and keep pace. Indeed, the very idea of an ‘academic journal’ must itself be reconsidered within a truly global and fully online education and research environment. Rightly, therefore, PRiHE keeps moving.

With renewed vim and vigour, the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) has refreshed the Editorial Office and Editorial Board, and charged PRiHE to grow even more into a world-leading journal of mark and impact. Many further improvements have been made. For instance, the Editorial Office has worked with SRHE and the publisher Taylor and Francis to make several enhancements to editorial and journal processes and content.

We encourage people to submit research articles or proposals for an article – which will be reviewed by the Editors and feedback provided in return. We also encourage people to submit commentary and book reviews – where the authors have sought to interrogate and discuss a key issue through a policy-oriented lens. See the ‘instructions for authors’ for details.

Read, engage, and contribute

This second bumper 2024 issue provides six intellectual slices into ideas, data and practices relevant to higher education policy. We smartly and optimistically advise that you download and perhaps even print out all papers, power off computers and phones, and spend a few hours reading these wonderful contributions. We particularly recommend this to aspiring policy researchers, researchers and consultants in the midst of their careers, and perhaps most especially to civil servants and related experts embedded in the world of policy itself.

SRHE and the Editorial Office are looking ahead to a vibrant and strong future period of growth for PRiHE. A raft of direct and public promotion activities are planned. PRiHE is a journal designed to make a difference to policy and practice. The most important forms of academic engagement, of course, include reading, writing and reviewing. We welcome your contribution in these and other ways to the global PRiHE community.

This blog is based on the editorial published in Policy Reviews in Higher Education (online 16 November 2024) A new mission for higher education policy reviews

Professor Ellen Hazelkorn is Joint Managing Partner, BH Associates. She is Professor Emeritus, Technological University Dublin.

Hamish Coates is professor of public policy, director of the Higher Education Futures Lab, and global tertiary education expert.

Hans de Wit is Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow of the Boston College Center for International Higher Education, Senior Fellow of the international Association of Universities.

Tessa DeLaquil is postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Education at University College Dublin.


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Gaps in sustainability literacy in non-STEM higher education programmes

by Erika Kalocsányiová and Rania Hassan

Promoting sustainability literacy in higher education is crucial for deepening students’ pro-environmental behaviour and mindset (Buckler & Creech, 2014; UNESCO, 1997), while also fostering social transformation by embedding sustainability at the core of the student experience. In 2022, our group received an SRHE Scoping Award to synthesise the literature on the development, teaching, and assessment of sustainability literacy in non-STEM higher education programmes. We conducted a multilingual systematic review of post-2010 publications from the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), with the results summarised in Kalocsányiová et al (2024).

Out of 6,161 articles that we identified as potentially relevant, 92 studies met the inclusion criteria and are reviewed in the report. These studies involved a total of 11,790 participants and assessed 9,992 university programmes and courses. Our results suggest a significant growth in research interest in sustainability in non-STEM fields since 2017, with 75 studies published compared to just 17 in the preceding seven years. Our analysis also showed that Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey, and Austria had the highest concentration of publications, with 25 EHEA countries represented in total. The 92 reviewed studies were characterised by high methodological diversity: nearly half employed quantitative methods (47%), followed by qualitative studies (40%) and mixed methods research (13%). Curriculum assessments using quantitative content analysis of degree and course descriptors were among the most common study types, followed by surveys and intervention or pilot studies. Curriculum assessments provided a systematic way to evaluate the presence or absence of sustainability concepts within curricula at both single HE institutions and in comparative frameworks. However, they often captured only surface-level indications of sustainability integration into undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, without providing evidence on actual implementation and/or the effectiveness of different initiatives. Qualitative methods, including descriptive case studies and interviews that focused on barriers, challenges, implementation strategies, and the acceptability of new sustainability literacy initiatives, made up 40% of the current research. Mixed methods studies accounted for 13% of the reviewed articles, often applying multiple assessment tools simultaneously, including quantitative sustainability competency assessment instruments combined with open-ended interviews or learning journals.

In terms of disciplines, Economics, Business, and Administrative Studies held the largest share of reviewed studies (26%), followed by Education (23%). Multiple disciplines accounted for 22% of the reviewed publications, reflecting the interconnected nature of sustainability. Finance and Accounting contributed only 6%, indicating a need for further research. Similarly, Language and Linguistics, Mass Communication and Documentation, and Social Sciences collectively represented only 12% of the reviewed studies. Creative Arts and Design with just 2% was also a niche area. Although caution should be exercised when drawing conclusions from these results, they highlight the need for more research within the underrepresented disciplines. This in turn can help promote awareness among non-STEM students, stimulate ethical discussions on the cultural dimensions of sustainability, and encourage creative solutions through interdisciplinary dialogue.

Regarding factors and themes explored, the studies focused primarily on the acquisition of sustainability knowledge and competencies (27%), curriculum assessment (23%), challenges and barriers to sustainability integration (10%), implementation and evaluation research (10%), changes in students’ mindset (9%), key competences in sustainability literacy (5%), and active student participation in Education for Sustainable Development (5%). In terms of studies discussing acquisition processes, key focus areas included the teaching of Sustainable Development Goals, awareness of macro-sustainability trends, and knowledge of local sustainability issues. Studies on sustainability competencies focussed on systems thinking, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, ethical awareness, interdisciplinary knowledge, global awareness and citizenship, communication skills, and action-oriented mindset. These competencies and knowledge, which are generally considered crucial for addressing the multifaceted challenges of sustainability (Wiek et al., 2011), were often introduced to non-STEM students through stand-alone lectures, workshops, or pilot studies involving new cross-disciplinary curricula.

Our review also highlighted a broad range of pedagogical approaches adopted for sustainability teaching and learning within non-STEM disciplines. These covered case and project-based learning, experiential learning methods, problem-based learning, collaborative learning, reflection groups, pedagogical dialogue, flipped classroom approaches, game-based learning, and service learning. While there is strong research interest in the documentation and implementation of these pedagogical approaches, few studies have so far attempted to assess learning outcomes, particularly regarding discipline-specific sustainability expertise and real-world problem-solving skills.

Many of the reviewed studies relied on single-method approaches, meaning valuable insights into sustainability-focused teaching and learning may have been missed. For instance, studies often failed to capture the complexities surrounding sustainability integration into non-STEM programs, either by presenting positivist results that require further contextualisation or by offering rich context limited to a single course or study group, which cannot be generalised. The assessment tools currently used also seemed to lack consistency, making it difficult to compare outcomes across programmes and institutions to promote best practices. More robust evaluation designs, such as longitudinal studies, controlled intervention studies, and mixed methods approaches (Gopalan et al, 2020; Ponce & Pagán-Maldonado, 2015), are needed to explore and demonstrate the pedagogical effectiveness of various sustainability literacy initiatives in non-STEM disciplines and their impact on student outcomes and societal change.

In summary, our review suggests good progress in integrating sustainability knowledge and competencies into some core non-STEM disciplines, while also highlighting gaps. Based on the results we have formulated some questions that may help steer future research:

  • Are there systemic barriers hindering the integration of sustainability themes, challenges and competencies into specific non-STEM fields?
  • Are certain disciplines receiving disproportionate research attention at the expense of others?
  • How do different pedagogical approaches compare in terms of effectiveness for fostering sustainability literacy in and across HE fields?
  • What new educational practices are emerging, and how can we fairly assess them and evidence their benefits for students and the environment?

We also would like to encourage other researchers to engage with knowledge produced in a variety of languages and educational contexts. The multilingual search and screening strategy implemented in our review enabled us to identify and retrieve evidence from 25 EHEA countries and 24 non-English publications. If reviews of education research remain monolingual (English-only), important findings and insights will go unnoticed hindering knowledge exchange, creativity, and innovation in HE.

Dr. Erika Kalocsányiová is a Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Lifecourse Development at the University of Greenwich, with research centering on public health and sustainability communication, migration and multilingualism, refugee integration, and the implications of these areas for higher education policies.

Rania Hassan is a PhD student and a research assistant at the University of Greenwich. Her research centres on exploring enterprise development activities within emerging economies. As a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary researcher, Rania is passionate about advancing academia and promoting knowledge exchange in higher education.


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Possible futures for working environments

by Nic Kipar

This blog follows an earlier short review of the literature and is based on the author’s experience in a range of universities. It suggests how working environments might change in practice, with illustrations from the author’s own institution, the University of Glasgow.

Introduction

In thinking about working environments, the most effective approach is to ask individuals how they work best. This enables them to thrive in the environment most suited to themselves and the particular activity they are undertaking. More importantly, staff should be given the freedom to experiment with different settings, without others imposing judgments based on their own limited perspectives. This openness fosters a supportive and adaptable workplace, enabling everyone to find the spaces that best suit their work and wellbeing.

Embracing new thinking

Traditionally, we have not considered whether staff on our campuses are enjoying their work environments and are able to be their most creative and effective selves. This oversight stands in contrast with the University Value of Curiosity and Discovery: “Embracing new thinking and innovation in a spirit of open minded collaboration that positively impacts on ourselves, our University, our city, society and the world.”

In response, the University of Glasgow has recently begun incorporating a co-design element into its Workspace Futures Programme, starting with a ‘diagnose’ phase. Yet I still wonder: are we thinking boldly enough? Are we exploring possibilities that reach beyond our usual perspectives and assumptions?

Let me pose a provocation from my colleague Dr Nathalie Tasler (personal communication, November 2024):

Remember the Disney movie Aladdin? “Phenomenal cosmic powers… itty-bitty living space!” So how can our immensely talented and creative colleagues thrive when their environment is filled with “stop rules” (Runco, 2007)? In social psychology, stop rules are constraints—often invisible—that limit our thinking, stifle creativity, and shut down possibility thinking (Craft, 2005; Lin, 2020) before they even have a chance to take shape. When workplaces impose these restrictions, whether through rigid protocols, uninspiring spaces, or unspoken norms, how can we expect innovation and fresh ideas to flourish? What would it take to create a work environment where potential isn’t confined, but unleashed?Transforming everyone’s spaces

While we have been focused on transforming student study spaces and creating vibrant, open campuses that attract students and the public alike, we may be neglecting the needs of our own staff. The University of Edinburgh (Bayne, presentation in November 2024) uses the term “buzz” to describe the energy of a thriving campus, drawing inspiration from the University of Warwick’s public events, like World Cup screenings in collaboration with local businesses, that created memorable, widely shared experiences. Edinburgh’s themes of Belonging and buzz; Sanctuary and beauty; Sustainable connections; Mobility, flexibility and flow, and Openness, public co-creation and surfacing resonate with our work on student spaces, but have we fully explored the potential of spaces that could truly empower our staff work best depending on their known, or yet unknown preferences?

Understanding individual preferences in workspace design is challenging. Environmental needs are deeply personal, shaped by complex and unique factors. This makes it impossible to assume that one person’s ideal workspace will suit everyone. When we project our own preferences onto others, we risk introducing bias and overlooking or misjudging their needs. These hidden barriers are created by a world design with certain people in mind, leaving others feeling excluded. They make aspects of society accessible to some while shutting out others. These mismatches are the building blocks of exclusion, making people feel unwelcome or unable to fully participate (Holmes, 2018).

It is one thing to offer flexible options for staff to work from home or from a campus office. But we should also look closely at the campus itself, at how we treat these spaces and how they treat us. Typically, we arrive on campus, head into buildings and into offices or meeting rooms, and operate within closed-off spaces that might be limiting our ability to think creatively or envision the future. It makes me wonder: Are we missing something essential?

An office is an office is an office?

We expect our staff to innovate and imagine exciting futures, yet how can we foster that kind of thinking when we confine people to uninspiring spaces? A room does not need to have white walls or dull furniture to feel stifling; even a vibrant, biophilic space can feel restrictive if it is still just four walls. What if we reimagined our workplaces so that, rather than feeling like “just another day at the office”, staff actually felt genuinely inspired to be there?

At present, we do not offer staff the full range of spaces that might suit different types of work or support them in ways they find personally meaningful. Why is it, for example, that a staff member working in an on-campus café among students is often seen as “not really working”? Such assumptions are outdated, belonging to a pre-digital era. Why do we still insist that all staff need traditional offices, all the time?

Offices have their purpose, of course, but not all office types are effective for all needs. Open-plan offices with cubicles, for instance, combine the worst aspects of every workspace model. Various issues are associated with open office spaces featuring cubicles, which are often regarded as suboptimal work environments. Common problems include lack of privacy, increased noise levels, and the inability to control one’s environment, which can lead to diminished productivity, lower job satisfaction, and elevated stress levels. The systematic literature review by Colenberg et al (2021) finds a link between cramped cubicle setups in open spaces and decreased physical and mental health due to poor environmental control. I recall working in university offices in the early 1990s, when alternative approaches were simply unimaginable. Back then, an office with your name on the door was a status symbol and a sign of belonging. But why are we still behaving as though we are living in the 20th century?

Spaces designed to fit people, not making people fit

James McCune Smith Learning Hub (JMS) © UofG

If someone can concentrate deeply and produce creative, high-quality work in a bustling student study space like the James McCune Smith Learning Hub (JMS,) or in a moderately busy area like the Mazumdar-Shaw Advanced Research Centre (ARC) lobby, who are we to judge? For some, the energy of a café may be the perfect environment to spark ideas and focus, while others need absolute silence and solitude to work through complex problems. Some might prefer a quiet, shared workspace, finding comfort in the presence of others without the noise. Many benefit from working at home, or outside if weather permits, while others feel more motivated and inspired by coming onto campus.

Ultimately, as long as staff are accessible when needed and are delivering excellent work, there is no “right” way to structure a work environment. What works for one person may not work for another, and that is precisely the point: a truly supportive workplace recognises and respects individual preferences and needs. By allowing each person the freedom to choose the space that best supports their productivity and wellbeing, we create a culture that values flexibility and respects diversity in how we all work best.

Mazumdar-Shaw Advanced Research Centre (ARC) © UofG

Welcoming variation and diversity as agents for evolution

The psychologist Dr Lorna Champion (personal communication, November 2024) summarised this succinctly: “Evolution is based on variation. If a characteristic supports the survival then it is retained and handed on, because of difference, we evolve. If we don’t have variation then we stagnate.” It is time to embrace new thinking, to break from outdated models, and to create environments that truly support and inspire staff to thrive.

Nic Kipar leads the Academic and Digital Development team at the University of Glasgow. She played an instrumental role in the creation of the James McCune Smith Learning Hub, focusing on inclusive active learning. Nic co-leads the Enhancing Learning & Teaching Practice workstream, contributing to the university’s Learning & Teaching strategy and planning for the upcoming Keystone building, which will feature large interdisciplinary labs. Nic also chairs a working group on Pedagogy in Superlabs, pioneering these innovative spaces for the university.


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Working environments: a short overview of the literature

by Nic Kipar

We rarely consider whether staff on our campuses are enjoying their work environments and are able to be their most creative and effective selves. We should ask individuals how they work best, to enable them to thrive. Staff should be given the freedom to experiment with different settings, without others imposing judgments based on their own limited perspectives. Here in the first of two blogs Nic Kipar reviews what we know from research about working environments; the second blog will look at what this might mean in practice.

Control over the workspace

A growing body of research underscores the significant role that control over the physical workspace plays in employee wellbeing, productivity, and job satisfaction. Studies consistently show that providing employees with autonomy over their work environment – such as control over lighting, workspace flexibility, and layout adjustments – can reduce stress and improve mental health (Colenberg et al, 2021). This sense of control fosters a positive psychological environment, as evidenced in both Swedish and Dutch Masters and PhD research. For example, Ghaemi Flores (2023) found that agile and activity-based workspaces, which allow for greater personal control, are rated more favourably by employees. Similarly, van der Vleuten-Chraibi (2019) observed that control over light levels even in shared spaces enhances workspace satisfaction and productivity.

Despite these benefits, the hierarchical tradition in workspace allocation—where higher-ranking employees receive designated offices—remains a barrier to the adoption of more flexible environments. Ghaemi Flores (2023, p44) notes that overcoming this cultural resistance is crucial for a successful transition to activity-based work settings.

Research also challenges the assumption that open-plan offices facilitate collaboration. Instead, these layouts often lead to increased distractions and reduced personal control, negatively impacting both productivity and employee wellbeing (Bernstein and Turban, 2018). Open-plan designs, especially cubicles, have been shown to disrupt natural collaboration, as employees may withdraw to avoid noise and distractions.

This body of research collectively suggests that providing employees with control over their workspace fosters a healthier, more satisfying work environment, positively affecting both personal and organisational outcomes.

Wellbeing and working environments

The psychological dimension of workspace design is essential to employee wellbeing and productivity. Ruohomäki et al (2015) identify key factors, such as privacy, personal space, and control over tasks and schedules, as critical for reducing distractions and supporting mental focus. Research by Danielsson and Bodin (2008) further supports the idea that private and agile office environments contribute to better emotional health, largely due to the sense of control they afford employees. Lee and Brand (2005) also proposed that offering more flexibility and control over workspaces could lead to significant benefits for occupants. This is consistent with findings by Laughton and Thatcher (2019, p837) that shared offices and agile spaces promote psychological wellbeing more effectively than reservable spaces or open-plan offices.

Morrison and Macky (2017) applied the established Job Demands-Resources model to explore the demands of shared work environments and hot-desking arrangements and found that open offices increase cognitive demands on employees, leading to higher job dissatisfaction. Similarly, Cvijanovic (2019) found that customised workspaces are linked to higher job satisfaction and lower stress, although they do not necessarily enhance productivity. High social density within a workspace has also been shown to reduce perceived control (MacMillan, 2012). The study by Cobaleda Cordero et al (2019) of wellbeing related to working spaces also supports these findings.

The role of greenspace in workplace wellbeing

Access to greenspace within the workplace has been shown to positively affect employee wellbeing. Research by Bratman et al (2015) and Berman et al (2008) showed that walking in nature or even viewing pictures of nature can improve directed attention and cognition, the latter supporting the theory of Attention Restoration. (Attention Restoration Theory, developed by psychologists Stephen Kaplan and Rachel Kaplan in the late 1980s, proposes that exposure to natural environments can help restore mental focus and relieve “attention fatigue.” This fatigue arises when we rely on directed, or focused, attention for extended periods.) Gilchrist et al (2015) went further by finding that time spent in workplace greenspace, as well as views of natural elements like trees and flowering plants, significantly boosted wellbeing. Interestingly, the mere presence of these natural elements, rather than subjective satisfaction with the view, appears to be sufficient to yield benefits.

A systematic review by Ricciardi et al (2022) suggests that greenspace exposure may benefit cognition, according to recent advances in environmental psychology. The review included six longitudinal and 19 cross-sectional studies focusing on schoolchildren, adults, and the elderly. Most studies used the Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, which is a widely used measure of live green vegetation on Earth, calculated from satellite images, to measure greenspace exposure and examined outcomes such as academic achievement, global cognition, attention/executive functions, and memory. Although findings are inconsistent, they indicate a potential cognitive benefit from exposure to greenspace.

Activity-based workspaces

Activity-Based Workspaces (ABWs) are designed to offer flexibility by providing different spaces tailored to specific tasks, encouraging employees to choose environments that support their current work needs. Originally introduced to stimulate creativity in IT start-ups, ABWs are intended to facilitate both collaborative and focused work. However, Haapakangas et al (2023) found that the use of ABWs varies widely among employees, influenced by factors such as age, job role, and ergonomic satisfaction. High cognitive demands and collaborative tasks were associated with more active workspace switching, while distractions in ABWs led to frustration and a decrease in perceived environment fit. Haapakangas et al (2018) noticed that difficulties in locating available workspaces led to frustration and perceptions of time loss and recommend implementing real-time information systems to help employees locate suitable workspaces and accessible quiet zones to address privacy needs.

Clearly, there will always be a need for quiet working spaces, which also highlights the benefits of flexible working that includes home office work (should the individual wish to do so and has a quiet home office working space, which may not be possible for everyone).

The value of silence, and the value of controlled noise

Silence in the workplace offers numerous benefits, such as enhancing wellbeing, productivity, emotional regulation, and focus for all employees, but particularly for neurodiverse employees or those sensitive to noise. Quiet spaces reduce sensory overload and support productivity, especially for individuals on the autism spectrum or those with sensory processing disorders (Asselineau et al, 2024, Cox et al, 2024, Szulc, 2024). Open-plan offices, however, often contribute to decreased wellbeing due to limited privacy and excessive noise (Delle Macchie et al, 2018, Laughton, 2017).

Interestingly, silence can have the opposite effect on some, with controlled noise being beneficial for some individuals and tasks. Research on ADHD (Sikström and Söderlund, 2007; Söderlund et al, 2007; Söderlund et al, 2010) suggests that moderate background noise may enhance focus by helping the brain filter distractions. ADHD is linked to unusual functioning of the brain’s dopamine system, a neurotransmitter crucial for motivation, attention, and learning. Under typical conditions, stable dopamine levels allow the brain to regulate its responses to new stimuli, “dampening” reactions to prevent overstimulation. However, in individuals with ADHD, dopamine levels are lower than average, which causes the brain to overreact to external stimuli, leading to heightened sensitivity and difficulty filtering out distractions. In environments with moderate stimulation (like gentle noise or activity), people with ADHD can often focus well. This phenomenon, known as “stochastic resonance”, suggests that a moderate level of noise can improve cognitive performance by making it easier to distinguish important signals. Though it may seem counterintuitive, the right amount of noise can push a weak signal over a “detection threshold,” allowing it to stand out more clearly.

Stochastic resonance, observed across systems from biological networks to electronics, demonstrates how controlled noise can sometimes enhance performance. In the brain, this effect helps neurons respond more effectively to subtle stimuli. For individuals with ADHD, who typically have lower dopamine levels, computational models suggest that a slightly higher level of background noise may be needed to achieve this beneficial effect, enabling the brain to filter out distractions. However, both extremes – very quiet (low stimulation) or highly chaotic (high stimulation) environments – can impair focus. Empirical evidence supports this theory, indicating that tailored environmental adjustments, such as specific levels of background noise, can help individuals with ADHD better manage distractions and maintain concentration.

Studies by Vostal et al (2013) also highlight the need for adjustable acoustic environments for those with ADHD, as a controlled level of noise or visual simplicity can improve task engagement. In classrooms, Batho et al (2020) found that quiet zones or low-level background noise are beneficial, depending on the cognitive task – findings that may be relevant to workplace design as well.

It is not only the noise or activity in an environment that can be beneficial; the environment itself plays a crucial role. Kat Holmes notes that “the objects and people around us influence our ability to participate” (Holmes et al, 2018, p2). Certain settings can create a sense of belonging, such as the feeling of being part of a learning community in student study spaces, which can enhance concentration and productivity. Humans are inherently social beings, shaped by evolution to thrive in environments that support connection – provided there are also sufficient opportunities for solitude and silence when needed.

Summary

This short literature review underscores the importance of control, flexibility, and environmental sensitivity in workplace design. The research suggests that workplaces need to cater to individual preferences and diverse needs to create supportive and inclusive environments that foster both personal and organisational success. No preference is better or worse, it all depends on the individual and what works best for them.

Nic Kipar leads the Academic and Digital Development team at the University of Glasgow. She played an instrumental role in the creation of the James McCune Smith Learning Hub, focusing on inclusive active learning. Nic co-leads the Enhancing Learning & Teaching Practice workstream, contributing to the university’s Learning & Teaching strategy and planning for the upcoming Keystone building, which will feature large interdisciplinary labs. Nic also chairs a working group on Pedagogy in Superlabs, pioneering these innovative spaces for the university.

References

Asselineau, A, Grolleau, G and Mzoughi, N (2024) ‘Quiet environments and the intentional practice of silence: Toward a new perspective in the analysis of silence in organizations’ Industrial and organizational psychology, 17(3), pp 326-340

Batho, LP, Martinussen, R and Wiener, J (2020) ‘The Effects of Different Types of Environmental Noise on Academic Performance and Perceived Task Difficulty in Adolescents With ADHD’ Journal of attention disorders, 24(8), pp 1181-1191

Bayne, S (2024) Future of learning spaces University of Edinburgh: Learning & Teaching Design workshop,  28.10.2024

Bayne, S, Wood, H-R, Simmonds, R, Drysdale, T, Murray, E, Lamb, J, Christie, B. and Nicol, . (2024) Futures For Our Teaching Spaces: principles and visions for connecting space to curriculum Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh

Berman, MG, Jonides, J and Kaplan, S (2008) ‘The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting With Nature’ Psychological Science, 19(12), pp 1207-1212

Bernstein, ES and Turban, S (2018) ‘The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration’ Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences, 373(1753), pp 1-8

Bratman, GN, Daily, GC, Levy, BJ and Gross, JJ (2015) ‘The benefits of nature experience: Improved affect and cognition’ Landscape and Urban Planning, 138, pp 41-50

Champion, L. (2024) RE: Evolution is based on variation. Personal communication to Kipar, N., 05.11.2024

Cobaleda Cordero, A, Babapour, M and Karlsson, M (2019) ‘Feel well and do well at work: A post-relocation study on the relationships between employee wellbeing and office landscape’ Journal of corporate real estate, 22(2), pp 113-137

Colenberg, S, Jylhä, T and Arkesteijn, M (2021) ‘The relationship between interior office space and employee health and well-being – a literature review’ Building research and information: the international journal of research, development and demonstration, 49(3), pp 352-366

Cox, CB, Krome, LR and Pool, GJ (2024) ‘Breaking the sound barrier: Quiet spaces may also foster inclusivity for the neurodiverse community’ Industrial and organizational psychology, 17(3), pp 350-352

Craft, A (2005) Creativity in schools: tensions and dilemmas London/New York: RoutledgeFalmer

Cvijanovic, M (2019) The relationship between workspace and office placement and workforce productivity and wellbeing Doctor of Philosophy, Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Danielsson, CB and Bodin, L (2008) ‘Office Type in Relation to Health, Well-Being, and Job Satisfaction Among Employees’ Environment and behavior, 40(5), pp 636-668

Delle Macchie, S, Secchi, S and Cellai, G (2018) ‘Acoustic Issues in Open Plan Offices: A Typological Analysis’ Buildings (Basel), 8(11)

Ghaemi Flores, S (2023) From cubicles to collaboration: A study on the transformation of government office spaces driven by cost-efficiency, digitilization, and modernization Master of Science, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

Gilchrist, K, Brown, C and Montarzino, A (2015) ‘Workplace settings and wellbeing: Greenspace use and views contribute to employee wellbeing at peri-urban business sites’ Landscape and urban planning, 138, pp. 32-40

Haapakangas, A, Hallman, DM, Mathiassen, SE and Jahncke, H (2018) ‘Self-rated productivity and employee well-being in activity-based offices: The role of environmental perceptions and workspace use’ Building and environment, 145, pp 115-124

Haapakangas, A, Sirola, P and Ruohomäki, V (2023) ‘Understanding user behaviour in activity-based offices’ Ergonomics, 66(4), pp 419-431

Holmes, K (2018) Mismatch: how inclusion shapes design Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press

Laughton, K-A (2017) The Effects of Workspace Office Layout on Aspects of Employee Wellbeing MA, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Laughton, K-A and Thatcher, A ‘Health and Wellbeing in Modern Office Layouts: The Case of Agile Workspaces in Green Buildings’ Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018), Florence, Italy: Springer International Publishing, pp 831-840

Lee, SY and Brand, JL (2005) ‘Effects of control over office workspace on perceptions of the work environment and work outcomes’ Journal of environmental psychology, 25(3), pp 323-333

Lin, Y-S (2020) ‘Possibility Thinking’ The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp 1-9

Morrison, RL and Macky, KA (2017) ‘The demands and resources arising from shared office spaces’ Applied ergonomics, 60, pp 103-115

Ricciardi, E, Spano, G, Lopez, A, Tinella, L, Clemente, C, Elia, G, Dadvand, P, Sanesi, G, Bosco, A and Caffò, AO (2022) ‘Long-Term Exposure to Greenspace and Cognitive Function during the Lifespan: A Systematic Review’ International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(18)

Runco, MA (2007) Creativity: theories and themes: research, development, and practice Amsterdam; Boston: Elsevier Academic Press

Ruohomäki, V, Lahtinen, M and Reijula, K (2015) ‘Salutogenic and user-centred approach for workplace design’ Intelligent Buildings International, 7(4), pp 184-197

Sikström, S and Söderlund, G (2007) ‘Stimulus-Dependent Dopamine Release in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder’ Psychological Review, 114(4), pp 1047-1075

Söderlund, G, Sikström, S and Smart, A (2007) ‘Listen to the noise: noise is beneficial for cognitive performance in ADHD’ Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(8), pp 840-847

Söderlund, GBW, Sikström, S, Loftesnes, JM and Sonuga-Barke, EJ (2010) ‘The effects of background white noise on memory performance in inattentive school children’ Behavioral and Brain Functions, 6(1)

Szulc, JM (2024) ‘Embracing silence: Creating inclusive spaces for autistic employees’ Industrial and organizational psychology, 17(3), pp 357-359

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How online learning can help tackle global injustices

by Sam Spiegel

How can online learning programmes help tackle systemic global injustices with creative pedagogies? How can universities build effective educational environments and pedagogies to support critical thinking and vigorously challenge contemporary forms of racism, colonialism and inequity?

These are some of the questions I have reflected on over the past almost 14 years of teaching at the University of Edinburgh. In 2011, I embarked with colleagues at the School of Social and Political Science to develop our school’s first fully online distance learning MSc postgraduate programmes, partnering with an interdisciplinary team spanning the three Colleges  of the University to co-create and co-teach the MSc in Global Challenges. Addressing global development, health and environmental inequalities, with case studies spanning an array of countries, this programme had students from all over the world. The insights and trajectories of our students have been deeply inspirational – many of our students have gone on to do PhDs, work with United Nations organisations, embassies, non-governmental and humanitarian organisations and work in other kinds of practitioner and research careers. In this blog I reflect on the philosophy of the teaching and learning approach we have nurtured – and associated critical conversations about pedagogy.

We had support from a Principal’s Teaching Award (PTAS) to explore student learning experiences and reflect on our teaching practices, and in 2016 we published an article: ‘Decolonising online development studies? Emancipatory aspirations and critical reflections–a case study’. At the time, it was one of the few critical pedagogy studies to think through ‘international development’ teaching and the risks of replicating colonial logics in online learning modalities (and how to try to counter these). It proposed a critical framework for analysis that took into account barriers to social inclusivity – including the politics of language – that shaped participation dynamics in the programme. It also considered debates regarding critical development course content, rethinking possibilities for bridging counter-hegemonic development scholarship with practice-oriented approaches in a range of social contexts. Our analysis unpacked tensions in tackling intertwined institutional and pedagogic dilemmas for an agenda towards decolonising online development studies, positioning decolonisation as a necessarily unsettling and contested process that calls for greater self-reflexivity.

Some years ago online learning initiatives were treated with suspicion as a technology craze that could not truly build effective communities of critical learners. This is no longer the case, generally speaking. Our online students have carved out sophisticated learning paths while interacting with ambitious courses – sometimes in live discussions and sometimes in asynchronous discussions that built incredible communities of practice. But there are important online learning-specific pedagogic points to keep in mind, as course instructors craft and adapt approaches to support individual and group learning.

One is the risk of re-entrenching problematic dynamics of imperial knowledge production, even when intentions are to do exactly the opposite. There is a need to ensure that online learning platforms grapple with colonial legacies and tendencies – including biases that are easily replicable in virtual technology platforms. It is increasingly recognised that ‘decolonising’ is not simply a matter of ‘bringing in’ authors from Global South countries in reading lists. It is also a matter of ensuring that the underpinning pedagogies, assignments, and learning strategies themselves tackle systemic biases that have often shaped the field of ‘international development’ – and doing so from the outset. This may mean inviting students into at-times uncomfortable conversations about ways of understanding histories of dispossession, or ways of thinking about and governing societies; and ensuring that early course activities trouble assumptions – including about what ‘development’ is/means to different people and whose values are prioritised or overlooked. Some students might not normally read the writings of those who fought during liberation wars against colonialism, for example, but might find such readings different and transformative. There are a range of other possibilities, too, from changing the way that case studies are framed – for example, starting with stories of heavily oppressed peoples instead of starting with the technocratic logics of United Nations and government reports.

Despite global talk of ‘decolonisation,’ there has been a tendency for globally renowned development academics from wealthy countries to dominate reading lists. We have tried in our courses to challenge this – and ensure that activity-focused coursework and online case studies challenge hegemonic assumptions in mainstream policy literature and development discourse. Some of the reflections on our pedagogy were also discussed in a wider influential review article by Shahjahan et al (2022) entitled ‘”Decolonizing” curriculum and pedagogy: A comparative review across disciplines and global higher education contexts’, which notes that ‘decolonization’ has been very differently treated by different educators. Our pedagogy work has also been part of a wider conversation in the scholarly literature on how “precautions need to be taken when incorporating non-Western knowledges into Western universities to avoid mishearing, misrepresenting, exploiting, and decontextualizing them” (Lau and Mendes, 2024; see also Spiegel et al, 2024).

Relatedly, there is a need to be cautious of ideas about “transfer of knowledge” and instead to embrace values built on reciprocal sharing of knowledge in educational practices (see also Parmentier, 2023). Furthermore, attempts at decolonising development education requires attention to the link between learning strategy and wider institutional practices, including heeding inequities in admissions processes and language barriers in higher education. Our work in developing new online learning pedagogies is just part of the story; we have also been interacting closely with university admissions offices on strengthening approaches to make admissions more inclusive. This has included greater recognition of practitioner qualifications and also, significantly, some modifications in how English language testing requirements were addressed in some of the countries affected. This was especially important in contexts where applicants had demonstrable English language proof, from institutional and/or university experiences, but lived far from test centres and could not afford testing.

Our article ‘Decolonising Online Development Studies?’ had a question mark in the title, alluding to the ambiguity of interpretation and the uncertainties that may play out over time. It was cited in other PTAS-awarded studies led by other staff members at UoE, supporting further analysis of specific techniques for building online learning communities (see Wood et al, 2021) How these ideas are to be taken forward is an ethically important conversation that relates to the very core of what education seeks to do, requiring ongoing attention to the interplay of values, philosophies, curricula and teaching techniques.

Dr Sam Spiegel is the director of the Global Challenges MSc programme at the University of Edinburgh, where he serves as the Deputy Director of Research for Knowledge Exchange and Impact at the School of Social and Political Science. He is also a senior lecturer at the Centre of African Studies and has published extensively with colleagues in Zimbabwe and in other regions of the world on migration, displacement, borders, critical pedagogy and social change.