Rosemary’s long and extremely productive career in higher education began with her BA in Sociology at the University of Leicester from 1968-72, followed by an MPhil in Education. She was awarded a PhD by the Open University in 1990 for her thesis: Women and Leisure: A Sociological Investigation. During her career she held academic posts at North Staffordshire Polytechnic, Loughborough University, the University of York, the Open University, the University of Lancaster, and the University of Bristol, as well as Royal Holloway. Her first highly influential book in gender studies, Women and Schooling, was published in 1978. She initially researched women and leisure and educational governance and went on to develop significant expertise and experience in equality, diversity and inclusion, doctoral education, higher education management, qualitative research, and the sociology of power and policy in education. Her work on neoliberalism continues to lead the field and her ongoing and relentless commitment to research, scholarship, and peer review resulted in over 100 publications.
Known and respected widely, Rosemary had national and international professional networks. A regular participant in conferences globally, she learned the Portuguese language and became an external adviser to the Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES) in 2024 at the Universities of Aveiro and Porto. She supervised and examined many doctoral students in Education, Sociology, Management, and Gender Studies and regularly supported her colleagues and students when they presented conference papers and seminars around the globe. She was a loyal and active participant and speaker in the Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research’s events (CHEER) at the University of Sussex, and always offered incisive and informed feedback.
Rosemary was a formidable influence at national level. She was elected three times to the Research Assessment Exercise panel in 1996, 2001 and 2008. From 2013, she served as co-editor of the journal Higher Education, published by Springer, and was a member of the Peer Review College of the European Science Foundation. She also served as co-convenor of the Higher Education Network of the European Educational Research Association. Between 2015 and 2018, she was the first woman to chair the UK Council for Graduate Education. She also served on the Editorial Boards of Higher Education Quarterly and Studies in Higher Education.
Her intellectual generosity meant Rosemary freely shared her substantial knowledge with colleagues and mentees. She was a critical friend on various SRHE funded research projects: in 2011 – Assessing the impact of development in research policy for research on higher education. An exploratory study by Carole Leathwood (London Metropolitan University) and Barbara Read (Roehampton); in 2023 – Towards a Community-Informed Model for PhD research? A place-based exploration of attitudes to doctoral research programmes in Nottingham by Rachel Handforth (Nottingham Trent University); in 2024 – Navigating Microaggressions and EDI Initiatives: Lived Experiences of Chinese International Academics in England by Ming Cheng (Sheffield Hallam University).
She was elected as a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences in 2006. Her extensive services to Higher Education and Social Science were further recognised in 2013 when she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.This was celebrated with a wonderful party at Royal Holloway attended by friends and colleagues from across the globe.We all reconvened six years later to celebrate her joyful 70th birthday. Her alma mater, the University of Leicester, recognised her work in the sociology of higher education by awarding her an honorary DLitt in 2014 and the University’s College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities bestows the annual Rosemary Deem Awards for Social Science Doctoral Researchers in her honour.
Rosemary’s husband since 1985, Professor Kevin Brehony, died in 2013. This was a tremendous loss for Rosemary as they had shared such an intellectually and socially rich life together. I knew Kevin before I knew Rosemary, as we worked together for 10 years at the University of Reading. Kevin was so proud of Rosemary and talked extensively about her and the happy times they shared travelling, cycling, camping, cooking, and of course, debating!
While Rosemary was a serious, committed and abundantly respected professional, she will also be remembered for her tremendous wry sense of fun, her kindness, energy, and joie de vivre. Her wit, wisdom and dry sense of humour could transform any situation into unbridled joy: we always laughed a lot whenever Rosemary was present. She will be hugely missed.
Emerita Professor Louise Morley, University of Sussex
Rosemary and Louise at the European Women Rectors’ Association Conference, Lisbon, May 2018
In SRHE News and Blog a series of posts is chronicling, decade by decade, the progress of SRHE since its foundation 60 years ago in 1965. As always, our memories are supported by some music of the times.
So here we are, with many people taking stock of where HE had got to in 2005 – suddenly I see. Evan Schofer (Minnesota) and John W Meyer (Stanford) looked at the worldwide expansion of HE in the twentieth century in the American Sociological Review, noting that: “An older vision of education as contributing to a more closed society and occupational system—with associated fears of “over-education”—was replaced by an open-system picture of education as useful “human capital” for unlimited progress. … currently about one-fifth of the world cohort is now enrolled in higher education.”
Mark Olssen (Surrey) and Michael A Peters (Surrey) wrote about “a fundamental shift in the way universities and other institutions of higher education have defined and justified their institutional existence” as different governments sought to apply some pressure. Their 2005 article in the Journal of Educational Policy traced“… the links between neoliberalism and globalization on the one hand, and neoliberalism and the knowledge economy on the other. … Universities are seen as a key driver in the knowledge economy and as a consequence higher education institutions have been encouraged to develop links with industry and business in a series of new venture partnerships.”
Åse Gornitzka (Oslo), Maurice Kogan (Brunel) and Alberto Amaral (Porto) edited Reform and Change in Higher Education: Analysing Policy Implementation, also taking a long view of events since the publication 40 years earlier of Great Expectations and Mixed Performance: The Implementation of Higher Education Reforms in Europe by Ladislav Cerych and Paul Sabatier. The 2005 book provided a review and critical appraisal of current empirical policy research in higher education with Kogan on his home territory writing the first chapter, ‘The Implementation Game’. At the same time another giant of HE research, SRHE Fellow Michael Shattock, was equally at home editing a special issue of Higher Education Management and Policyon the theme of ‘Entrepreneurialism and the Knowledge Society’. That journal had first seen the light of day in 1977, being a creation of the OECD programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education, a major supporter of and outlet for research into HE in those earlier decades. The special issue included articles by SRHE Fellows Ron Barnett and Gareth Williams, and by Steve Fuller (Warwick), who would be a keynote speaker at the SRHE Research Conference in 2006. The journal’s Editorial Advisory Group was a beautiful parade of leading researchers into HE, including among others Elaine El-Khawas, (George Washington University, Chair), Philip Altbach (Boston College, US), Chris Duke (RMIT University, Australia), Leo Goedegebuure (Twente), Ellen Hazelkorn (Dublin Institute of Technology), Lynn Meek (University of New England, Australia), Robin Middlehurst (Surrey), Christine Musselin (Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (CNRS), France), Sheila Slaughter (Arizona) and Ulrich Teichler (Gesamthochschule Kassel, Germany).
I’ve got another confession to make – Shattock had been writing about entrepreneurialism as ‘an idea for its time’ for more than 15 years, paying due homage to Burton Clark. The ‘entrepreneurial university’ was indeed a term “susceptible to processes of semantic appropriation to suit particular agendas”, as Gerlinde Mautner (Vienna) wrote in Critical Discourse Studies. It was a concept that seemed to break through to the mainstream in 2005 – witness, a survey by The Economist, ‘The Brains Business’ which said: “America’s system of higher education is the best in the world. That is because there is no system … Europe hopes to become the world’s pre-eminent knowledge-based economy. Not likely … For students, higher education is becoming a borderless world … Universities have become much more businesslike, but they are still doing the same old things … A more market-oriented system of higher education can do much better than the state-dominated model”. You could have it so much better, said The Economist.
An article by Simon Marginson (then Melbourne, now Oxford via UCL), ‘Higher Education in the Global Economy’, noted that “… a new wave of Asian science powers is emerging in China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), Singapore and Korea. In China, between 1995 and 2005 the number of scientific papers produced each year multiplied by 4.6 times. In South Korea … 3.6 times, in Singapore 3.2. … Between 1998 and 2005 the total number of graduates from tertiary education in China increased from 830,000 to 3,068,000 ….” (and Coldplay sang China all lit up). Ka Ho Mok (then Hang Seng University, Hong Kong) wrote about how Hong Kong institutional strategies aimed to foster entrepreneurship. Private education was booming, as Philip Altbach (Boston College) and Daniel C Levy (New York, Albany) showed in their edited collection, Private Higher Education: a Global Revolution. Diane Reay (Cambridge), Miriam E David and Stephen J Ball (both IoE/UCL) reminded us that disadvantage was always with us, as we now had different sorts of higher educations, offering Degrees of choice: class, race, gender and higher education.
The 2005 Oxford Review of Educationarticle by SRHE Fellow Rosemary Deem (Royal Holloway) and Kevin J Brehony (Surrey) ‘Management as ideology: the case of ‘new managerialism’ in higher education’ was cited by almost every subsequent writer on managerialism in HE. 2005 was not quite the year in which journal articles appeared first online; like many others in 2005 that article appeared online only two years later in 2007, as publishers digitised their back catalogues. However by 2005 IT had become a dominant force in institutional management. Libraries were reimagined as library and information services, student administration was done in virtual learning environments, teaching was under the influence of learning management systems.
The 2005 book edited by Paul Ashwin (Lancaster), Changing higher education: the development of learning and teaching, reviewed changes in higher education and ways of thinking about teaching and learning over the previous 30 years. Doyenne of e-learning Diana Laurillard (UCL) said: “Those of us working to improve student learning, and seeking to exploit elearning to do so, have to ride each new wave of technological innovation in an attempt to divert it from its more natural course of techno-hype, and drive it towards the quality agenda.” Singh, O’Donoghue and Worton (all Wolverhampton) provided an overview of the effects of eLearning on HE andin an article in the Journal of University Teaching Learning Practice.
UK HE in 2005
Higher education in the UK kept on growing. HESA recorded 2,287,540 students in the UK in 2004-2005, of whom 60% were full-time or sandwich students. Universities UK reported a 43% increase in student numbers in the previous ten years, with the fastest rise being in postgraduate numbers, and there were more than 150,000 academic staff in universities.
Government oversight of HE went from the Department for Education (DfE) to the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), then in 2001 the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), which itself would only last until 2007. Gillian Shepherd was the last Conservative Secretary of State for Education before the new Labour government in 1997 installed David Blunkett until 2001, when Estelle Morris, Charles Clarke and Ruth Kelly served in more rapid succession. No party would dare to tangle with HE funding in 1997, so a cross-party pact set up the Dearing Review, which reported after the election. Dearing pleaded for its proposals to be treated as a package but government picked the bits it liked, notably the introduction of an undergraduate fee of £1000, introduced in 1998. Perhaps Kelly Clarkson got it right: You had your chance, you blew it.
The decade after 1995 featured 12 separate pieces of legislation. The Conservative government’s 1996 Education (Student Loans) Act empowered the Secretary of State to subsidise private sector student loans. Under the 1996 Education (Scotland) Act the Scottish Qualifications Authority replaced the Scottish Examination Board and the Scottish Vocational Education Council. There was a major consolidation of previous legislation from the 1944 Education Act onwards in the 1996 Education Act, and the 1997 Education Act replaced the National Council for Vocational Qualifications and the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.
The new Labour government started by abolishing assisted places in private schools with the 1997 Education (Schools) Act (an immediate reward for party stalwarts, echoed 20 years later when the new Labour government started by abolishing VAT relief for private schools). The 1998 Education (Student Loans) Act allowed public sector student loans to be transferred to the private sector, which would prompt much subsequent comment and criticism when tranches of student debt were sold, causing unnecessary trouble. The 1998 Teaching and Higher Education Act established General Teaching Councils for England and Wales, made new arrangements for the registration and training of teachers, changed HE student financial support arrangements and allowed fees to rise to £3000, passing narrowly after much Parliamentary debate. The 1998 School Standards and Framework Act followed, before the 2000 Learning and Skills Act abolished the Further Education Funding Councils and set up the Learning and Skills Council for England, the National Council for Education and Training for Wales, and the Adult Learning Inspectorate. The 2001 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act extended provision against discrimination on grounds of disability in schools, further and higher education.
The 2004 Higher Education Act established the Arts and Humanities Research Council, created a Director of Fair Access to Higher Education, made arrangements for dealing with students’ complaints and made provisions relating to grants and loans to students in higher and further education. In 2005 in the Journal of Education PolicyRobert Jones (Edinburgh) and Liz Thomas (HE Academy) identified three strands – academic, utilitarian and transformative – in policy on access and widening participation in the 2003 White Paper which preceded the 2004 Act. They concluded that “… within a more differentiated higher education sector different aspects of the access discourse will become dominant in different types of institutions.” Which it did, but perhaps not quite in the way they might have anticipated.
John Taylor (then Southampton) looked much further back, at the long-term implications of the devastating 1981 funding cuts, citing Maurice Kogan and Stephen Hanney (both Brunel) “Before then, there was very little government policy for higher education. After 1981, the Government took a policy decision to take policy decisions, and other points such as access and efficiency moves then followed.”.
SRHE and research into higher education in 2005
With long experience of engaging with HE finance policy, Nick Barr and Iain Crawford (both LSE) boldly titled their 2005 book Financing Higher Education: Answers From the UK. But policies were not necessarily joined up, and often pointed in different directions, as SRHE Fellow Paul Trowler (Lancaster), Joelle Fanghanel (City University, London) and Terry Wareham (Lancaster) noted in their analysis, in Studies in Higher Education, of initiatives to enhance teaching and learning: “… these interventions have been based on contrasting underlying theories of change and development. One hegemonic theory relates to the notion of the reflective practitioner, which addresses itself to the micro (individual) level of analysis. It sees reflective practitioners as potential change agents. Another relates to the theory of the learning organization, which addresses the macro level … and sees change as stemming from alterations in organizational routines, values and practices. A third is based on a theory of epistemological determinism … sees the discipline as the salient level of analysis for change. … other higher education policies exist … not overtly connected to the enhancement of teaching and learning but impinging upon it in very significant ways in a bundle of disjointed strategies and tacit theories.”
SRHE Fellow Ulrich Teichler (Kassel) might have been channelling The Killers as he looked on the bright side about the growth of research on higher education in Europe in the European Journal of Education: “Research on higher education often does not have a solid institutional base and it both benefits and suffers from the fact that it is a theme-base area of research, drawing from different disciplines, and that the borderline is fuzzy between researchers and other experts on higher education. But a growth and quality improvement of research on higher education can be observed in recent years …”
European research into HE had reached the point where Katrien Struyven, Filip Dochy and Steven Janssens (all Leuven) could review evaluation and assessment from the student’s point of view in Evaluation and Assessment in Higher Education:“… students’ perceptions about assessment significantly influence their approaches to learning and studying. Conversely, students’ approaches to study influence the ways in which they perceive evaluation and assessment.” Lin Norton (Liverpool Hope) and four co-authors surveyed teachers’ beliefs and intentions about teaching in a much-cited article in Higher Education: “… teachers’ intentions were more orientated towards knowledge transmission than were their beliefs, and problem solving was associated with beliefs based on learning facilitation but with intentions based on knowledge transmission.” Time for both students and teachers to realise it was not all about you.
SRHE had more than its share of dislocations and financial difficulties in the decade to 2005. After its office move to Devonshire Street in London in 1995 the Society’s financial position declined steadily, to the point where survival was seriously in doubt. Little more than a decade later we would have no worries, but until then the Society’s chairs having more than one bad day were Leslie Wagner (1994-1995), Oliver Fulton (1996-1997), Diana Green (1998-1999), Jennifer Bone (2000-2001), Rob Cuthbert (2002-2003) and Ron Barnett (2004-2005). The crisis was worst in 2002, when SRHE’s tenancy in Devonshire Street ended. At the same time the chairs of SRHE’s three committees stepped down and SRHE’s funds and prospective income reached their lowest point, sending a shiver down the spine of the governing Council. The international committee was disbanded but the two new incoming committee chairs for Research (Maria Slowey, Dublin City University) and Publications (Rosemary Deem, Royal Holloway) began immediately to restore the Society’s academic and financial health. SRHE Director Heather Eggins arranged a tenancy at the Institute of Physics in 76 Portland Place, conveniently near the previous office. From 2005 the new Director, Helen Perkins, would build on the income stream created by Rosemary Deem’s skilful negotiations with publishers to transform the Society’s finances and raise SRHE up. The annual Research Conference would go from strength to strength, find a long-term home in Celtic Manor, and see SRHE’s resident impresario François Smit persuade everyone that they looked good on the dancefloor. But that will have to wait until we get to SRHE in 2015.
Rob Cuthbert is editor of SRHE News and the SRHE Blog, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics. Email rob.cuthbert@uwe.ac.uk. Twitter/X @RobCuthbert. Bluesky @robcuthbert22.bsky.social.
Helen Perkins was appointed as Director of the Society for Research into Higher Education in 2004. In December 2021, after another very successful Research Conference, she gave notice of her intention to retire. Her last day of office was 30 June 2022, fittingly coinciding with a meeting of SRHE Council, which was able to congratulate and thank her[1] for her outstanding contribution to the Society in her 18-year tenure.
Arriving in turmoil
Helen Perkins
Before Helen’s appointment the Society was facing serious challenges, with parlous finances, uncertainty over its office accommodation, and a limited range of activities for members, despite its established annual conference, its leading journals and a respected book series. The annual SRHE Conference had traditionally been hosted each year by a different university, each time with a new conference organising committee and a new chair: that mode of operation was creaking and no longer fit for purpose. The Society’s financial difficulties were amplified when the new owners gave notice of termination of SRHE’s lease of its office premises in Devonshire Street, London. In 2002 the chairs of SRHE’s main committees had reached the end of their terms of office, but SRHE glitterati Maria Slowey and Rosemary Deem had been persuaded to chair Research Committee and Publications Committee, respectively. Maria Slowey took charge of the annual conference and immediately started work on the quality and quantity of submissions, while Rosemary Deem began the process of restoring SRHE’s finances by negotiating a new contract with long-term publishing partner Taylor & Francis. Director Heather Eggins had announced her retirement but secured new premises for the Society, which became a tenant of the Institute of Physics in Portland Place, just around the corner from its previous perch.
Nevertheless in 2004, as Ron Barnett took the SRHE Chair, there was still great uncertainty about the long-term academic and financial future of the Society. His first major task was to recruit a new Director, and the minutes of the 50th meeting of SRHE’s Governing Council, held on Thursday, 28 October 2004 at 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT record that: “The Chair (Professor Ron Barnett) introduced the new Director, Helen Perkins to the members of Council and informed them that she would be beginning her term in January 2005.”
Steadying the ship
Helen Perkins had held senior posts in British Steel and then as Head of Human Resources at Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC). While at PWC she also served for several years as Chair of the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS). Arriving with both senior managerial experience and a knowledge of HE, she knew from the start how to achieve a workable compromise between the academic desire to argue to a conclusion (however long it took) and the managerial need to reach a timely decision. As Ron Barnett led the rewriting of the SRHE’s mission statement, Council happily endorsed a series of improvements in how the Society was governed and how its activities were managed; its location, staffing and finances became increasingly secure, as successive Chairs – George Gordon, Yvonne Hillier, Jill Jameson, Chris Pole, Pauline Kneale – would testify. In all these changes Helen Perkins was of course centrally involved, and behind the scenes she put together a superb staff team which, although it remains small, now oversees a range of publications, conferences, workshops and network activities which were unimaginable 20 years ago.
44 Bedford Row
The Institute of Physics decided in 2009 to reclaim its sublet premises, and the Society’s offices moved for two years to Bedford Row, an Open University building, before the move to Collier Street, which for 11 successful years facilitated the burgeoning range of membership activities. The pandemic prompted a rethink on working from home and some retrenchment, with the Society eventually moving to its present offices in All Saints Street, part of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations building.
73 Collier Street
The annual Conference continued to gain strength, but until 2008 it continued its peripatetic existence, in Edinburgh, Brighton (twice) and an unforgettable experience in Liverpool, where the Adelphi Hotel more than lived up to the reputation forged in an earlier fly-on-the-wall TV documentary. Helen sought a new approach to the Conference and her unrivalled negotiating skills secured an affordable slot at the Celtic Manor Hotel in Newport, which proved an instant hit and became the venue for every Conference from 2009 to 2019. As the Research & Development Committee took full charge of the event it became possible to expand the Newer Researchers Conference and also accommodate it at Celtic Manor, end-on with the main Research Conference. The pandemic interrupted this sequence, but the staff team led by Helen excelled themselves in creating from scratch a week-long online conference for 2021. This did more than almost any other academic conference to recreate online many of the conference features most valued by Celtic Manor participants, spawning many attempted copycat events by other learned societies.
Reaching new heights
Meanwhile Helen’s negotiating skills were also put to good use in successive new long-term contracts with publishers Taylor & Francis and Wiley, achieving for the Society a level of financial security unimaginable only a few years earlier. The benefits were such that the Society was able to introduce its now established series of annual research grants. Since 2005 SRHE has made 82 Research and Scoping Awards and 35 Newer Researcher Awards, with grants totalling more than £750,000 of direct support for research into higher education.
The range, scope and quality of SRHE’s journals have continued to grow. SRHE News was rethought and relaunched in 2010 as a service to members, and since 2014 has developed an associated blog which is now read by researchers, policymakers and managers in more than 110 countries worldwide. Despite the apparently crowded field of journals covering research into HE, Helen Perkins was a prime mover and innovator in establishing a new journal, Policy Reviews in Higher Education, which has showed that there was indeed a gap in the market for the distinctive opportunities which the new journal offers. Helen would insist we also acknowledge publishers Taylor & Francis and in particular the support and encouragement of Ian White, for many years the Society’s main contact. Appointing new editors for journals and the book series can often be problematic, demanding a balance between the interests of the Society, the publishers and the academic needs of the journal and its editors. Publications Committee is responsible to Council for all such appointments. The Committee’s Chairs, most recently Sue Clegg and Rob Cuthbert, recognise and greatly value Helen’s skill in bringing so many editorial appointments to a successful conclusion.
For so many SRHE members, Helen Perkins and the Society have been inseparable and it will be hard to imagine SRHE without her. But the academic and financial health of the Society have never been better, and the staff team she created but now leaves behind is a strong guarantee that SRHE will continue to develop and prosper. Helen leaves with our thanks, our congratulations and our best wishes for her next steps as she develops a new portfolio of activities to refute any idea of ‘retirement’.
[1] Images and statistics here are taken with permission from Rob Gresham’s splendid tribute to Helen, in his presentation at the lunch attended by many friends and colleagues following the Council meeting.
Rob Cuthbert, editor of SRHE News and Blog, is emeritus professor of higher education management, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Fellow of SRHE. He is an independent academic consultant whose previous roles include deputy vice-chancellor at the University of the West of England, editor of Higher Education Review, Chair of the Society for Research into Higher Education, and government policy adviser and consultant in the UK/Europe, North America, Africa, and China.
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.
There are many ways of communicating. Text always has been our main medium, but the last year has clearly shown that there are other ways. One of the most popular articles in the recent special issue of Studies in Higher Education on the impact of the pandemic was Amy Metcalfe’s photo-based essay. We had a massive SRHE webinar on the contributions, with a truly global audience. Taking David Bowie’s Sound and Vision to the extreme, we have done the Vision but we haven’t done the Sound.
2021 will be another special year. By the end of the year we will still not be able to come together face-to-face at the 2021 SRHE conference, although an exciting alternative kind of conference is being planned. It will be good to have a decent soundtrack for the event. So we thought we might kick this off with a bit of advanced planning – and activity. Last minute work can be a bit tedious and stressful. So we propose a two-pronged approach to this. We’ll start by inviting this year’s contributors to the Studies in Higher Education special issue to submit their 5-song playlist in addition to their accepted and on-line published article. And we invite all the readers of this blog to do the same. What we expect as outcome of this fun and silly project is a reflection of the diversity of our community in music.
So let me kick this off. The basic model is: song and a brief one-sentence reason why, plus Spotify link. Here we go:
1 Amy Macdonald – Let’s Start a Band
The obvious opener for a project like this
2 David Bowie – Life on Mars
The amazing achievement of the Mars Perseverance Rover so far and a tribute to one who left tooearly
3 Bruce Springsteen – The Ghost of Tom Joad
Too many ghosts of 2020 and a brilliant contribution of Tom Morello
4 REM – Nightswimming
Quietly avoiding restrictions without creating chaos and such a great song
5 Vreemde Kostgangers – Touwtje uit de Deur
My Dutch heritage; the literal translation is “A Rope from the Letterbox” reflecting on a time when you could just pull a little rope to enter your neighbour’s house
Amy Metcalfe has also skipped in already with her suggestions, which have been included in the playlist:
1 Snow Patrol – Life on Earth
“This is something else.”
2 Foster the People – Imagination
“We can’t change the things we can’t control.”
3 Haelos – Hold On
“Hold on.”
4 The Weeknd – Blinding Lights
“I’ve been on my own for long enough.”
5 Lastlings – Out of Touch
“Don’t want this to fall apart; Is this what you really need?”
There will be more to follow from contributors to the SHE special issue, but everyone is invited to send in their own 5-track playlist to rob.cuthbert@uwe.ac.uk and leo.g@unimelb.edu.au. We will provide updates via the blog at regular intervals, and aim to compile a comprehensive playlist later in the year – which may or may not become lockdown listening, depending on where in the world you are and how your country is faring in the pandemic. We hope you enjoy it.
Leo Geodegebuure is Editor-in-Chief, Studies in Higher Education, Professorial Fellow in the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education and the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, and Honorary Professor in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University.
For some PhD students attending conferences, research seminars and so on means getting a break from research and it means leaving the library or the lab. During the pandemic everyone has started working remotely and has become only virtually accessible. Cancelling planned face to face events to avoid social contact has made our life extremely quiet and isolated. However, this unusual situation has given me time to reflect on the importance of attending conferences, seminars and other events related to my field. Since the lockdown I have had the chance to attend webinars organized by SRHE. I was lucky to listen to talks on different topics and this opened new ways of thinking about a topic, giving me access to new ideas that I had previously never thought about. This blog reflects on a webinar I attended recently on ‘Undertaking Literature Reviews’ which took place on 29 April 2020, hosted by SRHE. Even though I had attended a seminar on Literature Reviews (LR) two years earlier, during my first year of study, I still had some remaining questions: What type of review did I carry out in my study? And, Where does my voice come into my review? Hoping to get answers to these questions from the presenter as well as from other researchers I was happy to attend the online webinar without wasting time travelling long distances.
Before the start of the webinar we were provided with slides and articles to discover different approaches to the literature review, which can either shape the chapter for the proposed study or provide a background for an academic article. The material suggested three broad approaches: narrative, systematic and theoretical. The Narrative approach is a review that tries to tell a story, reviewing the extant literature as a way of attempting to summarise what has been written on a particular topic. The systematic approach is a way of reviewing literature by using more objective criteria with a goal of summarising enormous amounts of research, scientifically tracking them for quality control. The theoretical approach is a review that covers the history of different meanings given to key terms in a study that has accumulated evidence in regard to concepts, theories or phenomena. The overall aim of the LR is to persuade other scholars in the field of your command of the relevant literature. My own original LR had been a narrative review in a more traditional way that most doctoral researchers tend to follow, mixing concepts and case studies, organising them under big themes followed by subthemes. I chose this approach to show the research committee what I know about my topic. This type of narrative LR helped me to understand my topic by focusing precisely on the context of my research and in establishing the theoretical framework of the study.
From the beginning of the seminar I noticed how the presenter warmly welcomed attendees, letting them introduce themselves by asking the reasons for attending this webinar and their expectations. Even though we were all connected online maintaining physical distance, by introducing ourselves and reflecting on the question ‘why we are attending this online seminar’ we softened the boundaries. Participants came from different backgrounds: experienced supervisors; university lecturers; PhD students like me; and people interested in pursuing a PhD in the future. They all had different reasons to join this online event; some of them had professional interests and wanted to get some suggestions for dealing with their own students` questions; some like myself were undertaking doctoral research of their own and were returning to LR in that context. The webinar description on the website was a clear prospectus: by attending this webinar we would be able to answer questions on the objectives of LR, examine epistemological assumptions about LR and engage in discussion by comparing the types of LR.
The facilitator of the webinar, Dr Michael Hammond (Warwick), started his talk by inviting participants to think about the question, ‘Why do we do LR?’ The answer to this question was a major theme that would guide us through the whole seminar. One answer was that it is a way of knowing where you fit in. The LR must not only demonstrate that I understand debates and conversations, but how my research will contribute to the field. In other words I should be able to create an argument as to why my work is relevant to my field by evaluating conversations surrounding my work describing their weaknesses and strengths.
We also discussed finding the gap that our research addresses, and the importance of finding models of methodology to orient oneself – in carrying out a literature review can you find a study that follows a methodology that you want to use? A literature review should be a critical examination of what has come earlier. I was inspired by thinking about the value and status of literature and we all got the chance to ask questions. One participant wanted to understand where the researcher’s voice comes in the review and shared her view that the voice of the researcher comes from what you choose to cite. Another participant raised the question of what to do if the researcher finds that an existing literature review has already covered the things that you want to discuss. The presenter explained you can re-present past reviews in ways that are more relevant for your particular research question but there was always the opportunity to update any review.
Later we were invited to discuss LR in groups. It was an enjoyable experience, with Zoom creating space for individuals to share their views and experiences of doing reviews. After a while we returned to our main group space. I felt because of this that online events could follow some of the processes common to face to face working. Thanks to the questions raised during the discussion and by sharing my own experience I gained more understanding of LR and had some answers to the questions that I had in my mind.
In conclusion the presenter showed us ways of organising the literature review by using different tools like Endnote and Mendeley. I noticed how the facilitator of the webinar could present his own thoughts, reflecting back again to the questions posed at the beginning of the seminar. As a doctoral researcher I had found answers to my own questions. This event helped me to reflect on my own literature review, carried out two years ago. When I return to it again I will have in the front of my mind the question of how my work will add to the knowledge in my field.
When I first started writing my LR I tried to briefly point out debates and conversations in what has been published about my topic. As my research is looking at the use of technologies in language teaching and learning I discussed the use of technologies chronologically, organizing them under themes, basically looking at the key ideas and theoretical approaches. However, after attending this webinar I have understood the importance of organizing the LR from the beginning around the key ideas and concepts or theoretical approaches. As the presenter explained, making an example of his students` work, organizing your LR from the beginning might be very useful in setting up a coding process of your interview analysis at the later stages of your proposed work.
Akmarzhan Nogaibayeva is a third-year PhD student at the University of Warwick, researching language teachers` ICT use through the lens of ecological theory, in higher education in Kazakhstan.
I was honoured to organise, introduce and chair this SRHE digital university network event on 22 February 2019 at Queen’s University Belfast. It was the second Digital University Network event to take place here at Queen’s and I hope that it becomes a new tradition for both the SRHE and QUB.
The event hosted three papers, from varying perspectives, to discuss the issue of digitisation and how it has affected the professional work of academics. Since most research on digitisation tends to focus on students, there is now a justifiably growing body of work which examine the impact of digitisation on academics, especially in light of new practices of knowledge production, knowledge distribution, and, more broadly, academic identity formation in current times. In other words, what it means to be an academic and to do academic work.
The event began with the team of the ESRC
funded ‘Academics Writing’ project (David Barton, Mary Hamilton (both
Lancaster), and myself (QUB)), outlining how digital media and digitisation
policies are shaping the knowledge-producing work and professional lives of
academics in new and unexpected ways. One focus of this talk was email and how
to manage it and experience it as part of professional life in academia. Much
of the discussion which emerged was around how universities are managed and
how, if at all, academic labour is divided. You can read more about this
project’s findings in our new book Academics
Writing. I worked on this project and found
that it was a great induction into the academic working life!
This was followed by Katy Jordan’s (Open
University) paper, which drew on three of her recent projects. The projects focused on academics’ use of social media
platforms for networking, how these engender different types of impact,
different types of professional connections and relationships, and how these
relate across different discipline groups. Notably, one of Katy’s many findings
is that academic online spaces are not ‘democratising’ spaces, but rather
spaces where hierarchies are reflected and in some cases algorithmically
perpetuated.
Mark Carrigan’s (Cambridge) paper explored how
the proliferation of platforms is reshaping social life, particularly in
relation to the social sciences and their role within and beyond the
university. Among the various perspectives critically explored by Mark were
‘project time’ in academic work, ‘amplification-itis’ where pursuit of online
popularity is an end in itself, and overall ’acceleration’ in the academy as a
result. You can find out more about Mark’s work here.
The papers together presented arguments about
how many of these new practices, brought about through digitisation but also
given impetus by deeper changes such as the marketisation and massification of
HE, are becoming key indicators against which academic professional success is
being measured, with online profiles being factored into an academic’s
reputation and potential to influence their own field. This event, therefore,
critically explored some of the challenges faced by new and established
researchers in understanding what the ‘digital university’ portends for the
future of the academic workforce and for scholarly work in general. The scope
is quite vast so we hope to cover this theme again in future events to include
more international perspectives.
Lewis died on 29 September. I have missed him, as have many people, since he withdrew from public life when he spotted the early symptoms of dementia a few years ago. What follows is not an obituary but more a written memorial service, a celebration of the admiration and affection we had for him, with contributions from Society members influenced by him.
The first contribution is from Harriet Croft (formerly Greenaway) whose period as Vice-Chair of the Society overlapped with Lewis’s period as Chair, at a challenging time. She also gives some basic background for younger members who may not be familiar with it. So, new readers start here.
Lewis Elton
Lewis Elton, who has died at the age of 95, was one of the founders of the SRHE. He was Chair for 1976 and 1977. He had an interesting history. His German Jewish father had obtained a post in the UK shortly before the Second World War and, after some difficulty, the rest of the family also made it to London. Lewis and his brother Geoffrey also became academics.
Lewis was a physicist, working at the Battersea College of Advanced Technology. When it became the University of Surrey, he moved to Guildford where he later shifted his career emphasis and set up an Institute for Educational Technology. He defined ‘educational technology’ as ‘research-based practice’ and it was from this base that his work on teaching methods developed.
Lewis was short of stature but large of personality. He could always be relied upon to be the first person to ask a question, or make a comment, when that awkward pause came at the end of a presentation of a paper. His observations were always thoughtful. For instance, at the SRHE Annual Conference in December 1971 when Innovation in Higher Education was the theme, he drew on analogies of both nuclear physics and then on his Jewish awareness. The conference report states that ‘he thought that a university might well be compared to a factory housed in a country house in a kibbutz’. Commenting on another paper, on educational technology, he argued Continue reading →
Report of an SRHE Professional Development Programme Event held in January 2018
This event was relevant and current for all who work in and across HE. Plagiarism is a contentious and serious matter for students in higher education and a challenge for staff; it made the ‘Preventing Plagiarism’ professional development programme both intriguing and attractive. We all want to know how to ensure our students never fall into the trap of attempting to pass off the work of others as their own. However many times we point students in the direction of institutional regulations and talk about ‘plagiarism’ and ‘misconduct’ there are still frequent cases. Sadly, plagiarism is becoming more accessible to students, owing to the perils of essay mills, contract cheating and now even spy kits. Institutional policies are rightly steeped in procedural routes and punishments can be severe, with misconduct panel meetings, outcomes logged on a student’s record, and even expulsion from the institution. Both staff and students report that these processes are stressful, severe and unpleasant experiences. In a bid to make changes Continue reading →
Emily Henderson writes on fulfilling her dream of convening a symposium on conferences research at the Society for Research into Higher Education annual conference. This post was first published on Emily’s blog, https://conferenceinference.wordpress.com and is reproduced here with the author’s permission.
When we set out to create an academic blog on conferences, it was in part because conferences research is so disparate – in terms of discipline and geographical location. The Conference Inference blog has provided us with a wonderful platform to share research and comment on conferences over the course of 2017, including from a fantastic array of guest contributors – and we will be thinking more about this first year in our 1-year anniversary celebrations in early 2018. However this post reports back from a very special treat – namely, five papers on conferences grouped together in the same room at a conference! The symposium, entitled ‘Academics in the Arena: Foregrounding Academic Conferences as Sites for Higher Education Research’ (see information here, pp. 25-27) brought together a variety of critical perspectives on conferences, along with a discussant contribution from Helen Perkins, Director of SRHE (Society for Research in Higher Education).
The first paper presented early analysis from an ongoing research project on fictional representations of conferences by Conference Inference co-editor Emily F Henderson and guest contributor Pauline Reynolds (see Pauline’s guest post). The paper, entitled ‘“Novel delegates”: representations of academic identities in fictional conferences’, focused in particular on academic identities at conferences as they are portrayed in novels, short stories and graphic novels. Fictional conferences act to both equalise and reproduce academic hierarchy; delegates are homogenised as masses and crowds, uniformly badged and seated, just as delegate-professors are singled out for VIP treatment and delegate-students are denied access to certain spaces and conversations. Continue reading →
