Professor Julia Buckingham CBE, Vice-Chancellor and President, Brunel University London, and Chair of the Steering Group shares the latest news on the progress of the Athena SWAN…

Kathryn Harrison-Graves, Advance HE’s Director (Membership and Accreditation), Global Partnerships, talks about Advance HE’s new digital platform which will enable academics to…

40 staff from 16 Lithuanian universities attended a Transforming Teaching session at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) in Lithuania run by Advance HE. The session was…

Now is exactly the right time to learn from the best of the HE network, from other sectors, and from other countries.  Robin Ryde, Co-Director of the Top Management Programme (TMP…

Previous attendees from Advance HE’s Top Management Programme (TMP) offer their management and leadership advice.    1. Keep your eyes to the horizon instructs Professor Simon…

Advance HE is pleased to announce six new board members and the formation of a new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee, following an open recruitment process. New…

Students in the R(D)SVS clinical skills laboratory. Attribution: UoE R(D)SVS  The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies (R(D)SVS) at the University of Edinburgh (UoE)…

How UKES can be used to track and benchmark student skills development internationally. With the debate on workplace skills , and the role of universities in helping students to…

Professor Chris Warhurst is Director of Institute for Employment Research (IER) at the University of Warwick. In this blog, he discusses the popularisation of the belief amongst…

If you have ever considered joining the Board of a higher/further education or on a non-executive body in another sector but were not quite sure what it entailed or wondered what…

As a new year commences, Jean Chandler and Stuart Hunt - programme directors for Advance HE’s Transition to Leadership programme – reflect on the programme, styles of leadership…

Doug Parkin, Principal Adviser for Leadership and Management at Advance HE, reflects on his experience as programme director of our acclaimed Leading Transformation in Learning…

Advance HE officially opens the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) 2019 and the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) for nominations today, Wednesday 9…

Dr Harriet Dunbar-Morris is responsible for providing leadership in the enhancement and evaluation of the student experience at the University of Portsmouth. She champions the…

Advance HE’s sixth Research Insight provides equality and diversity practitioners with a useful example of how to evaluate the impact of a programme or intervention, by employing…

Elizabeth Pollitzer is the co-founder and director of Portia, a not-for-profit organisation established in 2001, dedicated to promoting methods of sex/gender analysis in research…

In the New Year, the University of Birmingham will host module one of the next Leading Transformation in Learning and Teaching programme - the application for this programme has…

Advance HE is excited to announce that the University of Northampton’s move to its new campus is the focus of the 2019 Future Professional Directors (FPD) programme live case…

Advance HE’s sixth Research and Data Briefing presents guidance on how to analyse qualitative data, such as focus group transcripts or free-text survey responses. This briefing is…

Leyla Okhai, co-facilitator on Advance HE’s Diversifying Leadership programme, shares her thoughts on why you should consider being a participant.  The Diversifying Leadership…

Advance HE and Ako Aotearoa, the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence in New Zealand, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on Global Fellowship and…

Stories are said to be one of the best ways to teach, persuade and promote understanding. Mark McCrory and Martin McCracken from Ulster University Business School are carrying out…

United International College (UIC), a joint venture between Hong Kong Baptist University and Beijing Normal University, has become the 55th international member of Advance HE. …

Dr Magdy Elnashar is currently working as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University. Dr Elnashar has a…

Kim Ansell , Managing Consultant at Advance HE explores why Internal Auditors are well placed to support a more holistic approach to measuring and communicating institutional…

The University of Notre Dame Australia decided to test the HEA Fellowship waters by supporting 12 academics to become HEA Fellows over 2017/18 academic year.     Last month we…

Tim Savage works as an Academic Development Planning manager at the University for the Creative Arts and is also an HEA Senior Fellow. Here he talks his experience of managing a…

Over the years I’ve worked as a GP in some of South London’s most challenging areas, on my patch in the last few months there have been three tragedies – three young boys lives…

The Athena SWAN Bronze Award has been presented to 15 Australian institutions, recognising their initiatives to improve gender equity and diversity. The institutions awarded are…

18 academics have been recognised as HEA Fellows during Curtin University’s annual ‘Festival of Learning’ held across its campuses in Western Australia, Malaysia, Dubai, Mauritius…

Achieving recognition as an HEA Principal Fellow was a deeply satisfying and quite profound moment in my career. Colleagues have asked me how long it took to write my application…

Advance HE is delighted to announce that Dr Maree O’Keefe, Associate Dean Learning Quality and Innovation, at the University of Adelaide, Australia, is its 1,000th HEA Principal…

Winners of Advance HE sponsored categories announced Advance HE congratulates the winners of the two categories it has sponsored in THE Awards 2018. The categories are: ‘…

Advance HE has launched a programme of engagement to explore how Subject-Led Networks should be shaped, beginning with an event at Cardiff University today (29 November). This is…

Advance HE’s board vacancy portal and Board Diversification projects have been listed as welcome developments contributing to the increase in the percentage of women in HEI’s (…

Advance HE welcomes the report on the UUK report on Degree Classification: transparent, consistent and fair academic standards and the consultation launched today by the Quality…

Advance HE’s Chief Executive Alison Johns presented at the ECC (Educational Competencies Consortium) Annual Conference in London on the issue of gender pay. The ECC conference…

After completing my PhD in 2006 from Lancaster University, I took up a full time lectureship post in the Accounting and Finance department.  Due to a change in personal…

My name is Cathy Bovill and I’m a Senior Lecturer in Student Engagement in the Institute for Academic Development at the University of Edinburgh. In September I was awarded HEA…

The rise in ill mental health and its impact on academic performance is a pressing issue requiring innovative and effective solutions. Training psychology students in Mental…

This is the fourth consecutive year Advance HE has published its UKES (UK Engagement Survey). The results for 2018 show that student engagement levels continue to increase with 9…

"Evolution has made Homo sapiens, like other social mammals, a xenophobic creature. Sapiens instinctively divide humanity into two parts, ‘we’ and ‘they’.”   For this month’s…

Advance HE has published the UK Engagement Survey (UKES), revealing positive trends in student engagement. For the first time ‘commuter’ students have been analysed in detail in…

Academics at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) reflect on their journey to being awarded HEA Fellowship. Professor Pamela Rowntree gives insight into the different…

Last week was ‘Interfaith Week’ across the UK: an opportunity for different groups and communities (of all faiths and none) to come together through a range of activities to…

Advance HE recently published the 2018 version of its Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES). Over 85,000 students from more than 100 UK higher education institutions…

In this blog, Dr Liz Austen and Stella Jones-Devitt of Sheffield Hallam University reflect on how comfortable organisations are in having difficult conversations and how they…

With the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) and the post-18 education review on the horizon, Kim Ansell explains why it’s important for higher education institutions to create,…

The effects of academic boredom can be problematic, affecting student engagement and achievement in sometimes different and unanticipated ways. But what do we know about academic…

The University of Derby has signed a memorandum of understanding with Advance HE, making it the first higher education institution in the country to commit to embedding the agency…

Advance HE is pleased to announce that the Spring 2019 cohort of Leading Transformation in Learning and Teaching (LTLT), will work with a team from the University of Birmingham. A…

Introducing the Pack Since the end of 2017, Helen Johnson has been working with a small group of academics, artists and community partners to produce a free research methods…

Addressing the attainment gap through inclusive assessment In 2017, following an academic restructure, SOAS University of London (SOAS) sought to develop and embed a coherent,…

Dr Lisa Brodie, Head of Department, engineering design and mathematics at the University of the West of England recently took part in the Leading Departments programme. In this…

A new Action Plan by the Gender Equality Taskforce, on behalf of the Republic of Ireland’s Department of Education and Skills (DES), recommends more widespread and deeper…

"I know who I am, but who am I really?”  This is a direct quote from a participant on an Advance HE senior leadership programme.  Now, our programmes are not designed to inspire…

Carers and Careers in Higher Education is the outcome of a collaborative project between Marie-Pierre Moreau, a Professor in Education based at Anglia Ruskin University, and Tim…

Fifty-four new National Teaching Fellows and 15 winners of the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) were recognised at an awards ceremony held in Edinburgh last…

Advance HE is pleased to launch two new frameworks to support Higher Education Providers (HEPs) during the recruitment of board vacancies. These frameworks provide practical step-…

Advance HE is proud to support the Technician Commitment, a sector-wide initiative led by the Science Council, supported by the Gatsby Foundation to help address key challenges…

As we get close to achieving one thousand Principal Fellows, it is worth reflecting on the benefits of the process of gaining PFHEA.  Not only is it a recognition of an individual…

Advance HE’s annual Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) attracted a record response rate in 2018, with 85,880 students from over 100 UK higher education institutions…

Professor Geoff Layer is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton and Chair of the Disabled Students' Sector Leadership Group. In this blog, he discusses how we might…

Advance HE has published two reports today about equality reporting on tertiary education in Scotland. The reports are: Reporting on equality: Assessment of colleges’ performance…

Following the latest round of Athena SWAN award submissions, Advance HE is pleased to announce a further three institutions have gained a silver award, with five new institutional…

Dr Ruth Pilkington (Professorial Fellow, Liverpool Hope) reflects on dialogue when assessing practice and recognising learning. She draws on recent Advance HE reports on…

Call for proposals focussing on mental health and wellbeing of students Advance HE is making funding available for the Small Development Projects of up to £4,000, and for smaller…

There is a worldwide interest in Teaching Excellence, which is reflected in the growth of HEA Fellowships, with more than 108k globally. The debate continues about reward and…

Advance HE celebrated new Fellowship Forums in China, at Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu on 15 October and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai on 16 October. The Forums…

Every one-to-one management discussion you have is either a seized opportunity or a lost opportunity. These discussions in organisations are crucial.  They are where information…

Recently I have read with great interest blogs and articles regarding the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the rise of Artificial Intelligence and the impact on HE in this era. In…

Julie Kelly, the Head of the Student Centre at the University of Hertfordshire enlightens you to the benefits of networking, and shares her expertise developed from time served in…

Advance HE recently published the 2018 version of its Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES). Formerly published every two years, this is the first time the report has…

I took part in the Aurora programme during 2017/18 and it was one of the best investments and experiences I had in respect to my personal and professional development. What also…

Applying for a Principal Fellowship is daunting, especially when you’re far away working in a slightly unconventional context. Meegan Hall, Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Mātauranga…

Advance HE has published the results of the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) 2018 today. 2018 is the first year the survey has been run on an annual basis, and also…

On World Mental Health Day, Advance HE associate and masterclass leader Byron Lee puts the case for compassion as a tool for change, ahead of our Executive Masterclass exploring…

A key element of Advance HE’s Top Management Programme is a trip overseas. Following an incredible opportunity to experience Advance HE’s TMP programme, Rosie Scott-Ward, Pro Vice…

Many of you will know that a Steering Group was established in July this year to lead an independent review of Athena SWAN and report to the Board of Advance HE.  The membership…

One of the most effective techniques we use in our Leading Departments programme is to provide leaders with a simulated environment, challenging participants to confront complex,…

Advance HE’s programmes are dynamic and responsive to our participants’ needs. Doug Parkin and Rebecca Nestor, Programme Directors, discuss how running one of our senior…

Dr Rob Grieve, Senior Lecturer Physiotherapy, University of the West of England, is a Senior Fellow of the HEA, who as a person with a mild stammer has faced many issue in public…

All students in the UK deserve to feel safe on or off campus, which is why we are working with the Office for Students (OfS) to support the 119 Catalyst funded student…

How are we preparing the Next - Generation of learners for the Fourth Industrial Revolution?  A tsunami of new technologies is set to transform the workplace, rapid developments…

Advance HE has issued a comprehensive new guide: “Religion and Belief: supporting inclusion of staff and students in higher education and colleges" to higher education…

Aaron Porter, Associate Director (Governance) at Advance HE talks about the shift of power between management and governance within higher education. It’s been a tough year for…

Advance HE comments on University and College Union’s (UCU) report Investigating higher education institutions and their views on the Race Equality Charter published today: “…

Missed the Virtual Reading Group in August?  Take a look at “Are there distinctive methodologies for pedagogic research in higher education? “ by Stierer and Anthoniou. This…

In his introduction to Advance HE’s recent conference to launch its new report “Let’s talk value: How universities create value for students staff and society by Professor Carol…

Natalie Edwards, Associate Professor of French at the University of Adelaide, explains the reasons for applying for HEA Senior Fellowship, the process of applying and the main…

Amy is an Enterprise Education Officer and Researcher in the award winning Centre for Entrepreneurship at Liverpool John Moores University. Her role is threefold, and involves…

Ben Brabon, Advance HE’s Academic Lead on Arts, Humanties and Social Sciences, has recently returned from China where he was delivering the first of the three modules of Advance…

A new report about integrated thinking and reporting published today by Advance HE sets out how higher education institutions can develop significantly more effective ways to…

Cheryl Reynolds is a Teacher Educator and Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield.  Her research is on technology enhanced and game based approaches to teaching and…

Advance HE publishes its eleventh annual statistical report today. The report offers insights into the age, disability, ethnicity and gender of staff and students in higher…

Today, Advance HE publishes the seventh national student equality data report for colleges in Scotland.  The report is an equality-focused analysis of information on students…

Advance HE has been working on a national level teaching improvement project for the Office of the Higher Education Commission and ThaiPOD Network in Thailand. Kathy Wright and…

Jyoti Banerjee, partner at Fronesys and strategic advisor to the IIRC, highlights that by adopting the principles of integrated thinking and reporting, universities can move away…

The Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) is a worldwide organisation with members in 90 countries on five continents. Its aim is to promote international excellence…

Fifty-four new National Teaching Fellows are announced by Advance HE today, alongside the fifteen winning teams in the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence.   The…

Maria Mawson has worked in the Library at the University of Sheffield since 2000, and is the Faculty Librarian for Social Sciences. She is a Fellow of CILIP (Chartered Institute…

The NET Conference is the leading international conference for networking in healthcare education. Featuring leading speakers and educators from the sector, workshops,…

Advance HE and the CUC (Committee of University Chairs), in collaboration with AHUA (Association of Heads of University Administration) and the 30% Club, have launched a new ‘…

As part of Advance HE’s initiative on Integrated Thinking and Reporting, Janet Haddock-Fraser considers the notion of integrated leadership as a means of mobilising institutional…

“It’s time for teaching excellence to attain the same status and recognition as academic research.” That was the rallying call of Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s Director of…

The National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu City, Taiwan has become an Advance HE Access Partner, and is now our 50th international partner. In the first steps of the partnership…

Advance HE’s third Research Insight presents findings from a review of 61 successful UK Silver and Gold Athena SWAN and Juno Champion (gender equality in physics) applications…

Advance HE chief executive, Alison Johns, has confirmed all the appointments to her top team, the chief executive’s group (CEG).    The appointments are as follows: Kathryn…

Understanding, measuring and enhancing the student experience, and most crucially the depth of student engagement is, without any doubt, high on the agenda of every university.…

McMaster University is the winner of Advance HE’s Global Teaching Excellence Award (GTEA) 2018. The award, now in its second year, recognises outstanding institution-wide…

Cardiff Metropolitan University has bestowed an Honorary Fellowship on Alison Johns, chief executive of Advance HE, in recognition her outstanding commitment and contribution to…

Lorraine is a Chartered Psychologist and Principal Lecturer (Student & Staff Development) at the University of Central Lancashire. She is also an HEA Principal Fellow.. She…

The former chief executive of the UK National School of Government is joining Advance HE as a facilitator on the new agency’s highly regarded Top Management Programme. Robin Ryde…

Academics from Bahrain Polytechnic shared their approach and experience in rolling out their Employability Framework as supported by their model of Problem- and Project-Based…

A new collaboration between Advance HE and the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) has led to the first military officer, Col Lorna Swinyard, achieving Principal…

The Annual Debate 2018 was held on the evening of the second day of the Teaching and Learning Conference, (4 July), following a three course meal at the Conference Centre Hotel at…

Day 3 of Advance HE’s Teaching and Learning Conference at Aston University opened with a keynote speech by Shai Reshef, President of the University of the People (UoP), the world’…

4 July: Day Two of the Advance HE Teaching and Learning Conference 2018 is in full swing, with our chief executive, Alison Johns, introducing our second keynote speaker, John Gill…

3 July: The Advance HE Teaching and Learning Conference 2018 is underway. This morning Advance HE’s chief executive, Alison Johns, welcomed the first group of the 600 plus…

The Aga Khan University (AKU) held a celebration event on Saturday 30 June in recognition of the accreditation of their continuous professional development scheme, reaching staff…

The first meeting of the steering group tasked with a comprehensive review of Advance HE’s Athena SWAN Charter has taken place. The steering group is chaired by Professor Julia…

Jon Burton has been a live sound engineer for over 35 years working at the highest level. He became involved in teaching over 20 years ago and has delivered masterclasses at many…

We could be living in a world where education is not a privilege for the few, but a right for all. A more educated world would mean a more economically developed world, a more…

Professor Sue Rigby, vice-chancellor of Bath Spa University reviews the her first six months in the leadership role.  I am six months into my vice-chancellor role at Bath Spa…

Dr Suzanne Nolan is the Senior Lecturer in Employment Development in the Suffolk Business School, and has recently been recognised as a Senior Fellow of the HEA. She has been…

The winners of the 2018 THE Leadership and Management Awards held in association with Advance HE, were announced on Thursday 21 June 2018 at a celebration event at the Grosvenor…

23rd June marks International Women in Engineering Day. Advance HE Policy Officer (Scotland) Kay Steven takes a look at Scotland’s approach to improving gender equality in…

When the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Plymouth achieved its Silver award (as Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry) in April 2017, we were thrilled…

Sam Nolan works as Assistant Director at the Centre for Academic, Researcher and Organisation Development at Durham University and is also Principal Fellow of the Higher Education…

One year on from becoming the first institution to be awarded Athena SWAN Gold and its impact on our culture continues to grow. Our Gold Athena SWAN award gathered together…

Professor Christine Jarvis is our keynote speaker for Day One of the Advance HE Teaching and Learning Conference, 3-5 July at Aston University, Birmingham. Christine took up the…

Technicians are a body of staff often referred to as an ‘invisible workforce’. They are essential to research and teaching and yet represent a relatively understudied occupational…

In early June, I set off for Slovenia with a degree of trepidation. I may be married to an academic but I most certainly am not one myself.  So you can understand why I felt…

2018 Student Academic Experience Survey highlights students’ belief that value for money in higher education is improving   In a marked reversal of a five-year downward trend,…

Attending (and presenting!) at a conference where the audience consists mainly of established scholars in the subject area – in this case, student evaluations – can be quite…

Advance HE CEO, Alison Johns, welcomed the publication of TEF 3 Awards today, “These awards point to the excellent quality of teaching across the higher education sector in the UK…

We’ve all been in a meeting where we have heard the latest sector buzzword or strategic priority thrown around as a reason for pursuing a particular course of action or policy…

Going Global is the British Council’s annual conference for leaders of international education. Advance HE participated in this year’s conference (theme: ‘Global Connections,…

In April 2017 the government introduced new legislation which made it a legal requirement for every business and organisation employing over 250 members of staff to record and…

Last month Advance HE joined up with University of the West of Scotland to hold Scotland's second symposium, this time with a focus on retention and enhancing the student…

Australia’s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) and Advance HE, whose purpose is to advance the professional practice of higher education, have signed a…

Dr Joe Barton (Representation & Research Coordinator, Newcastle University Students’ Union). On 9 May, I ventured to Leeds to present at the Surveys 2018 conference,…

Advance HE is delighted to announce the University of Oxford as its newest Race Equality Charter bronze award holder. De Montfort University was also successful in renewing its…

Mandi Barron, AMOSSHE Executive Member, Head of Student Services at Bournemouth University, and LFHE Fellow This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week focuses on stress, a key…

Advance HE will undertake a major review of the Athena SWAN Charter, ensuring that it is fit for current and future needs of institutions, individuals and the sector as a whole…

17 institutions from six countries in contention for the overall award and for one of five new ‘Spotlight’ awards. Advance HE is delighted to announce the finalists for the Global…

The chief executive of Advance HE, Alison Johns, will be joining other leaders working in international higher education at this year’s Going Global conference in Malaysia. The…

As part of the subject-level TEF, the DfE is consulting on whether to introduce a new measure of teaching intensity. One of the six options presented for consideration as part of…

As Advance HE takes its first steps as a new organisation, Chief executive Alison Johns reflects on the first days and her plans for the new HE sector agency during the rest of…

Thank you for taking the time to visit our website. Advance HE is a new agency formed in 2018 from the merger of Equality Challenge Unit, the Higher Education Academy and the…

Advance HE, the new sector agency to be formed from the merger of the Equality Challenge Unit, Higher Education Academy and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, is…