Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)
The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) was established in November 2002, with the aim to ensure as far as possible that higher education policy development in the UK is informed by research and by knowledge of the experience of others. Its role is to identify important policy issues in higher education as well as the research and experience relevant to these issues, both in this country and overseas. HEPI looks to identify further research needed to illuminate those issues, to facilitate that research, or to undertake the requisite research and policy analysis themselves.
Their mission is to improve higher education by creating a better informed policy environment – informed by research and analysis, as well as drawing on experiences from other countries. They see it as vital that policies for the future of the university system are based on sound and objective analysis. They aim to ensure that HEPI makes a major contribution to such analysis and so help avoid policies being based on hunch, fashion or wishful thinking.
As they aim to improve policy making in higher education, their final targets are the audiences who make policy – the Government and its agencies at the national level, and universities at a more local level. However, they aim to reach wider than that. They recognise the importance of targeting all those who need to be better informed and can influence policy – such as Members of Parliament, Select Committees, chairs of governing bodies, business leaders, the wider university community, HE trade unions, students, journalists and the public.
They see their most important work in publishing reports, arranging seminars, organising conferences and the like to alert policy makers and those who influence policy (as well as the wider public), to the issues, the nature of current experience, and to other relevant research. in general, HEPI does not commission research itself, though it has a small budget which enables it to commission small scale ad hoc studies.
HEPI selects issues that are important and timely for the future development of the universities, and undertakes substantial analyses. They publish these without restrictions. Their reports usually include recommendations and do not merely report their findings: they represent the primary way in which they influence policy. They produce and distribute concise summary reports to a growing readership of about 1500 people connected with higher education. It is these summaries that often have the greatest impact.
Their impact has been significant, both in the UK and overseas. Their recommendations have been quoted at European Commission meetings, as well as in both Houses of Parliament. Select Committee reports regularly refer to their findings. They are often consulted by overseas governments and the World Bank, and have carried out strategic studies for the governments of Jordan, Palestine, Indonesia, Syria, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Several policies have been modified in the UK, in ways that they have recommended: they claim some responsibility for the growing awareness in universities of the importance of the student experience, following their widely-quoted surveys of the amounts of study undertaken by students.
While they support the UK’s universities, they are not a cheerleader for them, or for any of the bodies involved in higher education policy or funding. Their constituencies do not always find their reports comfortable, but they believe this is a small price to pay for greater understanding, better policies and an improved system.
