Campus by Times Higher Education

Universities are public service organisations, educating and researching for the broader societal good. Yet in many countries, the UK and Australia among them, public funding for these institutions has been stripped back forcing them to take a more strategic, commercial approach to generate the income needed to support their work. How can institutions balance social responsibilities against the need to maintain sound finances? How can they improve the quality of teaching and research while driving efficiency and streamlining spending? And how can they remain competitive in an ever-changing global higher education sector? We spoke to two vice-chancellors about how they navigate these challenges. Alex Zelinsky has been vice-chancellor of the University of Newcastle, Australia, since 2018. He a computer scientist and systems engineer by background who has previously worked in government as Australia’s Chief Defence Scientist. Anton Muscatelli has been principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Glasgow since 2009. He will be retiring next year after leading the university through a period of impressive growth. An economist, Anton was chair of the First Minister’s Standing Council on Europe and a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers until 2021. He has been a special adviser to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on fiscal and monetary policy, and has advised the European Commission and the World Bank.

For students to thrive within a higher education setting, they need to feel safe and supported. Universities’ duty of care extends from making students feel welcome and valued to protecting them from serious harm. On this week’s Campus podcast, we discuss the full spectrum of student safeguarding and support. Rachel Fenton, a professor in law at the University of Exeter and one of the UK’s leading academic experts in sexual violence and bystander intervention outlines the scale of the problem in UK universities and explains what can be done to tackle sexual misconduct in all its forms. Catherine Moran, deputy vice-chancellor, academic, at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, discusses how her institution approaches student support, harnessing data and tech tools alongside human connection to ensure all students get the reassurance or help they need to succeed in their studies. For more advice and insight specific to university safeguarding, head to our latest spotlight collection, made up of resources contributed by higher education professionals from all over the world: Duty of care: making university safe for all

What underpins effective research, knowledge generation and innovation? In this podcast, we hear a world-leading biomedical scientist discuss what constitutes effective knowledge exchange and supports translational research that can, ultimately, result in innovations that change the world for the better. Plus, a data scientist outlines the opportunities and risks associated with the proliferation in, but also greater regulation of, online data and what this could mean for future research. Chas Bountra is pro-vice chancellor for innovation of the University of Oxford – we spoke just a week before the University of Oxford was named as the world’s leading university in Times Higher Education World University Rankings, for the ninth year in a row. The university claimed the top spot once more, based on its increased income from industry, the number of patents citing its research and its teaching scores. Chas is also a professor of translational medicine and head of impact and innovation in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine. He is a director at Oxford University Innovations and has previously worked in industry as vice president and head of biology at GlaxoSmithKline and was the director of the Structural Genomics Consortium Oxford from 2008 to 2020. Sara de Freitas is an an author, educator and researcher with extensive expertise in data science and digital technologies. She is honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and a visiting professor at the Open University and the University of South Wales.

For this episode of the Campus podcast, we talk to Eunice Simmons, who has been vice-chancellor of the University of Chester since 2020, about what works when it comes to widening participation in higher education and how to ensure students are successful in their studies and beyond. She describes how initiatives such as Citizen Student and the Race Equality Challenge Group embed the values of social capital, civic engagement and equity across the institution, and link academic learning to the real world. Her work towards widening participation, which resulted in a joint win as 2023 University Leader of the Year in the Purpose Coalition awards, includes being chair of the board of trustees of Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO). An environmental scientist by training, she also discusses how post-Covid changes to work patterns led to a rethinking of university spaces to boost sustainability and cost efficiency.

Effective teaching sits at the heart of higher education’s mission to advance learning and discovery. But what are the key components which make up top quality instruction? And how can these be achieved in different and often fast evolving educational contexts? It is this latter question which makes defining good teaching so difficult. So, for this week’s podcast we spoke to two academics who have taught and researched teaching in widely varied settings to dig into the nuances of this most admirable of skills. Leon Tikly is a professor and global chair in education at the University of Bristol, UNESCO chair in inclusive, good quality education and co-director of the Centre for International and Comparative Education in the School of Education. Jason Lodge is associate professor of educational psychology and director of the learning, instruction and technology lab in the University of Queensland’s School of Education. He is an expert advisor to the OECD and Australian National Task Force on AI in Education.

What is an intelligent campus? How is technology blurring, or extending, the borders of the modern university? And how do you build belonging when your students could be spread across the globe? In this episode of the Campus podcast, we talk to two experts from leading US institutions – who were both speakers at Times Higher Education’s Digital Universities US 2024 event – about how technology is redefining the university experience. Steve Harmon is executive director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at Georgia Tech as well as associate dean of research in professional education and a professor in the School of Industrial Design. He explains how his university has created “co-learning” spaces where students can gather and interact while benefitting from the flexibility of hybrid learning, and how technology from VR to YouTube supports the “learning to learn” skills that underpin higher education. Lev Gonick is the enterprise chief information officer at Arizona State University and chair of the Sun Corridor Network, Arizona’s research and education network. He talks about the digital infrastructure required to support inclusive digital education at scale, looking to Hollywood-style immersive storytelling to teach STEM, and why it’s vital to align digital goals with the institution’s overall mission.

In this episode, we sit down with two panellists from Times Higher Education’s Digital Universities Asia 2024 event to talk to them in more detail about how their institutions have embraced advancing digital technologies in different ways – and brought their staff and students along for the ride. Julia Chen is director of the Educational Development Centre at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and leads a multi-university project focused on best practice in relation to generative AI. She talks about how her institution is rethinking teaching and assessment in the light of AI advances and supporting faculty in making the necessary changes to their course design and delivery. Helen Cocks is head of digital strategy and engagement at the University of Exeter, responsible for setting the direction and driving engagement for the institution’s digital transformation. She explains how her team has partnered with students and staff to roll out a university-wide digital strategy focused on improving student experiences and upskilling staff. These conversations were recorded live, in-person, at Digital Universities Asia in Bali in July 2024.

This episode of the Campus podcast comes at a time when many UK universities are changing leaders. A total of 30 institutions have either had a new leader start or have begun the process of finding a replacement in 2024, according to a Times Higher Education analysis last month. So, what are the skills and experience that underpin good leadership and how do you prepare for a senior role? Our interview is with Shân Wareing, the new vice-chancellor of Middlesex University in northwest London, arranged after she posted on LinkedIn about the five things she focused on in her first day in the role. In that post, she listed sense-checking the mandate she had first pitched, identifying the key people to meet, understanding the underlying issues, how to make decisions “stick”, and seeing the life of the university. As she explains, the clarity of that road map comes from over 20 years’ leadership experience in roles such as deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Northampton and pro vice-chancellor of education and student experience at London South Bank University. But her acuity comes from other sources, too. She offers fascinating insights into how to put a career together, the skill that is more important than confidence, and finding joy in what you do.   Our conversation took place in May, when she’d been in post for just over a month.

With frozen tuition fees, falling international student enrolment and the very real possibility of a university going bankrupt, the UK’s new Labour government has inherited a sector in crisis. The need for fast action is apparent, but where should priorities lie? Two higher education leaders share their perspectives on what the sector needs in the short and long term.  For this episode of the Campus podcast, we talk first to Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, about universities’ valuable opportunity to make a first impression, where Labour might turn for advice on higher education and how the sector may “tilt” in a quest for balance and stability.    Our second guest, Chris Day is chair of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities and vice-chancellor of Newcastle University. He details what is at stake for a sector amid a funding crisis, job cuts and department closures – and where new revenue streams might come from – as well as hope that the 4 July election has brought a chance to reset the sector’s relationship with Westminster.

One way to future-proof students in our globalised world is to improve their cross-cultural communication skills. With students and academics more mobile than ever, the ability to reach across divides – be they language, culture, religion, economic or location – will be in demand whatever the workplace. These skills offer a path to belonging, innovating, being effective and thriving in higher education and industry. For this episode, we talk to two very different experts in cross-cultural education; one works in medical and healthcare communication in Hungary and the other teaches creative writing and other media in the mountains of Central Asia. They share their advice for creating a classroom that supports language learning and understanding, how teaching can adapt to maximise the benefits of an international student cohort, connecting practical clinical skills with functional language, and how language learning itself creates more empathetic communication. Lucy Palmer is a senior lecturer of communications and media based at the Naryn campus of the University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan. She is also a former foreign correspondent and a successful memoir writer. Katalin Fogarasi is an associate professor and director of the Institute of Languages for Specific Purposes at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary.

Will the UK general election offer a ray of hope for the beleaguered university sector? On this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, two policy experts give their take on opportunities that 4 July may bring and how a new UK parliament might tackle hot topics such as international students and research funding. Our questions include what is on higher education’s wish list for the new parliament, and how might university leaders demonstrate the value of their institutions to policymakers? Over two interviews, we also tackle “blue sky” research funding, the future of skills training, how immigration policy might shape international student flows, and whether higher education will be a priority regardless of who wins the race to Whitehall. Nick Hillman is director of the Higher Education Policy Institute and worked as chief of staff for David Willetts when he was minister for universities and science from 2007 to 2013. Diana Beech is CEO of London Higher. Her policy experience includes being a policy adviser to three ministers of state for universities, science, research and innovation.

For this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk to award-winning author, cultural historian and literary critic Alexandra Harris about the research and writing practices behind her new book, The Rising Down: Lives in a Sussex Landscape (Faber, 2024). Alexandra is a professorial fellow in English at the University of Birmingham in the UK. Her books include Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists & the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper, which won The Guardian First Book award and a Somerset Maugham award, and Weatherland, which was adapted into a 10-part radio series for the BBC. This conversation explores what a literary scholar can bring to the study of local history, the power of place, and how “trespassing” researchers can find new insights in familiar records of everyday and celebrated lives.

Katie Normington, vice-chancellor and CEO of De Montfort University, has proved to be adept at both leading by example and change management. Not only did she join the Leicester institution during Covid amid the longest lockdown in the UK, but in the three years she has led the institution she has overseen large-scale curriculum reform. De Montfort has moved most of its undergraduate and postgraduate courses from traditional curriculum structure to block plan, with significant boosts in student satisfaction. The way that Normington talks about leadership demonstrates the very qualities she champions: clear strategic direction, communication and empowering others to lean into their strengths. She is a past winner of a Times Higher Education leadership and development award. This conversation covers her journey from aspiring ballet dancer to university head, early leadership challenges, and why higher education needs bold leaders, courage, creativity and agility as it faces global challenges.

Imagine a learning environment where an AI professor fields infinite student questions, where business students practise difficult conversations with an avatar that models an array of personas and reactions, where automated feedback is not static but dynamic and individualised. Artificial intelligence and XR tools are changing education and preparing students to live and work in an unpredictable world.  In this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk to an expert in immersive technology, whose experience includes big tech companies such as Amazon and Meta, where she was head of immersive learning, as well as her current role in higher education. Monica Arés is executive director of the Innovation, Digital Education and Analytics Lab at Imperial College London. In this conversation, she tells us about the evolution of edtech from the early days of virtual reality, immersive technology’s potential for unlocking curiosity (and the costs that come with it), and what she thinks teaching technology will look like in 2034. Hint: it’s a personalised, creative world with fewer screens.

For this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk with an academic, practitioner and policy commentator who uses phrases such as “burning platform” to describe the state of universities’ digital landscape. Mark Thompson is a professor of digital economy in the research group Initiative for the Digital Economy (Index) at the University of Exeter, and his work focuses on the complexity and velocity of the digital economy. A former UK government policy adviser, he is recognised as one of the architects of digital service redesign of the UK public sector. In this interview, conducted at Digital Universities UK at Exeter, Thompson shares his concern that the sector is drifting away from its true north of research, teaching and impact (he uses Jeff Bezos idea of “day one”), citing statistics that less than 40 per cent of university staff are academics. He suggests reasons for this and talks about the need for leadership at institutional and government level as well as the prisoner’s dilemma of whole-sector transformation.  

What difference does human connection make to student success? Does it matter if students come to in-person lectures? And what if students turn to AI for help with academic tasks rather than asking libraries or someone in student support? This episode of the podcast takes on these questions, ones that have driven headlines on Times Higher Education, to examine the topics of student attendance in lectures and whether students’ use of AI might be making them lonelier. We talk to two Australian academics who both touch on questions of human connection in their work. Jan Slapeta is a professor of veterinary and molecular parasitology and associate head of research in the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney. He first talked to THE in 2022 when his tweet of a photo of an empty lecture hall touched a nerve in the Twitter-verse. Here, he explains why he is feeling optimistic about in-person teaching in 2024. His insightsare insightful and heartening as are his tips for new teachers. Joseph Crawford is a senior lecturer in management in the Tasmanian School of Business at the University of Tasmania. His paper, co-authored with Kelly-Ann Allen and Bianca Pani, both from Monash University, and Michael Cowling, from Central Queensland University, “When artificial intelligence substitutes humans in higher education: the cost of loneliness, student success, and retention”, was published last month in Studies in Higher Education. Our conversation ranged from what belonging and loneliness actually are to what happens when students turn to AI over real-life relationships.

In this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk to two experts – one in the US and one in the UK – about open access, the global movement that aims to make research outputs available online immediately and without charge or restrictions. Heather Joseph has been an advocate for knowledge sharing and the open access movement since its earliest days. Based in Washington DC, she has been executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) since 2005, and is known for her policy work, leadership and international consultancy for organisations such as Unesco, the World Health Organisation and the World Bank. In 2021, she won the Miles Conrad Award, the National Information Standards Organization’s recognition of lifetime achievement in the information community, and her lecture as the recipient is a detailed history of the movement, its goals and strategies. Steven Vidovic is the head of open research and publication practice at the University of Southampton in the UK. A palaeontologist with a passion for scholarly communication and knowledge exchange for public benefit, he is also chair of the Directory of Open Access Journals advisory board and Southampton’s institutional lead for the UK Reproducibility Network, and he is a member of Jisc’s transitional agreement oversight group.

In this episode we discuss a rare creature: the female higher education leader.  Indeed, according to the American Council on Education’s most recent American College President Study, women remain outnumbered by men in the college presidency by a ratio of 2:1, with about 33 per cent of presidencies held by women. Women in higher education were also more likely to work a part-time or reduced schedule or postpone a job search or promotion to care for minor dependents We’d be hard pressed to find a better person to speak with about female leadership in higher education than Sian Block, an award-winning cognitive scientist and an expert on performing under pressure. She is also the 19th president of Dartmouth, and the first woman elected to the position in the institution’s 250-year history. Sian speaks about navigating failure and dealing with anxiety on the job. She also gives some very helpful advice on how to turn imposter syndrome into something positive and shares her personal experience of female leadership, a journey that began with working in the provost office at the University of Chicago before serving as president of Barnard College at Columbia University and then moving to Dartmouth in 2023. 

In this bonus episode of the THE podcast, we continue the theme of universities’ role in fostering civic engagement with an interview with renowned human rights scholar and award-winning author Kathryn Sikkink. Sikkink is the Ryan Family professor of human rights policy at Harvard Kennedy School, as well as faculty co-chair of the Harvard Votes Challenge, a non-partisan initiative that promotes student voter registration and turnout. Her books include The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibilities (Yale University Press, 2020) and The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), which won the Robert F. Kennedy Center Book Award. In this discussion, we talk about the origins of Sikkink’s interest in human rights, what support students need to navigate the mechanisms of voting, and why showing up on election day is not just a right, it’s a responsibility.

In 2024, more people than ever in history will be going to the polls to vote in elections in more than 80 countries, including the US and the UK. As pillars of democratic societies, universities and colleges are integral to the exercise of choosing our public representatives. In today’s episode we speak to two political scientists about voting habits, including among Generation Z, and how universities can encourage their students to engage in the democratic process. Elizabeth Matto is director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, a research professor and teacher-scholar-practitioner of democratic education and director of the Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University. She talks to us about what civic engagement is, how campuses can support their students to vote and engage as citizens, and universities’ mission to prepare young people to be part of a democratic society. She also gives tips for facilitating political discussion in the classroom and creating an environment that allows students to be brave, respectful and open with their views. Her new book, To Keep the Republic: Thinking, Talking, and Acting Like a Democratic Citizen (Rutgers University Press, 2024) is published in April. Michael Bruter is a professor of political science and European politics in the department of government at the London School of Economics and Political Science and director of the Electoral Psychology Observatory. Michael has published seven books, including his latest book with Sarah Harrison, Inside the Mind of a Voter (Princeton University Press, 2020), and multiple articles in the fields of elections, political behaviour, political psychology, identities, public opinion, extreme right politics and social science research methods. He told us what their research has shown about first-time voters, including debunking misconceptions such as that young people don’t care about elections, and why voting is like bungee jumping.