Professor David Eastwood Chief Executive Higher Education Funding Council for England

JISC Conference 2007 Sustaining excellence in higher education

13 March 2007

A transformed higher education sector

Age participation
Participation in Higher Education
50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0
2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973 1972 1971 1970 1969 1968 1967 1966 1965 1964 1963 1962 1961 GB API = Undergraduate Full-time and Sandw ich entrants under 21 as proportion of average number of 18 and 19 years olds in the population. England HEIPR = initial participation rate for England population aged 17 to 30 years and includes part-time students - for full description see DfES SFR

GB API England HEIPR

Participation rates by gender

50.0 45.0

40.0

35.0

30.0 Percentage
API Men

25.0

20.0

API Women

15.0

HEIPR Men

10.0

HEIPR Women

5.0

0.0

80

81

79

83

84

85

86

82

88

89

91

87

93

94

96

92

98

97

99

90

95

01

02

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

20

19

20

20

Academic year

20

20

03

04

00

DfES funding
DfES publicly planned unit of funding
9,000 8,500 8,000 7,500 per FTE student 7,000 6,500 6,000 5,500 5,000 4,500 4,000
198990 199091 199192 199293 199394 199495 199596 199697 199798 199899 199900 200001 200102 200203 200304 200405 200506 200607 200708

(real terms 2006-07=100)

grant grant + public fee grant + public fee + private regulated fee grant + public fee + private regulated fee + capital

DfES funding and students

DfES publicly planned unit of funding
(real terms 2006-07=100) 9,000 8,500 8,000 7,500 per FTE student 7,000 6,500 6,000 5,500 5,000 4,500 4,000
198990 199091 199192 199293 199394 199495 199596 199697 199798 199899 199900 200001 200102 200203 200304 200405 200506 200607 200708

grant grant + public fee grant + public fee + private regulated fee grant + public fee + private regulated fee + capital

Student FTE

Main components of HEFCE grant in 2007-08 ( millions)

449 738 25

Teaching and WP Research V. high cost and vulnerable science Capital funding Special funding

1,415 4,510

Total grants
7,137 million available for 2007-08 Overall cash increase of 6.4% None of the increases are due to introduction of variable fees.

Funding increases
Available teaching grant up 7.2%, mainly due to additional student numbers Research grant up 5.4% Earmarked capital up 4.8% Special funding up 3.9%
Declining proportion of our total budget.

Key priorities

Progress towards 50% (the HEIPR) Leitch (29 - 40% higher level skills) Delivering high quality mass higher education RAE 2008 Research assessment beyond 2008 The growing importance of the 3rd stream agenda

HEFCE Strategy and Funding

Strategy:

Excellence in teaching Widening participation and lifelong learning Maintaining a world class research base Strengthening HEs contribution to economic growth and social inclusion

Funding:

Block grant to HEIs for teaching and research Special funding for research libraries and JISC

Drivers for change

Increasingly diverse student body: non traditional entrants, lifelong learning, new modes of study A more demanding student body: students as fee paying customers New research approaches and an expanding information base The internet and IT enabled tools Cost and funding pressures

New Student Cultures, New Patterns of Learning

What is a university when there is universal access to knowledge? Rethinking the role of the university Technologies and pedagogies for the new learning How do students learn in the information age? Reinventing the university as a site for understanding and interpreting the world

What is happening now? (1)

The Library

Some things do not change: librarians will continue to play a central role The hybrid library: doing more with the same resources From books to terminals to information management

What is happening now? (2)

Teaching and learning:

Students expect immediate access to a range of materials Supporting students as independent learners

Research:

Scholarly communications Immediate access to everything - and archiving and data storage Delivery to the desktop Finding and sifting online information Ordering research information

Developing a new framework for the assessment and funding of research

The new framework

The Secretary of State has asked HEFCE to develop the new framework working with the other funding bodies. Our key aims will be:

To produce robust indicators of research quality that are internationally meaningful To reduce substantially the burden associated with the RAE To rely as far as possible on quantitative indicators To accommodate disciplinary differences within a common framework

What about RAE 2008?

RAE 2008 will go ahead as planned and is crucial:

To provide a baseline for the new system To update quality assessments unchanged since 2001 and to underscore the UKs international reputation To inform funding from 2008 until 2014 while the new system is phased in

Beyond 2008: quality indicators

In consultation with the sector, we will need to develop new UK-wide indicators of research quality that:

Are robust and transparent Are meaningful for both funding and benchmarking purposes Give due credit to user-valued research Accommodate interdisciplinary research Take account of equal opportunities and early career researchers

Meeting the Shared Services Challenge

JISC as a model? Sustain JISC and the network Anticipating the future and understanding affordability Beyond JISC (or not): getting value out of interoperability; or do we need new standards and generic systems?

Envisioning the University of the Twenty-first Century

What does it look like? When is a university virtual and when is it real? From the chapel to the library towhat?