Routledge Influencing Higher Education Policy: A Professional Guide to Making an Impact

Drawing together a team of expert contributors from across the sector to offer contemporary descriptions and critical reflection of practice in higher education, Influencing Higher Education Policy uncovers the nature of policymaking and interpretation. With a suite of authors whose experiences range from governmental to academic, this book shares insights from professionals working in the field of higher education policy to provide useful, practical, and implementable information. Placing focus on professional aspects, and with practical examples bringing to light experiences, insights, and recommendations across policy and public affairs, this book is divided into three sections. It covers concepts and theories for policy influence, regulation and the role of government, and institutions’ engagement with policy. Furthermore, it considers: what it means to work in policy and public affairs in higher education; the increased complexity and fluidity of higher education politics; regulatory reforms in higher education; the position of the student in policy discourses. Offering a contemporary representation, Influencing Higher Education Policy is an indispensable guide for all those who work in higher education, particularly those who work in communications, strategy, planning, and leadership roles. Review This important practical guide to policymaking in UK higher education brings together the perspectives of a range of actors and commentators on how the policy process has been transformed in the last few years. Bagshaw and McVitty are to be commended for plugging a gap in the literature, between policy comment and academic analysis. They, and their contributors, intelligently explore the messy, complex and contingent nature of policymaking and the politics that surround it, in engaging and refreshing ways. If you’re interested in actually shaping policy and influencing the politics surrounding higher education – in the UK or elsewhere – this book is for you. Professor William Locke, University of Melbourne, Australia Today English universities find themselves working in an evolving regulatory framework that can feel like some form of natural experiment. So there is a clear need for a book such as this which sheds light on the thinking and priorities of policymakers, and all those who help them to shape their concepts of higher education. The combination of theory and practice in this analysis of past initiatives and possible future directions for the sector therefore provides invaluable insights for all those working in policy roles in the sector today. Dr Helen Carasso, Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK Becoming or remaining a successful HEI in today’s dynamic and volatile operating environment depends on anticipation and strategic positioning. This can’t be done without a considered and systematic approach to intelligence gathering, institutional research, data analysis and policy-influencing, as this edited volume clearly demonstrates. The book gathers ideas and case-studies from expert practitioners to show why policy and public affairs related activities have become so necessary in the UK and how to do them well at individual and institutional levels. The aim of the book – to contribute to the growing professionalisation of these activities and to put them at the heart of institutional strategy – is a valuable and timely call to arms. Robin Middlehurst, Professor Emeritus of Higher Education, Kingston University London, UK   Policy wonkery in UK higher education has come into its own. With this book, it now has its own professional guide. Essays span the key zones of policy work, from the local and institutional through to the governmental and supranational. Contributors write with authority and experience, as insiders-outsiders and as hybrid professionals, some with careers that began in student politics. The issues are live, the examples instructive and the i