This blog is provided by Professor Sir Malcolm Grant and Mary Curnock Cook CBE. Sir Malcolm chairs the PLUS Alliance, which sponsors TEDI London; Mary Curnock Cook chairs the Council of the Dyson Institute and is a non-executive Director at the London Interdisciplinary School, and is also a Trustee of HEPI.
The Higher Education & Research Act 2017 (HERA) was conceived in a different policy age. It was an enactment of the ideas put forward in 2016 by Jo Johnson, then Universities Minister, in the White Paper, Success as a Knowledge Economy. Among other things, the White Paper posited that allowing new challenger institutions to flourish would help drive up quality across the sector. In the press release accompanying the White Paper, Jo Johnson said:
Our universities are engines of economic growth and social mobility, but if we are to remain competitive and ensure that a high-quality education remains open to all, we cannot stand still. Making it easier for high-quality challenger institutions to start offering their own degrees will help drive up teaching quality, boost the economy and extend aspiration and life chances for students from all backgrounds.
