LSE Higher Education Blog

Black and white photo of the backs of people's heads in a crowd

Have we reached PhD saturation point? With doctoral student demand outstripping supply of academic jobs, it’s time for governments, universities, and prospective PhD students themselves to take action to avoid regret, says LSE HE Blog Fellow Huw Morris blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

An image of Raphael's 'School of Athens' altered by ChatGPT to show the characters in the image using laptops and tablets

Confessions of a Luddite teacher: Anna Lukina sets out the case for edtech pessimism as she swims against the tide in a higher education environment replete with learning technology blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Dr Risheka Walls shares a patient interaction with students virtually using the Microsoft HoloLens headset at Imperial College London, UK

Is the lure of AI blinding universities to the power of the tools already in its pockets, Nick McIntosh asks. Perhaps higher education needs a reality check when it comes to tech
blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Big brother, ombudsman, dictator: the role of the state in fostering pluralism in the academy - LSE Higher Education As the tension between academic freedom and governmental intervention grows, LSE HE Blog Fellow Tamas Dezso Ziegler outlines the measures governments have at their disposal to encourage heterodox voic...

Tamas Dezso Zeigler says we must understand the gravity of government interventions in higher education in order to resist
“[government] efforts to impose a uniform ideological framework within academia."

blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Five book covers organised into a partial pyramid shape. A yellow umbrella on a beach with a blue sky lies in the background of the book covers.

Has speculative fiction challenged your thinking or world view? Explore some fresh spec fic campus novel reviews in Ijeoma N Njaka's new blog post, and expand your summer reading list!

blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

#SpecFicSummer

Chen-Ta Sung explains that the "recruitment of international students to maintain financial stability...risks reinforcing existing social inequalities. It privileges those who can afford elite global credentials" in this new blog post.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

How radical is your imagination? Capital R or lower-case r? From campus facility plans to humble textbooks, subverting the status quo can happen in the most unlikely places, says LSE HE Blog Fellow, Ijeoma N Njaka blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Images of Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, Brothers of Italy; Hugo Chávez, former president of Venezuela, United Socialist Party of Venezuela; Donald Trump, 45th and current President of the United States, Republican Party; Alexis Tsipras, former Prime Minister of Greece, Syriza; Mamata Banerjee, eighth and current Chief Minister of West Bengal, All India Trinamool Congress - in front of a university building

How do you talk to a populist? With populism on the rise, educators need to understand how to respond when populist discourse finds its way into the classroom. Edda Sant debunks three common myths about populist challenges to higher education
blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Is AI to the 2020s what calculators were to the 1980s? Listen to Maurice Chiodo (@cser.bsky.social) draw a comparison between these two tools in Episode 1 of our podcast on the ethics of AI in teaching.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

In Episode 2 of our podcast on the ethical use of AI in teaching, Claire Gordon, Maha Bali, Maurice Chiodo, and Emma McCoy debate the issues they encounter integrating AI – consistency, AI skills development among faculty, disciplinary identities and values. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

In our latest podcast, Claire Gordon discusses the ethical use of AI in teaching, learning and assessment with @mahabali.bsky.social, Maurice Chiodo, and Emma McCoy. What responsibility do educators have to their students, the institutions, and themselves?
blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

White jigsaw pieces scattered on a white surface

Meet the LSE HE Blog Fellows – four academics from across globe who will be sharing their insights over the course of 2025, covering the internationalisation of HE in Asia, HE policy, radical imagination in the US, and heterodox perspectives in authoritarian times
blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

A decorative box graphic enclosing 3 bullet-pointed statements: "Focus on caution and care. Humans are losing their human side. Deconstruct the tech inevitability narrative." An animation of a Rubik's cube is on the corner of the box graphic.

As we consider approaches that range from a warm embrace to cautious acceptance to resistance to AI in higher education at the #LSEPKUAI conference, we need to recentre our humanity and question the tech inevitability narrative, says @mahabali.bsky.social.

Graphic showing a frame with a red and white Rubik's cube in one corner and inside the frame are four bullet points with the words: 'Build trust through transparency'; 'Model transparency to avoid eroding trust'; 'Resist adversarial pedagogies' and 'Transparency is necessary but not sufficient for accountability'

How do you approach accountability and transparency when using AI in your academic practice? @mahabali.bsky.social brings together a range of voices to contribute to a more nuanced ethics of AI in education. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

How do you start a new university and create an appealing brand when nobody knows who you are? Bryan Penprase and Noah Pickus consider some of the tricky issues founders face, focusing on new unis from Minerva and NYU Abu Dhabi to Ashesi University in Ghana blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Left: Image of student being dragged and carried away by two police officers. Right: text fading into the image stating “The authoritarian grip on HE tightens: a podcast with academics from Hungary, Türkiye, and the US”

What is the impact of authoritarian regimes on universities in Türkiye, Hungary, and the US? @seckinsertdemir.bsky.social, Tamas Dezso Ziegler, and David Swartz discuss on our latest podcast episode. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Still time to apply (closing date 10 March)! Are you a scholar interested in drawing attention to important issues in higher education? Could you share your specialist insights with a global audience? The LSE HE Blog Fellowship could be for you. Application details: blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

We tried to kill the essay – now let's resurrect it | LSE Higher Education Writing teaches us how to think, so let's rethink, reframe, and reposition the essay to bring it back into the light, writes Alicja Syska

We have ruined essay writing by forgetting about it as a process and treating it as a product. It's time to rethink writing (and how we teach it) and, ironically, the challenge of AI can help, writes Alicja Syska blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Headline and image of blogpost: a wooden gavel resting on a block

How can academics use autoethnography to voice criticism of HE without falling foul of the law? Margaret Merga explains the implications for researchers, educators, and supervisors.
blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Apply for the LSE HE Blog Fellowship 2025 | LSE Higher Education Are you a scholar interested in drawing attention to important issues in higher education? Could you share your specialist insights with a global audience through blog posts, podcasts and more? Our Fellowship could be for you.

Are you a scholar interested in drawing attention to important issues in higher education? Could you share your specialist insights with a global audience? The LSE HE Blog Fellowship could be for you! Application details here -
blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat... - closing date 10 March. Please share!

How to develop a high impact research paper: the case of feedback literacy | LSE Higher Education When David Carless published a paper on feedback literacy, its impact exceeded his most optimistic dreams. He explains how he did it

Want to know the ingredients of a high impact research paper? David Carless @carlessdavid.bsky.social, Professor of Feedback Literacy, University of Hong Kong, walks us through his recipe for academic research impact with the case of a paper with stunning metrics
blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Africa-China HE engagement: a one-way road? | LSE Higher Education Does the imbalance in China-Africa student mobility pose future risks to Africa's higher education?

While China is proactive in recruiting African students, Africa seems to play a more passive role – does this imbalance in student mobility pose future risks to Africa’s higher education? Jane Knight and You Zhang pose the question blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Five questions to ask before adopting a new technology | LSE Higher Education As AI becomes a part of the edtech landscape, LSE HE Blog Fellow Maha Bali exhorts educators to ask five questions when considering a new technology for their course

Thinking of introducing some new tech - probably (inevitably?) AI-based - into your course this year? @mahabali.bsky.social has five questions you should definitely ask yourself first: blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

i was delighted to contribute to LSE HE Blog's exploration of academic life on film. I discuss the overconfident ornithologist of Hitchcock's THE BIRDS (1963), and other film scholars discuss an eclectic range of examples, from Streisand's THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES (1996) to Martino's TORSO (1973)!

With huge thanks to our nine contributors for their great choices: @jacobengelberg.bsky.social @garyneedham.bsky.social James Chapman, Sarah Street, David Green, Barbara Brickman, @cuneytcakirlar.bsky.social Justin Wyatt and @hannahhamad.bsky.social

Academic life on the big screen | LSE Higher Education We asked nine film studies academics for their top picks of movies that feature academic life. From The Birds to Wicked, here are their recommendations.

What's your top movie that features academic life on screen? Nine film studies academics have picked theirs (from Jurassic Park and The Birds to Wicked, Torso and Legally Blonde) - now tell us yours... blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Sounds interesting! Can you let me know who to contact about getting a review copy and possibility of publishing an excerpt on the LSE HE Blog, please? Thanks, Michelle

Let's look outside academia for university leaders | LSE Higher Education With universities in crisis, the traditional choice of an academic as leader might not be the wisest, suggests LSE HE Blog Fellow Richard Watermeyer

With HE in crisis, should universities be looking for fighters to defend them in a dog-eat-dog world rather than the traditional academic leader? Perhaps, says LSE HE Blog Fellow Richard Watermeyer @rpwatermeyer.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Turn data into poetry | LSE Higher Education Remaking research data into a literary art form makes it resonate more widely. Sam Illingworth explains how and why he turned the LSE HE Blog into a poem

Have you thought about turning your research data into poetry to make it resonate more widely? LSE HE Blog fellow Sam Illingworth @samillingworth.com shows how it's done blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

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