Agenda

The chair will welcome delegates and provide a brief introduction to the day’s discussions.

• Increasing accountability, encouraging wider participation and improving the student experience through the OfS’s risk-based approach
• Operating the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) to incentivise the improvement of the quality of teaching across the sector
• Removing unnecessary barriers to entry and minimising regulatory burden for all providers
• Achieving value for money across UK universities and enhancing student engagement
• Promoting student welfare and reinforcing safeguarding on campus

• Examining prospective changes to student fees from a policy perspective
• Raising the earnings threshold for repaying tuition fees in England, saving individual students up to £15,700 over their working lives
• Exploring the role of higher education institutions as service providers and resolving the dilemma presented by an absence of market diversity
• Considering the impact of the contemporary fees system on students from poorer backgrounds

• Outlining latest TEF timescales & deadlines for implementation: changes for Year 3
• Preparing for a move towards subject-level TEF and mandatory registration
• Understanding the role of regulatory bodies in TEF
• Increasing the emphasis on improving transparency & informing prospective student choice
• Student and students’ union involvement & engagement in provider responses
• Exploring the relationship between performance, fees & income

• Update on the review of the UK Quality Code for Higher Education to be published in November 2018
• Assessing the future powers and responsibilities of the QAA in relation to the OfS
• UK transnational education (TNE): opportunities and challenges
• Ensuring that the quality of UK HE provision and student experience is recognised and maintained

• Promoting the development of education in across countries and facilitating academic collaboration through dual degrees
• Reinforcing aims to create graduates with international qualifications and experience ready to contribute to international business and industry
• Increasing research and innovation collaboration as well as opportunities for student and staff mobility
• Providing students with scholarship and skills needed for lifetime careers as leaders in industry and academies

• How can emphasis on student experience improve enrolment, employability and engagement
• Foundations of student experience: technology or human problems?
• Creating and delivering curriculum in response to student requirements
• Engaging senior industry experts to ensure continuous practical learning
• Working in partnership with experts to develop curriculum, case studies and assessments to support online courses and OPMs
• Collaborating with experts to support online growth from development to assessment
• Developing industry and geography relevant curriculum for international students and international expansion
• Creating equal access to quality teaching for popular and new courses
• Increasing industry-academia collaboration to support research and employment

• Discussing opportunities and challenges for universities after Brexit, with 17% of academic staff and 6% of professional services staff at UK universities coming from EU countries
• Understanding the decline in EU applicants and older applicants from the UK, respectively 7% and 5% in 2017
• Outlining policy priorities to support universities to thrive post-exit, from international student recruitment to funding and graduates career and employability
• Securing an effective post-Brexit settlement where universities can maximise their contribution to a globally-successful UK
• Understanding how the reformed post-Brexit immigration system will look like and what this will mean for HEIs
• Explaining the role of universities and how they can develop innovation with UK businesses abroad by sharing an understanding of the partner countries and their markets