The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) in the process of reviewing how Higher Education works and what government needs to do to ensure that universities stay competitive, and meet the needs of students and employers over the next 10-15 years.

To that end, commissioned contributions from a number of key figures in the sector have been published on The Future of Higher Education blog and they are open to comment from community.

Some of the papers also include recommendations and cover a variety of subjects including:

• Academia and public policy making
• Demographic challenge facing Higher Education
• Intellectual property and research benefits
• International issues in higher education
• Online higher education learning (E-learning)
• Part-time studies in Higher Education
• Research careers
• Teaching and the student experience
• Understanding institutional performance

Perhaps of particular relevance is the paper about On-line Innovation in Higher Education by Professor Sir Ron Cooke of JISC, which is analysed in some detail by Tony Hirst of the OU.

Intute: Social Sciences features more Internet resources on the issues of Higher Education, Educational Policy Educational Technology and the Public Administration of Education.