With world leaders gathered in Azerbaijan for the COP29 climate change summit, this week’s podcast focuses on universities’ role in advancing sustainability and reducing carbon emissions. As centres of teaching, research and innovation, universities are uniquely positioned to educate on environmentally aware leaders and help find ways out of this c…

Universities are public service organisations, educating and researching for the broader societal good. Yet in many countries, the UK and Australia among them, public funding for these institutions has been stripped back forcing them to take a more strategic, commercial approach to generate the income needed to support their work. How can instituti…

For students to thrive within a higher education setting, they need to feel safe and supported. Universities’ duty of care extends from making students feel welcome and valued to protecting them from serious harm. On this week’s Campus podcast, we discuss the full spectrum of student safeguarding and support. Rachel Fenton, a professor in law at th…

What underpins effective research, knowledge generation and innovation? In this podcast, we hear a world-leading biomedical scientist discuss what constitutes effective knowledge exchange and supports translational research that can, ultimately, result in innovations that change the world for the better. Plus, a data scientist outlines the opportun…

For this episode of the Campus podcast, we talk to Eunice Simmons, who has been vice-chancellor of the University of Chester since 2020, about what works when it comes to widening participation in higher education and how to ensure students are successful in their studies and beyond. She describes how initiatives such as Citizen Student and the Rac…

Effective teaching sits at the heart of higher education’s mission to advance learning and discovery. But what are the key components which make up top quality instruction? And how can these be achieved in different and often fast evolving educational contexts? It is this latter question which makes defining good teaching so difficult. So, for this…

What is an intelligent campus? How is technology blurring, or extending, the borders of the modern university? And how do you build belonging when your students could be spread across the globe? In this episode of the Campus podcast, we talk to two experts from leading US institutions – who were both speakers at Times Higher Education’s Digital Uni…

In this episode, we sit down with two panellists from Times Higher Education’s Digital Universities Asia 2024 event to talk to them in more detail about how their institutions have embraced advancing digital technologies in different ways – and brought their staff and students along for the ride. Julia Chen is director of the Educational Developmen…

This episode of the Campus podcast comes at a time when many UK universities are changing leaders. A total of 30 institutions have either had a new leader start or have begun the process of finding a replacement in 2024, according to a Times Higher Education analysis last month. So, what are the skills and experience that underpin good leadership a…

With frozen tuition fees, falling international student enrolment and the very real possibility of a university going bankrupt, the UK’s new Labour government has inherited a sector in crisis. The need for fast action is apparent, but where should priorities lie? Two higher education leaders share their perspectives on what the sector needs in the …

One way to future-proof students in our globalised world is to improve their cross-cultural communication skills. With students and academics more mobile than ever, the ability to reach across divides – be they language, culture, religion, economic or location – will be in demand whatever the workplace. These skills offer a path to belonging, innov…

Will the UK general election offer a ray of hope for the beleaguered university sector? On this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, two policy experts give their take on opportunities that 4 July may bring and how a new UK parliament might tackle hot topics such as international students and research funding. Our questions include what i…

For this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk to award-winning author, cultural historian and literary critic Alexandra Harris about the research and writing practices behind her new book, The Rising Down: Lives in a Sussex Landscape (Faber, 2024). Alexandra is a professorial fellow in English at the University of Birmingham in th…

Katie Normington, vice-chancellor and CEO of De Montfort University, has proved to be adept at both leading by example and change management. Not only did she join the Leicester institution during Covid amid the longest lockdown in the UK, but in the three years she has led the institution she has overseen large-scale curriculum reform. De Montfort…

Imagine a learning environment where an AI professor fields infinite student questions, where business students practise difficult conversations with an avatar that models an array of personas and reactions, where automated feedback is not static but dynamic and individualised. Artificial intelligence and XR tools are changing education and prepari…

For this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk with an academic, practitioner and policy commentator who uses phrases such as “burning platform” to describe the state of universities’ digital landscape. Mark Thompson is a professor of digital economy in the research group Initiative for the Digital Economy (Index) at the University…

What difference does human connection make to student success? Does it matter if students come to in-person lectures? And what if students turn to AI for help with academic tasks rather than asking libraries or someone in student support? This episode of the podcast takes on these questions, ones that have driven headlines on Times Higher Education…

In this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk to two experts – one in the US and one in the UK – about open access, the global movement that aims to make research outputs available online immediately and without charge or restrictions. Heather Joseph has been an advocate for knowledge sharing and the open access movement since its …

In this episode we discuss a rare creature: the female higher education leader. Indeed, according to the American Council on Education’s most recent American College President Study, women remain outnumbered by men in the college presidency by a ratio of 2:1, with about 33 per cent of presidencies held by women. Women in higher education were also …

In this bonus episode of the THE podcast, we continue the theme of universities’ role in fostering civic engagement with an interview with renowned human rights scholar and award-winning author Kathryn Sikkink. Sikkink is the Ryan Family professor of human rights policy at Harvard Kennedy School, as well as faculty co-chair of the Harvard Votes Cha…