ESRC/HEFCE Centre for Global Higher
Education (CGHE)
Programmes and Projects
Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE)
The Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) is a UK Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) research centre funded for 2015-2020, commencing in October 2015.
CGHE is 50 per cent funded through ESRC by the Higher Education Funding Council of
England (HEFCE). CGHE is led from the UCL Institute of Education at University College
London. Its UK partners are Lancaster University and the University of Sheffield, and it
has international partners in China, Hong Kong SAR China, Japan, Australia, South
Africa, Netherlands, Ireland and the United States (see list of researchers).
CGHE Management Committee
CGHE Director: Prof Simon Marginson, UCL Institute of Education, University College
London [+44-(0)7876323949, [email protected]]
CGHE Deputy Director: Prof Claire Callender, UCL IOE and Birkbeck
CGHE Deputy Director: William Locke, UCL IOE
Professor Paul Ashwin Lancaster University
Professor Gareth Parry University of Sheffield
Professor Ellen Hazelkorn Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
Professor Peter Scott UCL IOE
Professor Francis Green UCL IOE
representative of Early Career Researchers [to be determined]
Chair of the CGHE Board
Professor Bob Burgess
CGHE research
Structuring principles
CGHE’s objectives are to conduct and publish basic and applied research in three
integrated programmes; build theory about higher education and new methods of
inquiry and research; respond to issues arising within the frame of the three
programmes; maximize its impacts in higher education policy in the four UK nations
and worldwide. CGHE is grounded in three overarching and interfaced principles: (1)
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global higher education engagement, (2) social and economic impact of higher
education, (3) local higher education engagement. Each has major policy implications.
1. Global Higher Education Engagement: Higher education is primarily national and
becoming rapidly globalised. Higher education fosters the internationalisation of
the UK economy and society in Europe but UK higher education is not engaged
enough in dynamic East Asia. The UK should be a key contributor to global systems
in education and science. It is vital to embed global relations positively, to the
benefit of UK communities—to foster a productive local/global nexus.
2. Social and Economic Impact of Higher Education: Higher education articulates
social mobility and position, and it is possible to secure greater equality of
opportunity and social mobility. Higher education also shapes conditions for
economic production and innovation, in the UK and abroad. Yet the expectations of
and outcomes from higher education are often poorly aligned. Higher education
policy needs to become better at anticipating its own social and economic effects.
3. Local Higher Education Engagement: UK hgher education is embedded in
communities and regions, labour markets, firms and professions, and government.
It produces many private goods and (under-recognised) public goods. In future
higher education will need to multiply its engagements and impacts; in active
reciprocal relations with its stakeholders, especially students; and to monitor and
where possible measure engagement and impact.
CEGHE consists of three integrated and overlapping research programmes, with
distinctive spatial locations: (1) global, (2) national system, (3) local higher education.
Research Programme 1: Globalisation, UK Higher Education and the Public
Contributions of HEIs (Programme Leader: Simon Marginson)
1.1. Local and global public good contributions of higher education: a comparative
study in six national systems (Prof Simon Marginson UCL IOE with Dr Vincent
Carpentier UCL IOE, Prof Futao Huang Hiroshima University Japan, Prof Niancai Liu
Shanghai Jiao Tong University China)
1.2. Higher education’s engagement with industry: Metrics and indicators of boundary
spanning UK academics (Prof Robert Tijssen Leiden University Netherlands)
1.3. Financial sustainability of English higher education in comparative context (Prof
Bruce Chapman, Australian National University)
1.4. University governance, local embeddedness and global engagement in the UK and
Europe (Prof Peter Scott UCL IOE, with Prof Ellen Hazelkorn Dublin Institute of
Technology Ireland, Prof Mike Shattock UCL IOE)
1.5. UK international graduates in East Asia: Careers, earnings, jobs, mobility (Prof Ka
Ho Mok Hong Kong Institute of Education)
Research Programme 2. Socio-economic Implications of High Participation
Higher Education (Programme Leader: Claire Callender)
2.1 Higher education participation and macro-economic fluctuations: An historical and
comparative study (Dr Vincent Carpentier UCL IOE)
2.2 Higher education choices and post-higher education destinations to age 25:
Parental background and effects of higher education funding reform in the UK (Prof
Lorraine Dearden UCL IOE, with Prof Emla Fitzsimons UCL IOE, Dr Gill Wyness UCL
IOE, Prof Alissa Goodman UCL IOE
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2.3 Heterogeneity of the graduate labour market in UK and Europe (Prof Francis Green
UCL IOE)
2.4 Graduate perceptions of the impact of debt in the USA and England (Prof Claire
Callender UCL IOE/Birkbeck and Prof Don Heller Michigan State University USA)
Research Programme 3. Institutions, People and Learning in Local/Global Higher
Education Settings (Programme Leader: Gareth Parry)
3.1 Alternative, emerging and cross-border higher education provision and its
relationship with mainstream higher education (Prof Gareth Parry University of
Sheffield, with William Locke UCL IOE and Prof Peter Peter Scott UCL IOE)
3.2 The future higher education workforce in locally and globally engaged HEIs
(William Locke UCL IOE, Dr Celia Whitchurch UCL IOE)
3.3 Knowledge, curriculum and student agency (Prof Paul Ashwin Lancaster University
with Prof Jenni Case University of Cape Town South Africa, Dr Jan McArthur
Lancaster University)
3.4 The transformative potential of MOOCs and contrasting online pedagogies (Prof
Diana Laurillard)
CGHE Associated Organisations
GuildHE
Higher Education Academy
Higher Education Policy Institute
Institute for Public Policy Research
National Centre for Universities and Business
National Union of Students
Office for Fair Access
Social Market Foundation
Society for Research into Higher Education
Times Higher Education
Universities UK
Universities UK International Unit
University and College Union
Which? The Consumer Association
WonkHE
CGHE research team
Paul Ashwin is Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Research,
Lancaster University. His research expertise is in curriculum, learning, teaching and
assessment in higher education. He is author of Reflective Teaching in Higher Education
(Bloomsbury, 2015).
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Claire Callender is Professor of Higher Education Studies at UCL Institute of Education and at
Birkbeck, University of London. Her research, writing and policy advice are focused on student
finances in higher education and related issues. She recently co-edited Student Financing of
Higher Education: A Comparative Perspective (Routledge, 2013) with Professor Don Heller.
Vincent Carpentier is a Reader at the UCL IOE. His research focuses on the global and national
political economy of higher education and the socio-economic history of higher education. He
was an expert witness to the 2014 Committee on national higher education strategy set up by
the French Ministry of Education.
Jennifer Case is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of
Cape Town in South Africa. Her research focuses on the student experience of learning, mainly
in science and engineering education. She recently published Researching Student Learning in
Higher Education: A social realist approach (Routledge, 2013).
Bruce Chapman is Professor of Economics in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the
Australian National University. He designed the first national system of income contingent
student loans for tuition, introduced in Australia in 1989 and followed by many countries,
including the UK. He was President of the Economics Society of Australia in 2007-2013.
Lorrain Dearden is Professor of Economics at UCL IOE. She is a quantitative educational
researcher who specialises in evaluation methods, and linked administrative and survey data.
Her policy focus is on measuring school effectiveness and evaluating the effects of the home
environment, education policy and skills formation on child and adult outcomes.
Emla Fitzsimons is Professor of Economics and Principal Investigator of the Millennium
Cohort Study, at the UCL Institute of Education. She is also a Research Fellow at the Institute
for Fiscal Studies, London. Emla's research is focused on human capital investment and
development from early childhood through adolescence.
Francis Green is Professor of Work and Education Economics at UCL IOE. His research focuses
on skills, training, work quality and industrial relations issues. His most recent book is Skills
and Skilled Work. An economic and social analysis (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Ellen Hazelkorn holds a joint appointment as Policy Advisor to the Higher Education
Authority (HEA) in Ireland, and Professor and Director, Higher Education Policy Research Unit
(HEPRU) at Dublin Institute of Technology. She advises and reviews for governments,
international organisations and universities. Her books include Rankings and the Reshaping of
Higher Education: The Battle for World-Class Excellence (Palgrave 2nd edition 2015).
Donald E. Heller is Dean of the College of Education, and a Professor in the Department of
Educational Administration at Michigan State University in the United States. His research
focuses on educational economics, public policy, and finance, with focus on issues of college
access and choice for low-income and minority students. He co-edited Student Financing of
Higher Education: A Comparative Perspective (Routledge, 2013) with Claire Callender.
Futao Huang is a Professor at the Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima
University, Japan.. His major academic fields include internationalization of higher education,
academic profession and designing university and colleges curriculum in the comparative
perspective. He co-edited The Internationalization of the Academy: Changes, realities and
prospects (Springer, 2014).
Diana Laurillard is Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies, London Knowledge Lab,
UCL Institute of Education. Her research includes large-scale online communities of teacherdesigners, and the use of specialised digital course design tools to enable teachers to create
and share new pedagogies for using learning technology. She is currently running two
MOOCs on teacher development in digital course design.
Nian Cai Liu is Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong
University in China. His research interests include world-class universities and research
universities, university evaluation and academic ranking, and globalization and
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internationalization of higher education. He developed the annual Academic Ranking of World
Universities in 2003, which is now closely watched all over the world.
William Locke is Reader in Higher Education Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Higher
Education Studies at the UCL Institute of Education. His major research areas are higher
education policy; the management and governance of HEIs, including mergers; academic work,
careers and the profession; and the impact of rankings on HEIs. He co-edited Changing
Governance and Management in Higher Education: The perspectives of the academy (Springer,
2011).
Simon Marginson is Professor of International Higher Education at UCL IOE, and Joint Editorin-Chief of the journal Higher Education, with Jussi Valimaa from Finland. He focuses on
comparative international and global aspects of higher education, including systems and
strategy. In 2014 he was the Clark Kerr Lecturer on Higher Education at the University of
California Berkeley [see 2-page CV attached].
Jan McArthur is a Lecturer in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University.
Her research focuses on the purposes of higher education. She is currently working on a book
titled Assessment for Social Justice, which considers the role of assessment in realising the
social justice aspirations of higher education.
Ka Ho Mok is Chair Professor of Comparative Policy and Vice President (Research &
Development) at The Hong Kong Institute of Education. He researches and publishes on higher
education policy and governance, comparative development and policy studies, with focus on
contemporary China and Asia. Professor Mok was named by the Ministry of Education in China
as Changjiang Chair Professor (Comparative Education and East Asian Studies) in 2010.
Gareth Parry is Professor and Director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the
University of Sheffield. His research interests are in system change and policy reform in
tertiary education, including the role of college sectors in mass higher education. He is a Fellow
of the Society for Research into Higher Education.
Peter Scott is Professor of Higher Education Studies at the UCL IOE. His research interests are
in the evolution of mass higher education systems, new patterns of knowledge production and
the governance and management of universities. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social
Sciences and the Academia Europaea, and Trustee of the Higher Education Policy Institute.
Mike Shattock is a Visiting Professor at the UCL IOE, and the former Registrar of Warwick
University. He is the founder of the IOE’s MBA program in Higher Education Management. His
books include Managing Successful Universities (2nd edition, Open University Press 2010).
Robert Tijssen is Professor of Science and Innovation Studies at Leiden University in the
Netherlands; he is also a Professor at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His research
specialization is the intersection between science, innovation and higher education systems,
focusing mainly on university R&D performance issues, knowledge flows, and technological
innovation. Robert contributes to the Leiden Ranking of research universities.
Celia Whitchurch is a Senior Lecturer at the UCL Institute of Education. Her research interests
include the changing roles and identities of academic and professional staff, human resource
management and staffing models. She is the author of Reconstructing Identities in Higher
Education: The rise of third space professionals (Routledge, 2013).
Gill Wyness is a lecturer in Economics at the UCL IOE where her main interest is in
quantitative research on higher education. Gill is currently running an ESRC funded project
examining the impact of university bursaries on drop-out and degree performance, using data
collected from 25 UK universities.
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Professor Simon Marginson (Director, CGHE)
Employment
1993-1998: Senior Lecturer, and then Reader/Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of
Higher Education (CSHE), University of Melbourne, Australia
1998-2006: Reader, then Professor of Education with a Personal Chair, Monash University
2006-2013: Professor of Higher Education, CSHE, University of Melbourne
2009:
Visiting Professor, Hiroshima University, Japan,
2013--:
Professor of International Higher Education, UCL IOE
2013--:
Professorial Associate, CSHE, University of Melbourne
2014--:
Visiting Professor, Higher School of Economics, Moscow
2015--:
Director, ESRC/HEFCE Centre for Global Higher Education
Education
1974
BA (hons) History and Politics, University of Melbourne
1996
PhD (Education), thesis on ‘Markets in Education’, University of Melbourne
U. of Melbourne Chancellor’s Prize for excellence in the doctorate (1997)
Australian Association for Research in Education doctoral award (1997)
Current responsibilities
UCL IOE: Teaching in the MBA (Higher Education); research, scholarship and academic
publication; doctoral and Masters degree supervision; public and media commentary.
Editorial: Joint Editor-in-Chief, Higher Education; Commissioning Editor Thesis Eleven,
member of 16 journal boards including British Journal of Sociology of Education, Journal of
Studies in International Education, Higher Education Policy, Higher Education Quarterly.
Journalism: Editorial Board, Times Higher Education, occasional for Guardian, The Australian
Advisory Functions: International Advisory Board, Academic Ranking of World Universities,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Advisory Committee, Center for International Higher Education,
Peking University; Advisory Committee, Global Forum on Indian Higher Education; Blue
Ribbon Panel on Global Engagement, American Council on Education; El Seminario de
Educacion Superior de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico [UNAM, Mexico City]
Selected books
Marginson, S. & Considine, M. (2000) The Enterprise University: Power, governance and
reinvention in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP
Murphy, P., Peters, M. & Marginson, S. (2010). Imagination: Three models of the imagination in
the age of the knowledge economy. New York: Peter Lang
Marginson, S., Nyland, C., Sawir, E. & Forbes-Mewett, H. (2010). International Student Security.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP
Marginson, S., Kaur, S. & Sawir, E. (eds.) (2011). Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific: Strategic
responses to globalization. Dordrecht: Springer
King, R., Marginson, S. & Naidoo, R. (eds.) (2011). Handbook of Higher Education and
Globalization. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar
Marginson, S. (2013). Higher education and public good. In P. Gibbs & R. Barnett (eds.),
Thinking About Higher Education, 53-69. Heidelberg: Springer (2013).
Tran, L., Marginson, S., Do, H., Do, Q., Nghuyen, N., Le, T., Vu, T., Pham, T. & Nghuyen, H. (2014).
Higher education in Vietnam. New York: Palgrave
Freeman, B., Marginson, S. & Tytler, R. (eds.) (2015). The Age of STEM: Educational policy and
practice across the world in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Routledge
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Selected articles
Marginson, S. & Rhoades, G. (2002). Beyond national states, markets, and systems of higher
education: a glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education, 43 (3), 281-309
Marginson, S. (2006). Dynamics of national and global competition in higher education, Higher
Education, 52, 1-39
Marginson, S. (2007). The public/private division in higher education: A global revision, Higher
Education, 53, 307-333
Marginson, S.(2008). Global field and global imagining: Bourdieu and relations of power in
worldwide higher education, British J. of Sociology of Education, 29 (3), 303-316
Marginson, S. (2011). Higher Education in East Asia and Singapore: Rise of the Confucian
Model, Higher Education, 61 (5), 587-611
Marginson, S. (2012). Including the Other: Regulation of the human rights of mobile students in
a nation-bound world. Higher Education, 63 (4), 497-512
Marginson, S. (2013). The impossibility of capitalist markets in higher education. Journal of
Education Policy, 28 (3), 353-370
Marginson, S.(2014). Student self-formation in international education. Journal of Studies in
International Education, 18 (1), 6-22
Marginson, S.(2014). University rankings and social science. European Journal of Education, 49
(1), 45-59
Scholarship
Simon Marginson is one of the world’s leading scholars in higher education studies and
international and comparative education. Google Scholar h-index 44, SSCI h-index 12; 23
books, 345 articles and chapters. Four books have been translated into Chinese by Zhejiang UP,
two papers in Peking Education Review, other works in French and Spanish. In October 2014 he
delivered the Clark Kerr lectures on Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley.
2001: American Educational Research Association’s Division J publication award for The
Enterprise University, with Mark Considine
2002: US Comparative and International Education Society’s Bereday Award for the best
article in Comparative Education Review, on theory and method, with Marcela Mollis
2008: The Woodward Medal in humanities and social sciences at the University of Melbourne
for research on higher education; globalization and university rankings
2010: Critics Choice Award from American Educational Studies Association for the book
Imagination, with Peter Murphy and Michael Peters
2011: Distinguished Contribution to International Education, Australian International
Education Conference, following the book International Student Security
2013: US Comparative and International Education Society award for best article published on
comparative and international HE, Higher Education in East Asia and Singapore
2014: US Association for Studies in Higher Education Distinguished Research Award
Competitive academic research grants (selected)
1995-2013: Nine Australian Research Council (ARC) Large Grants and Discovery Grants (DG)
projects, including 5-year Australian Professorial Fellowship 2003-07 (AUD $2.2 million)
2012: Crucibles of creativity? HEIs and path-breaking intellectuals, ARC DG (AUD $90,000)
2013: National and global public goods in higher education, ARC DG (AUD $168,531)
2015-2019: (UK) Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Global Higher Education, 13
projects, 11 international and UK partners, directed by Simon Marginson (£6.1 million)
Policy-related research (selected)
2012-2013: Policy research on STEM: Country Comparisons for Australian Council of Learned
Academies and Office of the Chief Scientist, 24 country studies, (AUD $650,000)