LSE Higher Education Blog

Happy 7th birthday to the LSE HE Blog 🎉 From dismantling accent discrimination to measuring academic freedom, from playful classrooms to merger reality checks – a year of sparking dialogue across HE in just five posts. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

What if you taught ethnography through theatre? Cristiana Giordano & Greg Pierotti developed "affect theatre" - students collaborate to build performances from research, learning to feel the connection between experience & scholarly representation. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

"If students don't understand that our beliefs can also be facts, they're more likely to think there are no answers in philosophy" Jake Wright on combating naïve scepticism in first-year philosophy – and why it matters for navigating the post-truth era blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

"Open questions can be frustrating." But in disability studies pedagogy, they're invitations for reflection that lead to concrete practice changes. Miro Griffiths on teaching with resistance, interdependence, and persistent questioning. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

"The real risk is not that students will use AI; but that educators continue to grade outputs AI can generate while pretending they still certify human competence" – Ignacio Aravena Gonzalez on redesigning assessment: grade the audit, not the artefact blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

"Strategy trumps money" in university mergers, but culture determines success. Elizabeth Hill, Chris Husbands & Huw Morris on why mergers take decades, cost more than expected & require both head and heart 🎧blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

"There's no chance in hell for anyone who actually sounds like Stormzy making it in academia." Aymen Idris on UK HE's sonic straitjacket: why an RP accent remains the unofficial entry fee & code-switching is exhausting, unacknowledged labour. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

Are education development centres service units or scholarly centres? Academic partners or administrative apparatus? This identity crisis undermines their vital work, argue Claire Gordon & Sam Smidt – and here's how to resolve it. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

The academic contract is changing. The residential model is dying. But university strategies still assume both will survive with minor tweaks. Time for a reality check, says Huw Morris blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

Are academics complicit in authoritarian encroachment? There are three myths about scholarly life under autocratic pressure that academics use to let themselves off the hook, writes Tamas Ziegler blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

Creating an environment for open dialogue in higher education has never been more challenging – or more essential. These five posts explore how educators create space for difficult conversations and conflicting perspectives. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

For our last post of the year, academics from across the world reflect on the top HE stories in 2025. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio… Comment below to share your 2025 HE picks! ⭐️

Must classrooms always be boring? Listen to our latest podcast, hosted by Ijeoma Njaka, and hear from three academics who are doing things differently, from taking a writing class onto a basketball court to filling seminar rooms with works of art. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

With the news that Nottingham is just the latest uni to close music courses, Thomas Graves explores why music degrees seem to be such an easy target for the axe - and why that's a tragedy blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

In the third and final segment of his interview, LSE President and Vice-Chancellor Larry Kramer explains the optics of protest on campus and how it might be viewed by alumni, donors, and the government — “… nothing about that is more or less ‘British’.” blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

“Self-expression shouldn’t become more important than human relationships,” says LSE President & Vice-Chancellor Larry Kramer in Part Two of a conversation with the LSE HE Blog. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio… @LSEnews

Larry Kramer, President and Vice-Chancellor of the LSE, advocates for thoughtful debate and explains why he'll never condemn lawful speech in the first of a three-part interview with the LSE Higher Education Blog. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio… 🎥youtube.com/shorts/3ypbn5W… @LSEnews

“Rather than only teaching content that challenges dominant perspectives,” Moé Suzuki feels the role of the teacher is to engage with a range of perspectives that emerge in the classroom. Read more on our blog blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio… What do you think the role of the teacher is?

Are the students in your classroom as free to speak as you think they are? Chen-Ta Sung explores the paradox of diverse classrooms inhibiting diverse viewpoints, resulting in a spiral of silence - for educators as well as students. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…

Today's complex challenges call out for interdisciplinary thinking - and such courses are growing in popularity. But great interdisciplinary teaching is about much more than adding disciplines and stirring, says LSE100 co-director Jillian Terry blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducatio…