Academic debate highlights the need to develop suitable teaching and training practices to accompany the implementation of universal design for learning (UDL) and inclusive higher education policies. This study addresses this need by investigating the relationship between knowledge and utilization of inclusive pedagogy, on the one hand, and the…

In response to challenges emerging in society, universities are searching for ways to innovate their courses through novel institutional educational policies and practices. Those efforts, however, are often not informed by knowledge about course innovation characteristics university-wide, and are often not supported by processes of reflection…

Hybrid teaching & learning (T&L) environments in higher education are on the rise. This study adopts a qualitative exploratory approach to draw on data from interviews with 15 academics to examine their perspectives of hybrid T&L in a higher education, post COVID-19 context. In a unique application of both the Reset, Restore, Reframe…

Following the 1989 unified higher education reforms, the Australian academic research system was built upon the notion of depoliticisation (i.e., keeping the political character of decision at one remove from governance) to govern the contradiction between research credibility and governmental economic priorities. The article argues that the…

This discursive paper addresses the lack of recent robust research on the experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer or Questioning (LGBTQ+) Higher Education (HE) staff, particularly Early Career Academics in the UK. While efforts have focused on supporting LGBTQ+ students, scant attention has been given to the challenges faced by LGBTQ+…

This paper critically examines two policy responses related to Canadian study permit processes that were adopted during two crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and the displacement of Ukrainian nationals due to war. We look at the expansion of the Student Direct Stream (SDS) to the Americas in 2021 and the creation of the Canada-Ukraine Authorization…

As concerns about student mental health have increased, policy aims have moved towards a 'whole-university' approach. The 2017 Universities UK #Stepchange framework made this principle a formal part of policy initiatives and legitimises it via its calls for action. The policy distributes responsibility for mental health support across the…

This article is grounded on an exploratory inquiry to explain the low rates of female academics in Ghana's higher education sector and its implication for higher education policy and practice. Though our article shows the continued presence of institutional barriers, the evidence suggests that these are strongly fortified by dispositional (women's…

The Dawkins white paper of 1988 was introduced by the Australian government to reshape the Higher Education (HE) landscape. Dawkins' discussion paper of 1990, Nelson's policy document of 2003, the Bradley Review of 2008 and the Lomax-Smith Review of 2011 built on and extended Dawkins' white paper. Such policy reforms have transformed the culture…

University students' collaborative learning, particularly groupwork, has been more often investigated in Western settings than in countries that have borrowed this Western pedagogy. This qualitative study re-examines Chinese university students' groupwork responses regarding their expectations, attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. Their…

While being a major source country of international students for western countries, China's position as a destination for international students has risen rapidly in the last decade. However, the reasons behind provincial China's inbound student flows are under-researched. To address this gap in the literature, taking Jiangsu as a case study, this…

In the UK, higher education (HE) policy discourse over the past 60 years has advocated flexible part-time HE for social mobility, personal development, economic advantage and leisure. However, part-time undergraduate HE in the UK is in steep decline. Against this backdrop, we were interested in how universities promote, or fail to promote,…

This study examines the challenges of female doctoral students in China at the intersection of neoliberal education and Confucian gender roles. Employing qualitative interviews with 12 students, it explores how they navigate academic pressures and societal expectations. Leveraging Margaret Archer's reflexivity theory, key findings show that these…

The PhD by retrospective published work remains an under-researched area within doctoral education. Introduced into the United Kingdom (UK) in 1966, this variant of PhD is one of several models of doctoral qualification that exist across the globe that include published research in the final submission. Although the retrospective model is an…

The Bologna Process (BP) was used as an instrument to construct a European Higher Education Area that would be competitive in the world and to attract foreign students and academics to Europe. For a country such as Australia, this higher education innovation process constituted a possible challenge, especially since Australian HE is a marketized…