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Dr. Josh Patel (he/him)

@joshpatel.bsky.social

Researcher, Edge Foundation https://joshsdpatel.wixsite.com/joshpatel New book: 'Universities and the Purpose of Higher Education: Expansion and Development in Post-War Britain' (SRHE/Routledge) Swimmer & coach🏊🏽‍♂️🦦

43 Posts96 Follower109 Folgt
Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3w ago

You can read more about the book here (and order it for c.£38). Particularly interesting on all those elements driving HE upwards (social capital theory, the drive towards 'progress' and the quality of new data) that would eventually undermine the project. (2/2) www.routledge.com/Universities...

Universities and the Purpose of Higher Education: Expansion and Development in Post-War Britain

This thought‑provoking book addresses the persistent anxieties surrounding the purpose and direction of higher education, offering a nuanced historical perspective on its transformation. Using Cold Wa...

routledge.com

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3w ago

NEW from me in @mbhjournal.bsky.social... My review of Josh Patel's excellent new book on the rise of Britain's universities after 1945, made all the more relevant by the tragic chaos enveloping them now. Read all about it. 👇 (1/2) academic.oup.com/tcbh/article...

Universities and the purpose of higher education: expansion and development in post-war Britain. Josh Patel.

Higher education’s many crises will have escaped very few readers of this journal. Josh Patel’s lively, sensitive, and thoughtful book about the sector’s p

academic.oup.com

Dr. Josh Patel (he/him)@joshpatel.bsky.social · 2w ago

New review from me: Tom Bewick's excellent Skills Policy in Britain (2025) for @jvetjournal.bsky.social: this critical and personal view illuminates the centralising and constraining impulses of policymaking. I explore its declinism and context in the historiography: doi.org/10.1080/1363...

Skills policy in Britain and the future of work: a historical-political analysis

Published in Journal of Vocational Education & Training (Ahead of Print, 2026)

doi.org

Dr. Josh Patel (he/him)@joshpatel.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Delighted to announce the launch of my book today 'Universities and the Purpose of Higher Education: Expansion and Development in Post-war Britain'! www.routledge.com/Universities... : a short thread: 1/5

Universities and the Purpose of Higher Education: Expansion and Development in Post-War Britain

This thought‑provoking book addresses the persistent anxieties surrounding the purpose and direction of higher education, offering a nuanced historical perspective on its transformation. Using Cold Wa...

routledge.com

Dr. Josh Patel (he/him)@joshpatel.bsky.social · 9mo ago

New at @hepi-news.bsky.social blog: As England apparently turns to a tertiary model, what actually drives collaboration between HE and FE? In research with @edgeuk.bsky.social, I argue that under resource scarcity, collaboration and competition are interwoven. www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/10/29/t...

Tertiary Collaborations in Practice: what partnerships between colleges and universities actually do and where to go next - HEPI

UK universities are under mounting financial pressure. Join HEPI and King’s College London Policy Institute on 11 November 2025 at 1pm for a webinar on how universities balance relatively stable but u...

hepi.ac.uk

Dr. Josh Patel (he/him)@joshpatel.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Launched a personal website recently: so while I have space/ideas, thoughts on Greenwich-Kent merger news from yesterday: 1. how much is this a rerun of older federal universities? 2. what's happened to the poly/uni divide here? 3. nobody mentioned Crosland joshsdpatel.wixsite.com/joshpatel/po...

The Greenwich-Kent merger: some (historical) thoughts

I recently launched this site and, now that I have the space and the blog to jot down longer thoughts, I thought I might as well make some unsolicited comments on the big news in universityland this w...

joshsdpatel.wixsite.com

JVET@jvetjournal.bsky.social · 11mo ago

JVET ECR + Edge ERN Joint Session: Bridging research and policy: tips for early careers Registration: lnkd.in/dRVP4JMa Date & Time: 11:00 am (UK time), 25 September 2025 Duration: 90 mins Geng Wang, Josh Patel, The EDGE Foundation, Paulina Bravo Contreras hashtag#JVET hashtag#JVETECR

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Martin Paul Eve@eve.gd · 12mo ago

The University of Warwick has paid a lot of money, I'm guessing, for their internet banner ads on the Guardian and elsewhere. But they can't spell "curiosity". This isn't a US-UK variant. They just, genuinely, have a massive spelling error in their banner ads.

A banner advert for the University of Warwick, which says "Beyond ignores curiousity". This is a spelling error.
Times Higher Education (THE)@timeshighered.bsky.social · last yr.

Opinion: “A career is meant to be something you grow into – layered with experience, trust and time – but in academia these days, you’re uprooted before anything can truly take hold.” A mid-career academic scientist writes #highered #AcademicSky

I’m tired of the academic road to nowhere – but it’s too late to exit

For one mid-career academic scientist, precarity is becoming unbearable. But they are too experienced for entry-level industry jobs and not experienced enough for senior ones. They’ve stayed too long,...

timeshighereducation.com

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · last yr.

On universities the white paper only reduces the graduate visa from two years to 18 months (which is a win for the DfE). The bigger thing universities will be worrying about is this little timebomb.

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Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · last yr.

‘Baroness Smith, the universities minister, said many institutions were failing to rein in spending despite demanding financial support from the government.’ Which institutions are these? We’ve seen absolute carnage in redundancies across the sector, so I’m curious which she is thinking of

Adriana Guatame-García@guatamite.bsky.social · last yr.

A friend included this anti-acknowledgement section on her PhD thesis. She also added the proposition: “Systematic bullying and undermining of girls and women in STEM starts early on and is the reason why they do not stay in science and related fields.” Absurd we still need to go through this 🧪👩‍🔬

There have been people less than helpful in my journey here. I wanted to acknowledge those too, bc I know I am not unique in this experience. No thank you to the physics study assoc that made me sing songs about how women couldn't study physics without sleeping with the professor, the day I stepped into university life. No thank you to the 5th year physics student that decided to assign me a stripper name within the first minute of meeting me in the physics coffee corner in my first year. No thank you to the technician that was responsible for onboarding me on the use of the cluster in my third year who raised his eyebrows and asked me if that meant I was some sort of computer girl. No thank you to the senior researcher that sent me utterly inappropriate texts after a conference, then proceeded to apologise months later by telling me they had not been meant for me anyway so no hard feelings remain hopefully And no thank you to him for attending every conference I've been to since. No thank you to the people who told me that it was surprising that I was doing a PhD since I was a girl. No thank you to the man who mistook me for a coffee lady at a conference, and after having to correct him two times that I did not work there, responded with you should consider it. No thank you to the researcher that asked me what I was wearing underneath my outfit during a conference. No thank you to the physicist who declared to a room full of other physicists that biologists don't know how to design an experiment. No thank you to the people who have called me scary instead of strong and intimidating instead of intelligent. And finally, no thank you to the exec board of the TU Delft, whose knee-jerk reaction to being held up a mirror about the social safety at the university, was to sue the party holding up the mirror instead of looking at the problems they highlighted. ... You have made me feel like I do not belong in science & I cannot forgive you for that.