Useful Websites for Higher Education

Staff and students who wish to follow the latest news on higher education matters, may find the list below useful which provides links to a number of key media who publish in the area of HE.

Staff and students are welcome to contact internalcomms@warwick.ac.uk with suggestions for other useful websites.

You can access news from the UK's funding and research councils via the links below:
Information on internal and external funding opportunities is available from Research Support Services' website:
The following HE organisations and groups may also be useful:
  • American Council on Education (ACE)
    An organisation representing the presidents and chancellors of all types of US degree-awarding institutions.
  • Association of African Universities
    The AAU focuses on issues that are affecting research-led American universities.
  • Association of American Universities
    The AAU exists to help African universities to communicate and cooperate with each other.
  • British Academy
    The UK's national body for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
  • Chronicle of Higher Education

    Available in print and online, the Chronicle provides news, information, opinion pieces and jobs for college and university faculty members and administrators.

    Warwick's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nigel Thrift, writes a regular blog for the Chronicle's Worldwise international blog, which features commentary from a range of international higher-education thinkers.
  • Council for Industry and HE (CIHE)
    A network of blue chip companies working with Universities
  • CORDIS
    Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) provides information on all EU-supported research and development activities.
  • European Higher Education Area (EHEA)
    The official Bologna process website, helping to create more comparable, compatible and consistent higher education systems in Europe.
  • European University Association (EUA)
    Represents and supports higher education institutions in 46 countries, providing them with a forum for collaboration and information on the latest trends in higher education and research policies.
  • Group of 8 (Go8)
    Australia's leading Universities.
  • Guild HE
    Formal representative organisation for the UK's universities.
  • The Higher Education Academy (HEA)
    Provides support to the HE sector by working with individual academics and through a network of discipline-based subject centres provideing a range of services to subject departments.
  • Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)
    The UK's only independent think tank, focusing exclusively on higher education.
  • International Student Barometer(ISB)
    An independently run, confidential feedback survey for international students
  • Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
    The official agency for the collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative information about higher education.
  • The Leverhulme Trust
    Provides funding for research projects, fellowships, studentships, bursaries and prizes across all academic disciplines.
  • Million+
    University think-tank and membership organisation working to solve the complex problems in higher education.
  • The National Union of Students (NUS)
    The voluntary membership organisation representing students. The NUS is a confederation of 600 students' unions, amounting to more than 95 per cent of all higher and further education unions in the UK.
  • The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE)
    A site drawing together information on practices in Universities around the world.
  • OECD Higher Education
    The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's education section.
  • The Royal Society
    A Fellowship of eminent scientists and the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.
  • The Russell Group
    Representing the 20 leading UK research universities.
  • UCAS
    The organisation responsible for managing applications to higher education courses in the UK.
  • UK Council for International Student Affairs
    The UK's national advisory body serving the interests of international students and those who work with them.
  • Universities UK
    Formal representative organisation for the UK's universities.
You may also find these sites useful:
  • Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
    The Government department with responsibility for higher education policies.
  • England's Regional Development Agencies (RDAs)
    Regional Development Agencies promote and enable economic growth in England's regions by creating the conditions to grow businesses and by helping to create additional, better quality, higher-paid jobs.
  • The RDA for the West Midlands is Advantage West Midlands (AWM).
    AWM is due to close in March 2012 and will be led by successor bodies, including LEPs.
  • In 2012, RDAs will be replaced by successor bodies, including Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs)
    Local enterprise partnerships are locally-owned partnerships between local authorities and businesses. Local enterprise partnerships will play a central role in determining local economic priorities and undertaking activities to drive economic growth and the creation of local jobs. They are also a key vehicle in delivering Government objectives for economic growth and decentralisation, whilst also providing a means for local authorities to work together with business in order to quicken the economic recovery.

RSS Feeds

You can keep automatically updated with news from these sites by creating an RSS account and subscribing to RSS feeds.

The only thing that you really need for an RSS account is a reader to be able to subscribe to feeds. The reader is commonly known as a feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or RSS client. The reader lets you subscribe to any feeds you are interested in, checks for updates and displays them to you as they arrive.

There are several readers available and they come in two forms - web-based or as an installable program. The web-based clients enable you to access your feeds from wherever you are, by just logging into the website that manages your feeds. For example, web-based ones include Google Reader, Bloglines and Newsgator Online, all of which are free clients for feed reading, but there are many more out there with a lot of different features.

An installed program still allows for your feeds to be stored for you, even if you're not connected to the Internet. There are several that are totally free or at least free to try out. Two of the most popular for installing on your computer are FeedDemon or Newsgator for Microsoft Outlook and for those on a Mac with OS X, the most popular reader is NetNewsWire.

Once you have installed the news reader, all you need to do is follow these three steps:

Step 1: Click on the feed you are interested in from the list on the right of this page.
Step 2: Copy the URL that appears in the address bar of the page.
Step 3: Follow the instructions from your reader program to add the XML feed to your RSS list.

University members are welcome to contact internalcomms@warwick.ac.uk if you have suggestions for other useful websites.