Campus Talks: Why small changes make a big difference to accessibility in higher education

Disabled students make up the biggest minority group in US and UK higher education, accounting for about a fifth of undergraduates in both countries. While efforts to improve access to higher education for disabled students have contributed to increased enrolment, people with disabilities are still less likely than their counterparts to enter college, to feel at home in higher education settings and to secure a degree. And research suggests that many do not to disclose their disabilities once enrolled within an institution, which limits the support available to them. So this week, we speak to a US researcher who has dedicated the last decade to studying the experiences of disabled students in higher education and the barriers to full access and inclusion for all. Katherine Aquino is a social scientist and educational researcher who currently serves as the executive director for research training and development in the School of Graduate Studies at Rutgers University. Her research examines the complexity of disability in the postsecondary setting and her most recent book, The New Accessibility in Higher Education: Disrupting the System for an Inclusive Future, co-authored with Adam Lalor was published by Oxford University Press last year. Katherine explains why existing efforts to improve access and inclusion have so often fallen short of their ambitions, why a shift in mindset is needed for systemic change to take hold and how individuals have the power to drive big change For more advice and insight on improving accessibility for all in university teaching, head to our spotlight guide: Make learning accessible to all in higher education.

Learn about the journey from academic researcher to entrepreneur and what it takes to launch a successful spin out company. Academics are specialists in their disciplines and research areas but very few have any expertise in running a business. So, while their discoveries may hold commercial potential, it is rarely a simple or easy process translating this knowledge into a saleable product or service. To demystify the process of research commercialisation, on this episode we hear from a US-based biomedical researcher who has launched and grown five spin-out companies over the last 25 years. Ashutosh Chilkoti is the Alan L. Kaganov Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University and the brains behind companies including PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals, Sentilus and Insolere Bio. He runs the Chilkoti research group and has driven a number of initiatives at Duke designed to support entrepreneurship among students and staff. As well as describing his own varied start-up experiences, he breaks down the process of developing a research finding into a business and offers insight on what investors look for and how institutions can best support their academics efforts in commercialisation. For anyone interested in commercialisation and enterprise, this conversation offers practical takeaways and useful insights to guide your decision-making. And for more advice on this process, check out our latest spotlight: A step-by-step guide to commercialising your research.

The relationship between academic staff and their professional services colleagues is key to delivering on universities’ goals of high-quality student experience and knowledge creation. Today, it’s more strategic alliance than traditional hierarchy, with increasing recognition that skills such as teaching practice are as crucial as subject knowledge, but tensions and challenges remain. This is despite the fact that professional services underpin all university functions, from education practice to careers services, lab management, estates, admissions and student well-being. One issue is that professional services staff don’t always have clear pathways to promotion and progression, which can perpetuate perception of division. So, this Campus Talks episode aims to answer questions such as: how deep is the divide between academic and professional services staff? Does the sector do enough to support career pathways for staff who don’t fit the neat progression of traditional academia? And how can universities do more to ensure that the breadth and depth of professional services expertise are not overlooked? We talk to Eleanor Hodgson, a senior educator developer and director of the ASPIRE Professional Recognition Pathway at the University of Exeter. With a PhD in French, Hodgson has held both academic and professional services roles, at Next Steps South West and Exeter’s Business School, before taking on her current position in 2021. She explains how her team collaborates with academics to enhance teaching and develop expertise such as AI literacy and inclusive pedagogy, and with other professional services teams across the university. She lays out why universities should draw in the depth of expertise across the university at all stages of strategy, policy and programme development. And she offers careers advice for graduates looking for alternatives to the traditional academic pathway. For more insight on related topics, check out the latest Campus spotlight guide on connecting the dots between academic and professional services staff.

STEM study and research are responsible for much of humanity’s most transformative knowledge and technology. Discoveries and products that emerge from STEM will continue to define how we live now and in the future. So, it should concern everyone that STEM fields are still overwhelmingly male dominated. And it’s not just women who are underrepresented, this also applies to minority ethnic groups. Women make up just 16.9 per cent of the 6.4 million people working in engineering and technology in the UK - compared to 56 per cent in other occupations. While minority ethnic groups make up just 14 per cent of the workforce, according to EngineeringUK’s 2025 workforce report. On this week’s podcast, in homage to International Woman’s Day, we speak to an academic who has built a successful career as a woman in the male dominated field of chemical engineering, to find out how being an outlier shaped her approach to her career and what she thinks needs to change to diversify her discipline. Raffaella Ocone became the first female professor of chemical engineering in Scotland – second in the UK – when she was appointed to the post at Heriot-Watt University in 1999. She is currently serving as president of the Institute of Chemical Engineering, marking the organisation’s first female president and CEO partnership. She is also a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Institution of Chemical Engineers, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2007 she was appointed Cavaliere of the Italian Republic and in 2019 in the Queen’s New Year Honours she was appointed Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to engineering. But it all started for Raffaella in a small village, Morcone, in the hills of Campania in Southern Italy where, as she explains, few people backed her chances of becoming a professional engineer. Listen on to hear how she proved them wrong. For more advice and insight on how universities and academics can support efforts to get more women and other underrepresented groups into STEM, check out our spotlight guide: Opening doors to greater diversity in STEM.

As proposals for the future Horizon Europe are scrutinised by the European Parliament, we discuss likely changes to the seven-year funding programme and whether it can support a coalition of like-minded powers amidst the current geopolitical upheaval. The next version of Horizon Europe, due to launch in 2028, is likely to show much greater alignment with EU economic and defence priorities, backed by the budget almost doubling to €175bn a year. The initial proposal put forward by the European Commission opens Horizon up to dual purpose and defence focused research and places more weight on research designed to drive EU competitiveness in key industries such as green energy and digital technologies. This week Miranda Prynne is joined by THE features editor Paul Jump to discuss how the planned changes could affect European research and the impact on Horizon’s flourishing global network of non-EU members such as the UK, Canada and Japan whose contributions currently make up around a third of Horizon’s total budget. Listen to Paul’s take on whether the new Horizon Europe will provide a platform for a stronger international network of like-minded middle powers, giving them more clout on the world stage, or if a closer focus on Europe’s needs will create tensions with non-EU members.

So, you’ve finished writing your book, the ideas are on the page and all that’s left is to send your opus off to the publisher, right? Not so fast. In between draft and submission is the revising stage, one that many scholars gloss over on their way to a polished manuscript. After all, to paraphrase Hemingway, “all writing is rewriting”. Editing is an eminently learnable skill – one that can be broken down into manageable steps. That alone can be enough to ease the fear of looking closely and honestly at how your manuscript is constructed. And a systematic approach can guide writers to fix or improve their work in line with what peer reviewers, scholarly publishers and ultimately the target readership are looking for. For this episode of the podcast, we talk to developmental editor, author and manuscript consultant Laura Portwood-Stacer. Her latest book, Make Your Manuscript Work (Princeton University Press, 2025) decodes the editing process into a set of steps. She explains the key area that anchors a manuscript, how authors can identify the strengths and problems in their work, the skills writers need to edit their own work, and the power of title and chapter headings in reaching as broad a readership as possible. For more advice from experts around the world on how to take your academic writing to the next level, visit the latest Campus spotlight guide.

The number of international students enrolled on masters by research (MRes) courses more than doubled in the year after the government introduced a ban on dependent visas for other courses, new figures revealed this week. Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) data obtained by Times Higher Education show that there were 6,085 non-UK-domiciled students enrolled on MRes courses in the 2024-25 academic year – up from 2,485 in 2023-24.  This leaves the institutions behind such rises open to accusations of playing the system and using MRes courses as a way to circumvent the government’s visa rules. On this episode of News Talks, Miranda Prynne speaks to Times Higher Education deputy news editor Helen Packer, who has been covering the story, to find out what lies behind the rising MRes numbers, what the institutions driving the growth have said and the reaction from politicians and other sector leaders.

International branch campuses are back in the spotlight with countries including India, Vietnam and Greece opening to foreign institutions for the first time. And with international student flows coming under pressure from government policies, stretched student finances and emerging host countries, transnational education (TNE) and branch campuses offer an effective alternative for reaching overseas students. But while there are many success stories of now well-established branch campuses all over the world, there have also been plenty of failures. There are currently 387 international branch campuses open across 85 countries. A further 73 have opened and then closed, according to research by C-BERT. So, what causes some international branch campuses to flourish while others collapse? To find out, I spoke to Christine Ennew, who served as provost and CEO of the University of Nottingham Malaysia from 2013 to 2016, having been part of the team who travelled to Kuala Lumpur in 2000 to establish this pioneering branch campus. Christine spent five years as pro vice-chancellor at the University of Nottingham and most recently was provost at the University of Warwick until she retired in 2023. We discuss the thinking behind branch campus endeavours, what is needed for sustained success, common criticisms of branch campuses and what impact, if any, the UK government’s new international education strategy may have. For more insight on related topics, check out our spotlight guide on how to deliver value for international students.

We discuss why the University of Sussex has mounted a legal challenge against a £585,000 fine imposed by the Office for Students (OfS) for failing to uphold freedom of speech. The case, being heard in the high court in London this week, brings to the fore questions over academic freedom, institutional autonomy, trans rights and EDI policies and the role of the OfS. On this episode of News talks, Times Higher Education editor Chris Havergal talks to Miranda Prynne about the background to the case, the key points upon which Sussex is disputing the OfS findings and the broader implications for universities and the way they are regulated.

In the last decade, the computational power of AI has grown exponentially – doubling every six months since 2010 for some well-known tools. This, in tandem with more sophisticated machine learning models and increases in available data, has opened up possibilities for research and discovery that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. But most academics are relatively new to using AI and thus have a long way to go to understand its many potential applications. Something that comes more naturally to some than to others. To find out how researchers can get the most out of AI tools while managing the associated risks, this week, we speak to a leading computer scientist who has been developing AI tools for research for more than 20 years. Karin Verspoor is dean of the School of Computing Technologies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on the use of AI to support biological discovery and clinical decision making by analysing biomedical text and clinical records. She has held previous posts as director of health technologies and deputy head of the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne, as the scientific director of health and life sciences at NICTA Victoria Research Laboratory. Listen to Karin’s take on the good, the bad and the best way forward for AI in academic research. And if you want more practical advice and insight on how to best apply GenAI to augment your own research, check out our latest spotlight guide: GenAI as a research assistant.