My Imaginary University

Everyone works very hard at this institution To kick off the third season of the My Imaginary University podcast we have Higher Education Consultant Hugh Jones who gives us an idea of what it would be like to study at a very serious institution, the University of Life. No, not that one that people down the pub claim to have been to but a real (ok, not actually) university founded on the idea of th...

Everything has gone global at the Olympic-style university This episode of My Imaginary University was, excitingly, recorded live in front of an audience at the recent Wonkhe Festival of Higher Education . Many thanks to Wonkhe for inviting me and special thanks to Jim Dickinson for all the help with making the recording happen. Our creative force on this occasion is Graeme Wise who is Director of...

Let us Rejoice at the Scottish Institute for the Enlightenment In the latest episode of My Imaginary University Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli , Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, shares his vision for a Scottish Institute for the Enlightenment, a body focused on advancing human reasoning for purpose of improvement.  Working closely with the Universities of Edinburgh and G...

Fine, fine, fine This latest episode in the My Imaginary University podcast series stars Ben Vulliamy, Executive Director at AHUA , the Association of Heads of University Administrators.  Ben creates an interesting and distinctive Yorkshire-based university which is busy connecting with everyone and everything but has no time for mission groups. It enthusiastically partners with organisations and...

This episode of the podcast stars Professor Sir Chris Husbands, latterly Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University and now founder and Director of Higher Futures a consultancy, strategy and policy advice company. In dreaming up his imaginary university Chris made the wise choice not to worry at all about finances but rather focused on a set of core precepts drawing on his own diverse experien...

Work experience, wine and rhubarb at a brand new Poly This latest episode of the series, in which a notable higher ed figure creates an entirely new university out of thin air, features Martin Edmondson who is CEO of AGCAS , the Association of Graduate Careers and Advisory Services. Martin wants to bring Italian style plus work experience to a Yorkshire higher education cold spot and has created t...

The latest episode of the podcast finds me talking to Richard Brabner, Executive Chair of UPP Foundation and Director of ESG about his very specific imagined university. James Timpson is Richard's (non-cricketing) hero and the university embodies his approach to social purpose, combining this with the civic university ethos championed by the much-missed Bob Kerslake. The university's home will be...

In this edition of the podcast we hear from Jenny Shaw , Higher Education External Engagement Director at Unite Students, who has developed an imaginary university which is genuinely intended for everyone and can be found everywhere. The University for Everyone is a distributed national operation which takes elements of the Open University, the Workers' Educational Association and Community Organi...

This episode is another landmark in the My Imaginary University podcast series. For the second year in a row the podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at the Wonkhe Festival of Higher Education at Senate House, University of London.  This time, my guest is Nick Hillman , Director of HEPI, the Higher Education Policy Institute, who creates an intensively residential institution, the sedu...

This episode of My Imaginary University features Debbie McVitty , Editor of Wonkhe and prominent higher ed commentator who creates a rather special institution, the University of All the Feels or Feels Uni, a place where, as their slogan has it, "when we do something we meant to do it that way." Debbie gives us a broad sweep of information about the university covering many dimensions of curricula...

In the latest episode of the podcast in which notable sector figures are invited to dream up a fictional university we have Professor Adam Tickell , Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Birmingham, who delivers a novel idea to improve Parliament, politics and public discourse. Adam presents us with Democracy University, a very special kind of institution which provides compulsory tra...

Season 2 of My Imaginary University kicks off with a thoroughly novel creation from Professor Mark Peace , the newly appointed Academic Director of the King's Experience at King's College London. Mark presents Cuckoo University, an incredibly lean organisation with no buildings and very few staff, which is dedicated to enabling students to make the most of the Lifelong Loan Entitlement, assuming f...

Our latest imaginary vice-chancellor is Paul Clark , formerly of HESA and UCL and now an independent strategy consultant. Paul has created a novel institution which is rooted in the past but with an eye very much to the future. There aren’t huge numbers of students on campus at this super-connected ivory tower of an institution but it does have a large online presence. It's a full service universi...

Time for a further landmark in the My Imaginary University podcast series. It is another live recording but our first at an international conference. This recording was made at the 2024 HUMANE annual conference at the University of Amsterdam and features not one but two imaginary higher education institutions. Our creative presenters are Leon Van de Zande, Secretary General at the University of Am...

Our innovative creator in the latest edition of the My Imaginary University podcast is sector stalwart and HE consultant at large, Aaron Porter . Aaron's bold university idea is to create an institution dedicated to serving the public sector and educating prospective public service professionals  from nurses to teachers to fast stream civil servants. With campuses based in former department stores...

 My guest on this episode of My Imaginary University is Alistair Jarvis, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Partnerships and Governance at the University of London . Generously supported by a billionaire philanthropist, Alistair's university is based on three campuses on estates by the sea on the south coast of England, Dubai and Nigeria. The three campuses are equal in every way and every student is mobile, stu...

This episode of My Imaginary University stars Johnny Rich, who is Chief Executive of the Engineering Professors' Council and of Push, the independent university guide, among other roles . Johnny is proud to be the Vice-Chancellor of Camford University, a post he was appointed to some years ago with a bold remit to change the ancient institution. As VC he has instituted a radical approach to contex...

This edition of the podcast stars Professor Julie Sanders, Vice-Chancellor and Principal at Royal Holloway, University of London. Julie offers a novel concept, Greenworld Univerisity, a constellation of campuses based on the notion of green world spaces in Shakespeare or spaces of possibility. Her university has a very broad offering - not just Shakespeare - and provides huge flexibility in learni...

This episode of My Imaginary University is rather longer than usual and follows a slightly different course to previous editions. My guest this time is Professor Sir David Eastwood , most recently, until his retirement, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham but someone with over 25 years of senior leadership in the sector. David explores some of the history of higher education, start...

This episode is a bit of a landmark in the My Imaginary University podcast series. For the first time we recorded the podcast in front of a live and indeed lively audience at this year's Wonkhe Festival of Higher Education at Senate House, University of London. My imagineer this time is Amatey Doku, Senior Consultant at Moorhouse Consulting and he presents us with a genuinely novel package of high...

The latest episode in the My Imaginary University podcast series stars Vicki Stott, Chief Executive Officer of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education . Vicki's imagined institution is very much in a utopian vein with a near unlimited funding stream (thanks to Bill and Melinda) and little regulatory intervention. The university is described as a coalition of mavericks but where everyone...

This episode of My Imaginary University features Heidi Fraser-Krauss who is Chief Executive Officer of Jisc. Heidi offers us a distinctive northern university which has been built by the people for the people. Whilst traditional redbrick in some ways it has a strong research portfolio as well as a substantial adult education programme and is a very open campus. The university town benefits signifi...

The latest episode of My Imaginary University draws on the creative capabilities of Professor Emma Flynn , outgoing Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise at Queen's University Belfast and shortly to start as Provost at the University of Warwick. Emma offers us the most remarkable and fantastical institution - a World University which seeks to recognise the huge power of institutions acro...

This episode of My Imaginary University features Alex Usher who is the President of Higher Education Strategy Associates . Alex is an internationally recognized expert on a range of fields within higher education and is the first My Imaginary Uni podcast participant from outside the UK. The vision for a new institution is a novel one - Alex is keen to create Rustbelt U, an HEI which will be at the...

For this edition of My Imaginary University I invite Iain Mansfield , think tank researcher and former special advisor to several government ministers, to create his ideal HE institution. Iain's imagined university has a long history, dating back to the 1330s, and is a small but perfectly formed collegiate institution based in Stamford in Lincolnshire. The University of Stamford delivers on educat...