The hype is easing and we’re learning a bit more about how students and university staff might use AI-assisted technology as part of legitimate learning and teaching activity. Preparing students for the reality of a world that is AI-infused and more likely to be automated, but still fundamentally requiring human intelligence requires understanding what AI makes possible in learning, where the risks are, and how can they best be navigated. How does the availability of AI tools reshape our sense of what learning is and what sort of productive activities contribute to it?

As students’ needs change, demographics shift, and policy coalesces around the skills agenda, patterns of provision will also change in many higher education institutions, with a greater focus on meeting the needs of lifelong learners. The Open University has been leading lifelong learning provision across the UK for decades – so what’s the secret of making it work?

Come and meet the Team Wonkhe people behind the headshots, while we chat through what makes a great article for the site.

Speaking to those who have been directly involved, we trace the story of the changes, challenges, and occasional chaos that have befallen the 2022-23 Student data collection. It’s the ultimate insider story, a tale of agency politics, project governance, and data definitions that has had a real and measurable impact on providers and regulation. And Data Futures is here to stay – we examine how sector data can move on from the data present.

The authors of Born to Rule: the making and remaking of the British elite will be discussing the role that universities can have in reproducing or, more rarely, disrupting established patterns of social privilege – and what can be done about it.

The Jisc CEO joins us to discuss how higher education can make the most of new technologies for education and research, make itself central to the Labour government’s digital agenda, and build digital citizenship in students, while managing spiralling costs, increasing cyber threats, and the incursions into higher education of the technology futures industry.

Jeremy Driver joins us to discuss what it is about some professional cultures where nothing seems to progress because the otherwise intelligent people involved claim that every single thing impossible – a phenomenon he has dubbed the “cheems mindset.” Find out more about cheems and why it’s bad in Jeremy’s blog about this: https://normielisation.substack.com/p/cheems-mindset

Ask not what government can do for higher education but what higher education can do for government policy. This workshop will examine some of the core policy agendas of national governments and convene imaginative thinking about what evidence, bright ideas, and fresh thinking higher education could bring to the table.

Financial challenge means tougher times, and many higher education institutions are facing difficult decisions about staff structures, roles, and budgets. While national negotiations over pay, terms, and conditions continue, we discuss what is within universities’ control about the working experiences of higher education staff, and whether current higher education staffing arrangements are still fit for purpose.

The interim chair of the Office for Students and leader of the government’s review of the regulator “Fit for the Future” joins us to discuss his priorities for higher education regulation.