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Teaching and Education

The British Academy’s Teaching and Education work delivers research and analysis on the teaching, practice and impact of SHAPE subjects across higher education, including SHAPE skills and languages.
Departments
Policy
Programme status
Ongoing

The Academy’s Teaching and Education work encompasses a range of areas related to the SHAPE disciplines, including teaching and education in higher education, skills and the skills inherent to SHAPE disciplines, and languages and language learning.

We work to support and drive a healthy education ecosystem across our disciplines by monitoring and responding to developments in student and staff numbers, fees and funding, pedagogy, careers, and other important education policy areas.

We promote debate about the future of higher education and the development of a broad and balanced curriculum. We actively monitor the health of our disciplines through our SHAPE Observatory, evidence gathering and responding to data releases around student and qualification numbers. A particular area of focus has been on languages and language learning; strategically important subjects for the future health of the economy and society, but also ones with vulnerabilities throughout the educational pipeline. Our work also addresses current issues of debate within the higher education sector, including highlighting the diverse career pathways of graduates from postgraduate research degrees.

Our skills work aims to ensure that social science, humanities and arts subjects have a strong voice in debates about future skills needs, and champion the role of SHAPE skills in UK society and the economy. Our work has identified and articulated the skills inherent to the study of SHAPE disciplines, and aims to demonstrate their value to individuals, society and the economy.

We engage with relevant stakeholders in all of our work, in order to promote dialogue, support initiatives, and maintain networks relevant to our disciplines, including learned societies and subject associations.

For details of the governing committees and networks we convene across our higher education and research work, see the Policy Committees page.

Programmes

SHAPE Skills

Languages

Funding

Student Funding Across the United Kingdom: tuition and maintenance in the four nations and the impact of inflation

This briefing paper was written to support a discussion on the sustainability of student funding in the United Kingdom.

Health of the disciplines

English Studies Provision in UK Higher Education

This report provides an evidence base to explore changes to the provision of English Studies in UK higher education. It follows previous Academy studies on its constituent disciplines.

Business and Management Provision in UK Higher Education

This report reflects on the provision of business and management in the UK. It has been produced as part of the British Academy’s wider observatory function, which seeks to monitor the health and sustainability of SHAPE disciplines through analysis of trends in academic provision and research.

Languages Provision in UK Further Education

Languages Provision in Further Education (FE) has sought to understand the extent of the provision and uptake of languages (other than English and Welsh) in the FE sector in the United Kingdom, and to ascertain the trends in that provision over the past 20 years.

Theology and Religious Studies provision in UK Higher Education

The report provides a summary of trends in the academic provision of Theology and Religious Studies in UK Higher Education

Reflections on Economics

This report hopes to provide a helpful assessment of some key parts of economics today.

Reflections on Archaeology

This report celebrates the significant strengths in UK archaeology and honestly reflects on the challenges it needs to tackle if it is to continue to thrive.

University practices

The Teaching-Research Nexus

The British Academy set out to investigate the relationship between teaching and research in higher education and to see whether the two could be considered to exist in a kind of symbiotic relationship.

Harnessing Educational Research

This report assesses the current state of the educational research ecosystem in the UK and gives recommendations on how the relationships between different parts of this ecosystem can be strengthened.

Teaching Excellence Framework

The British Academy's responses to Teaching Excellence Framework consultations from 2016-2022.

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