full report - Higher Education Academy

Disciplines
The HEA has been active in establishing Special Interest Groups
(SIGs) this year, with 15 discipline-related SIGs supported including:
‘Enhancing students’ experiences of Operational Research’ and
‘Service provision offered by the Mathematical Sciences’ from the
Maths, Statistics and Operational Research discipline; ‘Fieldwork’
from GEES; and ‘Pedagogical Research in the Biological Sciences’,
‘Teaching and Learning BioMaths’ and ‘Teaching and Learning
BioEthics’ from Biological Sciences. The two Engineering SIGs
covered work on Engineering education and the global
dimension of Engineering education, and brought together
academics, professional body, employer and sector skills
representatives to formulate activity to be undertaken through
Academic Associates. The Medicine and Dentistry discipline is
looking at a potential SIG for the coming year on cross-cluster
working and the integration of Arts and Humanities in Medicine.
The disciplines have provided support to the sector through a
number of conferences and events this year. Business and
Management in partnership with the Association of Business
Schools ran a very successful teaching and learning conference
in Manchester in April 2012, attended by 150 delegates and with
keynotes from Professor Graham Gibbs and the HEA’s Chief
Executive Professor Craig Mahoney. The HEA Law discipline
and Nottingham Law School hosted the third National Law
Students Forum in June 2012 at Nottingham Trent University, this
year focusing on employability. The HEA has also published key
discipline-related publications this year including a new report on
student career expectations on the qualifying Law degree. This
report was described by Dr Valerie Shrimplin, former Head
of Education Standards at the Bar Standards Board and now
Academic Registrar at Gresham College, as: “a very interesting
and thorough piece of research that will be helpful to inform
current thinking on legal education and training, especially the
wishes and needs of students”.
The HEA discipline areas are also working to ensure greater
engagement with the sector through online bulletins and
publications; for example, the Marketing discipline disseminates a
quarterly online publication, HEA Marketing Digest, and over half
of the Psychology academics in the UK now receive a monthly
e-bulletin from the Discipline Lead for Psychology.
This year the HEA has built up a network of nearly 1,500
Academic Associates from across the sector, covering all disciplines
and thematic areas that are priorities for higher education. Their
activities include undertaking research, writing reports and
evaluations, organising workshops and seminars, assisting on the
change programmes, helping with accreditation and recognition
work, editing journals, blogging, and helping the network of
Discipline Leads cover the UK building networks and delivering
expert activities in their subject areas. The HEA has also
developed a toolkit of resources to support the work of the
Academic Associates and this will be launched in September,
to sit alongside a series of induction events.
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