SRHE Mission Statement

The Society for Research into Higher Education is a UK-based international learned society concerned to advance understanding of higher education, especially through the insights, perspectives and knowledge offered by systematic research and scholarship. The Society aims to be the leading international society in the field, as to both the support and the dissemination of research.

More fully, its broad aims are to:

  • Stimulate new forms of research and inquiry into higher education as a field of study
  • Assist in developing research capacity in relation to the field
  • Encourage and support those coming into the field of higher education studies
  • Develop a network of scholars and researchers in the field of higher education studies
  • Offer fora for the presentation of research and scholarship in the field
  • Promote the development and widening of research methodologies in the field
  • Provide opportunities for the publication of research and scholarship in the field
  • Develop opportunities through which researchers in the field can engage with policy makers, practitioners within higher education and other potential interested parties so that policy and practices may be shaped by research

In fulfilment of these ends, year-on-year, the Society will

  • Maintain and develop a database of researchers and scholars in the field in the UK and internationally
  • Seek to encourage the work of those newly embarking on research in the field
  • Conduct conferences and seminars that both bring researchers together and enable researchers, policy-makers and others to engage with each other
  • Produce and support various forms of research-based publications
  • Maintain and develop a number of networks of members, each focused on a particular dimension of higher education where research may have a role to play
  • Support a worldwide network of researchers, through for example, face-to-face and web-based events and professional development workshops to develop and sustain capacity in our field
  • Provide advice to and engage with relevant national and international research and policy debates

Research Projects

From time to time, the Society may itself undertake research (perhaps funded by others) or sponsor directly a research project of its own.

The Society will be a membership-based society, made up of individual members including student and retired members. Subscription fee levels shall be reviewed annually. Other monies shall be sought and/or received from any organization and individual whose purposes are sympathetic to those of the Society.

Wherever mutual benefits can be identified and it is prudent and practicable to do so, the Society will work in collaboration with other organizations. Their logo(s) may appear alongside that of the Society for purposes of marketing particular events, ventures or publications.

Strategic Goals

  • To become understood as the key society in the field of higher education research, at once vibrant and inclusive
  • To enhance the extent to which research plays a significant part in each of the Society’s activities
  • To identify areas of practice and/or policy where the research base could be usefully developed and to stimulate such research
  • To advance an understanding of the opportunities afforded by research evidence and ideas among leaders within the higher education community (including but extending beyond vice-chancellors)
  • To work to enhance the role of research in the development of quality enhancement at the national level within the UK higher education community

Activities

The Society is a specialist publisher of research, having over 100 titles in print. The Editorial Board seeks authoritative research or study in relevant areas for its book series in collaboration with Routledge – Taylor & Francis group. In terms of journals, The Society also publishes Studies in Higher Education, Research into Higher Education Abstracts, and Policy Reviews in Higher Education (all with Taylor & Francis),Higher Education Quarterly (with Wiley) and SRHE News.
The Society holds a major Annual Conference in December, and holds further conferences, seminars and consultations on topics of current interest, and runs a number of Networks.

SRHE & the Changing World of HE: The first 25 years
SRHE & the Changing World of HE: The first 25 years

Professor Michael Shattock OBE, from the UCL Institute of Education, London has kindly put together a short history of the Society, tracing its origins in 1965 through to the 1980s, detailing the many changes and key events for the Society over this period.
A pdf version is available below.
SRHE & the Changing World of HE: The first 25 years

Annual Report

The latest Annual Report for the Society for Research into Higher Education (2022) which gives an overview of the Society’s recent activities is available here.
Download SRHE Annual Report 2022