Professor Paul Ashwin
Paul Ashwin is Professor of Higher Education, Lancaster University. He played a key role in creating CGHE, was a CGHE Deputy Director and led the Centre’s Graduate Experiences of Employability and Knowledge project.
Paul’s project examines the experiences of graduates of chemistry and chemical engineering in England, South Africa and the United States and has highlighted the central role that academic knowledge plays in the benefits that graduates gain from engaging in higher education. His book, ‘Transforming University Education: A Manifesto’ (2020), argues for a focus on the educational, rather than economic, purposes of university degrees in order to understand their transformational impact on students and societies. He is also the lead author on Reflective Teaching in Higher Education (2015, 2020) written by an international team to support the development of research-informed university teaching.
Paul’s full profile is available on Lancaster University’s website.
CGHE publications
- Undergraduate students’ knowledge outcomes and how these relate to their educational experiences: a longitudinal study of chemistry in two countries
- ‘Pathways to Personal and Public Good’: Implications of project findings for higher education policies and practices in South Africa
- Transforming university teaching
CGHE research projects
Past Events
- CGHE Annual Conference 2024 – The Future of Higher Education
- CGHE Annual Conference 2023 – From Higher to Tertiary: Democratising Post-School Education
- CGHE Annual Conference 2022 – Higher education knowledge in a plural world
- CGHE Annual Conference 2021: Remaking higher education for a more equal world
- What is ‘higher education studies’ and what are its uses? A panel session
- BOOK LAUNCH: Transforming University Education – A manifesto
- CGHE 2020 Annual Conference webinar: Graduates and graduateness
- Graduateness: What is a graduate of contemporary higher education?
- CGHE 2019 annual conference: Challenging higher education
- High participation systems of higher education
- Measuring teaching excellence: challenges and possibilities
Select publications
- Developing effective national policy instruments to promote teaching excellence: evidence from the English case
Policy Reviews in Higher Education, May 2021 - Developing System-Wide Approaches to Teaching Excellence
International Higher Education, 2021 - Transforming University Education: A manifesto
Bloomsbury Academic, 2020 - Reflective Teaching in Higher Education: 2nd Edition
Bloomsbury Academic, 2020 - Locating Social Justice in Higher Education Research
Edited with Jan McArthur. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020 - Higher Education Pathways: South African Undergraduate Education and the Public Good (Edited with Jenni Case)
African Higher Education Dynamics Series Volume 4, 2018 - How does completing a dissertation transform undergraduate students’ understandings of disciplinary knowledge?
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2017 - Conceptualising transformative undergraduate experiences: A phenomenographic exploration of students’ personal projects
British Educational Research Journal, 2016
