UK SBS BLOJEU-CR150081HEFCE Benchmarking Knowledge Exchange

Services Required Having conducted our own internal work, we are now seeking a small scale expert study to test out what we have done so far and make recommendations on how next stages might be taken forward. A major focus of this stage of the work is to consider any development from the perspective of HEIs themselves – what they would find useful and workable. We describe later in this section role of HE bodies in steering and activities being tendered. This stage of work has two main aims: • To satisfy Government that we are addressing sufficiently efficiency and effectiveness issues in KE and also issues raised, such as in the Dowling review, about the value of common practices and sharing effective practices. • To identify ways to transfer ownership of any development to the HE sector where it can be embedded in use long-term. The focus of this pilot study is on testing out our initial work on a set of benchmarking indicators/benchmarking tool and making recommendations on next steps. We expect that work will be conducted primarily through desk research and a limited number of interviews (HEFCE, HE bodies – particularly Universities UK, AURIL and Praxisunico, other funders, National Centre for Universities and Business). We are interested in tenderers that have knowledge and links on data outside of HEFCE/HESA/HE, particularly international data. A final report may draw attention to a wider range of overseas and non-HE evidence and bodies that may be relevant and could be examined and consulted on a next stage. We expect that the study will be overseen by a virtual steering group that includes HEFCE and expert leads on indicators/benchmarking from HE sector bodies. Please read through the specification for more details.