A discussion draft of a "Toolkit" for dealing with disputes in higher education has been published by a group of British researchers. According to the draft document, in the higher education arena, “dispute” is a working concept that can embrace a wide variety or types of controversies. It generally refers to the situations where students or staff or any of an increasingly wide range of academic, public or commercial ‘partners’ become involved in disagreements with a higher education institution.

The research, funded by the Leadership, Governance and Management Fund of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, has been undertaken by researchers from many universities across the sector supported by a number of major law firms as partners in the project. The Steering Group, chaired by Professor G.R. Evans (University of Cambridge) with Professor Tim Birtwistle (Leeds Metropolitan University) as Vice-Chair, hopes for as much exposure as possible to the higher education world for the draft (which whilst set in an English context has many transferable elements to it). Therefore, comments back are more than welcomed.

Improving Dispute Resolutions