Jim is an Associate Editor (SUs) at Wonkhe and takes a particular interest in student experience, university governance, and regulation – and leads our work with students’ unions, including our Study Tours to Europe.
His career background is in support for student leadership. He has held senior roles at the National Union of Students – where he led on SU development, campaigns and political strategy – and was the CEO at the SU at UEA, providing strategic management for the union’s charitable and commercial vehicles as well as policy support for the elected student officers.
Jim has served as a governor and trustee in both further and higher education and the voluntary sector, and is a regular speaker at sector events and conferences. He is an obsessive fan of the Eurovision Song Contest, and dreams of visiting Moldova.
2,605 pieces
Newest first, since August 2013 · page 1 of 131
· Wonk Corner
Charging international students deters them but rarely pays
Bern nearly tripled its fee for international students and lost more than a third of its new entrants. Europe keeps relearning the same lesson
· Wonk Corner
The soft bigotry of low expectations comes to student accommodation
The Department for Education (DfE) has published a statement of expectations on student accommodation.
· Comment
Students are working more than ever. Or are they?
Torsten Bell and Alan Milburn say fewer students are working. Jim Dickinson goes down the Labour Force Survey rabbit hole to find out why purpose-built surveys say the opposite
· SUs · Members
Webinar: Understanding OfS’ latest free speech consultation
· SUs · Members
More landlord antics to watch out for over the Renters Rights Act
· SUs · Members
The Quality Code’s new advice is an audit tool for manifesto goals
QAA has finished publishing Advice and Guidance for all twelve principles of the Quality Code. Jim Dickinson reads it for what students can expect
With Wonkhe SUs explainer
· SUs · Members
The ultimate (updated 2026) guide to students’ rights over industrial action
Jim Dickinson updates Wonkhe’s guide to students’ rights during industrial action, covering strikes, marking and assessment boycotts, and the compensation and complaints routes open to students in all four nations.
With Wonkhe SUs explainer
· Wonk Corner
Whose degree is it anyway?
The other day I was talking to an international student leader enrolled on a Business Analytics degree.
· Wonk Corner
The mental health taskforce has no budget
You may (or may not) have been wondering what has been happening with the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce.
· SUs · Members
How (and why) to respond to OfS’ consultation on new conditions of registration for free speech
Jim Dickinson explains what the Office for Students is consulting on ahead of its new free speech conditions E11 and E12, and what SUs should say in response before the consultation closes on 23 November.
· Wonk Corner
Students feel free to speak – unless they’re training to be doctors
Elsewhere on the site today I’ve been picking through the Office for Students’ (OfS) consultation on its two new free speech conditions of registration.
· Policy Watch
The tone has changed on free speech, but the architecture hasn’t
Seating plans, institutional neutrality, and complaints that feed straight into regulation. Jim Dickinson picks through OfS’s consultation on the free speech conditions of registration
· SUs
How to deliver a terrible freshers induction talk
As sabbs take the stage for induction week, Jim Dickinson offers a guide to delivering the SU slot so that nobody remembers a word of it
· Wonk Corner
Staff to student ratios explain far less about the student experience than we assume
If a course has fewer staff per student, do the students rate it worse?
· Comment
We need to talk about mobility
As the UK prepares to rejoin Erasmus+ at around £570 million a year, Jim Dickinson argues that the sector’s five-year record of underspending mobility money should worry everyone – and that the domestic version of the problem is bigger
· Wonk Corner
The story is not the problem, international education has a design problem
I spent this morning chairing a panel at the ICEF Monitor Global Summit in London with the title “How do we tell the story of international education?”.
· Wonk Corner
What is happening to the SSR? The 2027 edition
The other day a student leader told me that she struggled to get a word in edgeways in her seminars. I was surprised, given her general demeanour, until she revealed that the average size of them was 35-40 students.
· Policy Watch
Student loans are still broken and unfair
The government’s reply to the Treasury Committee’s inquiry on student loans accepts some wording changes and rejects the rest. Jim Dickinson finds it answering a fairness question with a solvency one
· Wonk Corner
Someone has to make housing a condition of recruiting students
In the i Paper today, Martha from Essex got into Exeter through clearing, and then had to spend a couple of weeks in an Airbnb while she tried to find accommodation.
· Wonk Corner
UUK’s work experience target forgets that most students already have some
Am I really reading a report on universities offering work experience that has managed to involve 30 universities, 200 employers and business groups, a poll of 500 employer senior leaders, but not a single student?