Introduction

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) promotes and funds high-quality, cost-effective teaching and research in universities and colleges in England, to meet the diverse needs of students, the economy and society.

HEFCE funding word cloud

Universities and colleges are autonomous organisations. We work with them and many other partners to achieve excellence and impact in education and research.

What we do

Our main role is to distribute public money to universities and colleges for higher education teaching, research and related activities, including strengthening their links with industry and the wider community.

We ensure that the quality of teaching is assessed and maintained so that students have the best possible experience.

We fund programmes to support the development of higher education.

We support work to widen participation so that everyone who has the potential to benefit from higher education has the opportunity to do so, whatever their background.

We regulate universities and colleges, including monitoring their financial and managerial health and holding them accountable so we know they are using public money responsibly.

We implement government policy on higher education and ensure that universities and colleges understand and respond to it, including providing guidance on good practice. We also advise the Government on the funding and development needs of higher education.

With the other UK funding bodies, we organise the assessment of research quality.

In everything we do, we strive to safeguard the collective interests of students, and to ensure that the higher education sector has the capacity and funding to respond to present and future challenges.

For more detailed information on specific areas of our work see What we do. For more details of our strategy and approach, see How we operate.

Higher education reform

Some of HEFCE’s roles and responsibilities are under review as part of the Government’s reform of higher education funding. Our strategy statement outlines how we are addressing these changes.