Dr Xin Xu (许心) is a Departmental Lecturer in Higher/Tertiary Education, Deputy Director of the Centre on Skills, Knowledge, and Organisational Performance (SKOPE), and an Ordinary Fellow of Kellogg College.
Xin’s research focuses on the cultural political economy of tertiary education and research. Drawing on critical, comparative, and cross-cultural perspectives, she focuses on three interrelated areas:
- Tertiary education policy and practice
- Research on Research, including research culture, research assessment, academic mobility, and research & innovation ecosystems
- Internationalisation and global dynamics in higher education
Xin received funding from ESRC, SRHE, BAICE, the John Fell Fund, and the Sutton Trust, among others. Current funded projects include:
- System-Thinking Approaches to Tertiary Education Policymaking in England (Principal Investigator)
- Diverse Contributions to Educational Research (Principal Investigator)
- Neurodivergent Education for Students, Teaching & Learning (NESTL) (Co-Principal Investigator)
- Intergenerational Mobility and Higher Education Internationally: a comparative perspective (Co-Investigator)
- The Roles of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in the Local Innovation Ecosystem (Principal Investigator)
Xin is the Book Review editor for Higher Education and has co-edited the Handbook of Meta-Research (with Alis Oancea, Gemma Derrick, Nuzha Nuseibeh; Edward Elgar, 2024) and Changing Higher Education in East Asia (with Simon Marginson; Bloomsbury, 2022). In addition to academic publications, Xin’s research and commentaries have appeared in Nature, The Conversation, Times Higher Education, HEPI, and the University World News. Xin serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Educational Research, the Equity, Diversity and Belonging (EDB) Committee at the Department of Education, and the Equality and Diversity Panel at the University of Oxford.
Xin is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She supervises DPhil and MSc dissertations, and convenes three core modules on the MSc in Education pathway:
- Global Higher Education
- Foundations of Educational Research I
- Foundations of Educational Research II
She has also taught on Higher Education: Systems, Structures and Institutions and Higher Education in the Economy and Society.
Xin was previously an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Tsinghua University (First-Class Honours), an MA in Higher Education from Peking University (Distinction), and a DPhil in Education from the University of Oxford. Her doctoral research, for which she was a Clarendon Scholar, received both the Emerald/HETL Outstanding Doctoral Research Award and the CIES Globalization & Education SIG Dissertation Award.
