Claire Callender (BSc, PhD) is Professor of Higher Education Policy at Birkbeck and Professor of Higher Education Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London. Her research and writing has focused on student finances in higher education and issues related to the topic. She has been commissioned to undertake research for some of the most significant committees of inquires into student funding in the UK, and recently gave evidence at the public hearings of the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance headed up by Lord Browne.

Claire was awarded a Fulbright New Century Scholarship for 2007-08 and spent time at the Harvard Graduate School of Education conducting comparative work on student funding in Britain and the USA. She has just completed a study, commissioned by UniversitiesUK, on the factors affecting the supply of part-time provision. She is currently conducting a longitudinal study on part-time students’ careers for the Higher Education Careers Services Unit and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.