Nick Hillman

Nick Hillman
Special adviser for David Willetts
In office
2010–2013
Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute
Assumed office
2014
Personal details
BornApril 1972 (age 52)
Banbury, England
Political partyConservatives
Residence(s)Haddenham, England
Alma materUniversity of Manchester
Christ's College, Cambridge
Queen Mary University of London

Nicholas Piers Huxley Hillman (born 21 April 1972 in Banbury, Oxfordshire)[1][2] is an English higher education policy adviser, previously a school history teacher and special adviser for the Conservatives. He has been the director of the Higher Education Policy Institute since 2014.

Education

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Hillman studied as an undergraduate at the University of Manchester.[2] He taught English at the University of Bucharest in Romania in 1992, then gained a PGCE in history at Christ's College, Cambridge[3] before teaching history at St Paul's School, London from 1995 to 1998.[4] He received a master's degree in contemporary British history at Queen Mary University of London.[5]

Career

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Hillman worked for Conservative MP David Willetts, first as a Senior Research Officer from 2000 to 2003.[4] Hillman stood for the Conservatives in the 2002 local elections in Hammersmith Broadway Ward, coming sixth in a three-seat election with 528 votes.[6]

He worked on pensions policy for the Association of British Insurers from 2003 to 2007, before returning to politics.[4] From 2007 to 2010, Hillman served as Willetts' chief of staff.[2] He was the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Cambridge in 2010, selected from six candidates in an open primary in December 2009 after Richard Normington stepped down as candidate.[7][8][9] A fundraising dinner was supported by Clarissa Dickson-Wright.[10] He represented himself as a "liberal Tory", but The Independent reported he was "not getting much help from the party's big guns".[11] Hillman came second behind the Liberal Democrat Julian Huppert with 12,829 votes.[12]

From 2010 to 2013 he was a special adviser in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills when Willets was Science Minister. As a special adviser Hillman helped introduce higher university tuition fees.[13][14]

Since January 2014 he has been the director of a think tank, the Higher Education Policy Institute in Oxford.[13][2] Since 2016 he has been on the board of governors of his alma mater, the University of Manchester,[15] and he became a fellow of another alma mater, Queen Mary University of London, in 2016.[16] From 2015 to 2018 he was a school governor at Haddenham St Mary's.[17] He has been a trustee of the National Foundation for Educational Research since April 2018[4][18] and he is a member of the Higher Education Policy Development Group at the British Academy.[19] He was previously a research fellow with Policy Exchange.[20]

Personal life

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Hillman grew up in Banbury. He met his wife while they were undergraduates[20] and they married in Cambridge.[21] While a teacher in London he lived in Covent Garden.[20] They have children[2] and live in Haddenham, Buckingham.[22][23]

Works

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  • Adam Bogdanor, David Willetts MP, Nicholas Hillman, Left Out, Left Behind. Policy Exchange, 2003
  • David Willetts and Nicholas Hillman, Tax Credits: Do They Add Up? Politeia, 2002
  • Nicholas Hillman; Edited by Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich, Quelling the Pensions Storm: Lessons from the past, March 20, 2008
  • The Guardian columnist
  • Nicholas Hillman, "Public schools and the Fleming report of 1944: shunting the first-class carriage on to an immense siding?." History of Education 41#2 (2012): 235–255.
  • Hillman, Nicholas (1 December 2010). "The Public Schools Commission: 'Impractical, Expensive and Harmful to Children'?". Contemporary British History. 24 (4): 511–531. doi:10.1080/13619462.2010.518413. ISSN 1361-9462. S2CID 154446106.
  • Hillman, Nicholas (February 2008). "A 'chorus of execration'? Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' forty years on". Patterns of Prejudice. 42 (1): 83–104. doi:10.1080/00313220701805927. S2CID 143681971.
  • Hillman, Nicholas (2013). "From Grants for All to Loans for All: Undergraduate Finance from the Implementation of the Anderson Report (1962) to the Implementation of the Browne Report (2012)". Contemporary British History. 27 (3): 249–270. doi:10.1080/13619462.2013.783418. S2CID 154321565.
  • Hillman, Nicholas (2016). "The Coalition's higher education reforms in England". Oxford Review of Education. 42 (3): 330–345. doi:10.1080/03054985.2016.1184870.
  • Hillman, Nicholas (2001). "'Tell me chum, in case I got it wrong. What was it we were fighting during the war?' The Re-emergence of British Fascism, 1945-58". Contemporary British History. 15 (4): 1–34. doi:10.1080/713999428. S2CID 143994809.

References

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  1. ^ "Nicholas Piers Huxley HILLMAN". Companies House.
  2. ^ a b c d e Elmes, John (30 January 2014). "Q&A with Nick Hillman". Times Higher Education.
  3. ^ Hillman, Nicholas (11 March 2005). "My other boss was in the Shadow Cabinet". TES.
  4. ^ a b c d "Governance and structure". National Foundation for Educational Research. 5 July 2023.
  5. ^ "Alumni news". QMUL Alumni e-newsletter. July 2016.
  6. ^ "Local Government in Hammersmith and Fulham. Results from the 2002 Local Elections". Hammersmith Today.
  7. ^ Bateman, Elizabeth (12 February 2010). "Cambridge election candidates in University-sponsored debate". Varsity.
  8. ^ Macdonald, Laura (26 April 2010). "Cambridge candidates fight for support". BBC News.
  9. ^ Isaby, Jonathan (12 December 2009). "Nick Hillman selected for Cambridge". Conservative Home.
  10. ^ Hillman, Nick (1 February 2010). "Nick Hillman continues to highlight the folly of voting Lib Dem in Cambridge and gets celebrity backing for his campaign". Conservative Home.
  11. ^ Bland, Archie; Dejevsky, Mary; Prosser, David (5 May 2010). "Back to their roots to test the political mood". The Independent. Archived from the original on 20 June 2022.
  12. ^ "Cambridge remains Lib Democrat". BBC News. 7 May 2010.
  13. ^ a b Scheuber, Andrew (3 March 2015). "Interview: Nick Hillman, Director of HEPI". Imperial College London News.
  14. ^ Marrs, Colin (16 December 2014). "Nick Hillman on weathering the tuition fee storm". Civil Service World.
  15. ^ "Nick Hillman". University of Manchester.
  16. ^ "Five awarded fellowships at QMUL graduation". 26 July 2016.
  17. ^ "HADDENHAM ST MARY'S CE SCHOOL GOVERNORS PECUNIARY AND BUSINESS INTERESTS 2018-19" (PDF). Haddenham-st-marys.bucks.sch.uk. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
  18. ^ "NFER Appoints New Trustees". National Foundation for Educational Research. 24 April 2018.
  19. ^ "Higher Education Policy Development Group". British Academy.
  20. ^ a b c Hillman, Nicholas (5 January 2007). "Which side of the fence are you on?". TES.
  21. ^ "Nick Hillman Selected as Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Cambridge". Richard Taylor. 12 December 2009.
  22. ^ Hillman, Nick (4 June 2017). "Nick Hillman: Voters in Buckingham deserve a real say and a real MP". Conservative Home.
  23. ^ "Crash! Boom! Bang!". Research Professional News. 15 December 2019.
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