Josh completed his PhD in 2021 at the University of Warwick in the field of history, in which he explored the justifications for the expansion of higher education in Britain in the post-war period. Alongside obtaining Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy and delivering undergraduate teaching, Josh helped imagine and develop a new community of practice for postgraduates who teach, including launching as editor-in-chief a new Journal of PGR Pedagogic Practice. He also sustained an interest in the importance of community to learning, working as a Project Officer on the ‘Maskulinities Project’ developing a co-created anti-sexism initiative for students at Warwick, and as Head Coach for the university swim team. These activities shared a common grounding in pedagogy and innovation in tertiary education. For 2021-22 Josh pursued these interests as an Early Career Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning and Institute for Advanced Study at Warwick before joining Edge Research and Policy team in 2022 as a Researcher. At Edge Josh’s main areas of interest are in exploring the divide between the further and higher education sectors and reflecting on past and present policy decisions to account for their successes and failures in informing practice.
Research Projects
- Degree Apprenticeships in England December 2021 – December 2022
- Learning from the Past: General/Liberal Studies in Further Education
Publications and Reports
- Patel, J. (2024) General/Liberal Studies in English Further Education: The rise and fall of a radical programme to balance general and technical education, c1957–1980. Learning from the Past. Edge Foundation
- Josh Patel (2023) Midlands industrialists, liberal education, and the founding of the University of Warwick, Midlands History
- Josh Patel, Pierre Botcherby, Lauren Sleight, Kathryn Woods (2023) ‘Co-creation and the Opportunities and Challenges of the Student Archive’, Natalija Vujoševič, Srđan Tunić and Milena Prelević (eds.), They:Live. Exploring Student Lives Through Context-based Art, Intellect.
- Josh Patel (2023) Playing the Market Retail Investment and Speculation in Twentieth-Century Britain by Kieran Heinemann, Twentieth Century British History. https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwad017
- Josh Patel (2022) The Puzzle of Lionel Robbins: How a Neoliberal Economist Expanded Public University Education in 1960s Britain, Twentieth Century British History. https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwac039
- Patel, J (2022) ‘Maskulinities Project: July 2022 Public Report’, University of Warwick
- Patel, J (2021) Imagining the role of the student in society: ideas of British higher education policy and pedagogy, 1957-1972. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Warwick).
- Patel, J (2021), Utopian Universities, History Workshop Journal, 92, 264-271
- Patel, J (2021), The Journal of PGR Pedagogic Practice and the Warwick PGR Teaching Community: Editorial: PGR Pandemic Pedagogies, Journal of PGR Pedagogic Practice, 1, 3-9.
- Patel, J (2021), Breadth, ‘National Needs’, and Reimagining the Role of the University in Society: The early University of Warwick, Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8 (4), 9-33
Selected Conference Presentations
- September 2022: ‘The problem of ‘The Student’ in university histories: post-war Britain 1957-1972’, Researching student histories NUS 100
- June 2022: ‘Maskulunities Project’ Warwick Inclusion Conference.
- September 2021: 'Lionel Robbins, Early Neoliberalism, and Social Democratic Higher Education Expansion: Reforming liberal education for post-war world, and what we might learn to meet post-COVID challenges’, Society for Education Studies 2020 Colloquium.
