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The Higher Education Statistics Agency charges for access to data to cover its costs and to keep down the subscription fees paid by higher education providers (¡°FoI costs? University ¡®spies¡¯ only add to them¡±, Opinion, 12 May).

Data supplied to academic researchers is charged on a cost-recovery basis, and to students for an admin fee only. Hesa does not make a profit, and any surpluses are reinvested to achieve the charitable objective of the agency.

Hesa¡¯s strategy for 2016-21 highlights our ambition to make as much of our core data as possible freely available as open data (subject to data protection and confidentiality concerns). We will shortly be launching a consultation on our approach to open data and welcome all suggestions for achieving this ambition.

Paul Clark
Chief executive
Higher Education Statistics Agency

Letters should be sent to: THE.Letters@tesglobal.com
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