How scholars spend their time

These data show how scholars used their time at different types of university in the period 2012 to 2015

At the most research-intensive universities (defined as those in the top decile for total research funding received), academics spend more than half their time on research, double the proportion spent at younger universities.

Scholars at younger universities prioritise teaching, but also have a larger administrative burden than elsewhere (a quarter of academic time versus a fifth at older and research-intensive universities).

At all types of institution, knowledge exchange plays second fiddle to other tasks.

The data come from a survey of more than 18,000 academics by the National Centre for Universities and Business, entitled .

As reported in last week’s Times Higher Education, it found that a dwindling number of academics were commercialising their work.

Spending on UK higher education rises by 6%

Tuition fee income increases sharply as funding council cash declines, latest sector-level data shows Spending on UK higher education providers increased by 6 per cent in 2014-15 to £31.2 billion, new figures show.

Details of the latest increase – worth around £1.8 billion in total – were released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which indicates the sector's total income grew even faster.

Some £33.2 billion in income was received by UK higher education in the last full academic year, up from £30.7 billion in 2013-14, an 8.1 per cent rise, the latest Hesa information published on 28 April shows.

That came despite a reduction in income from funding council grants, which accounted for £5.3 billion in 2014-15 (17.2 per cent of total income) compared with £6.1 billion (19.8 per cent of total income) in 2013-14.

Monies from tuition fees and education contracts (£15.6 billion) were significantly up on 2013-14 (£13.7 billion) – with just over a quarter of this (27 per cent) coming from international students (£4.2 billion).

International fee income accounted for 12.7 per cent of the sector’s income – the same proportion as in 2013-14, though the total income was 8 per cent higher in actual terms (£3.9 billion was raised in 2013-14).

Income from research grants and contracts (£5.9 billion) is now more than that awarded by funding councils (£5.3 billion), which just five years ago were the largest source of funding for higher education (handing out 33.7 per cent of all income in 2009-10).

The total amount of money received from European Union sources was £836 million (2.5 per cent of all higher education income) compared with £789 million in 2013-14 (2.6 per cent).

On expenditure, some 55 per cent of money went on staff costs (£17.1 billion) compared with £16.3 billion in 2013-14 (55 .4 per cent).

Some £3.6 billion was spent on university premises and £1.6 billion on residences and catering operations.

Source: 

HESA: HE Finance Plus 2014/15, published on 28 April 2016

Grant winners – 28 April 2016

Medical Research Council

Research grants

• Award winner: Aisha Holloway
• Institution: University of Edinburgh
• Value: £118,771

An alcohol brief intervention (ABI) for male remand prisoners: an MRC complex intervention framework development and feasibility study

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• Award winner: Joanna Morrison
• Institution: University College London
• Value: £100,100

Supportive supervision of mid-level health workers in rural Nepal for improved job satisfaction, motivation and quality of care

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Economic and Social Research Council

Research grants

• Award winner: Roderick Stirrat
• Institution: University of Sussex
• Value: £58,371

Making philanthropy developmentally effective

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• Award winner: Victoria Leong
• Institution: University of Cambridge
• Value: £195,531

Using “naturalistic dual-EEG” to measure mother-infant brain-to-brain (b2b) synchrony in socially mediated learning

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National Environment Research Council

• Award winner: Helen Brindley
• Institution: Imperial College London
• Value: £121,362

ICE-IMPACT: International consortium for the exploitation of infrared measurements of polar climate

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• Award winner: Tat-Hean Gan
• Institution: Brunel University London
• Value: £645,464

Innovate UK HitClean high temperature inspection and cleaning by advanced ultrasonics for effective maintenance and management of oil and gas offshore

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Leverhulme Trust

Research Project Grants
Sciences

• Award winner: Bruno Dhuime
• Institution: University of Bristol
• Value: £184,313

Silicate mineral inclusions and the composition of new continental crust

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• Award winner: Martin Eimer
• Institution: Birkbeck, University of London
• Value: £185,528

Neural and cognitive mechanisms of multimodal working memory

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• Award winner: Emmanuil Georgoulis
• Institution: University of Leicester
• Value: £199,662

Reduced complexity finite element methods

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• Award winner: Joanna Morgan
• Institution: Imperial College London
• Value: £228,055

Santorini: high-resolution imaging of an active volcano with 3D full-waveform inversion

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In detail

Humanities

Award winners: Robert Jones and Martyn Powell
Institutions: University of Leeds and Aberystwyth University
Value: £272,621

The political works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan

This project will investigate the dramatist, theatre-owner and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was more notoriously known as a spin doctor, drinker and debtor. Sheridan was a politician for nearly three decades. This study is a reappraisal of his career, exploring his national and international significance as a politician and orator, and his wider political activity – such as his journalistic writing. Sheridan, on account of his excellent oratorical skills, which made his speeches popular among newspaper editors, served as progenitor for the “spin doctor”. The project will culminate in the publication of a four-volume edition of his complete political works.

REF should include all academics, says University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge has proposed a “radical” shake-up of the research excellence framework (REF) so that every academic, even those on teaching-only contracts, would be submitted to the assessment exercise.

The future shape of the REF, currently being reviewed, is being fought over by UK universities, with Cambridge’s ideas perhaps the most controversial yet.

At the moment, departments can choose to submit any number of researchers to the REF, which Cambridge says is to blame for much of the “gaming” that occurs during the process.

“All academic staff, irrespective of whether their contracts are teaching-only, research-only or both, should be returned. This would have the twin benefits of increasing the accuracy and integrity of the exercise and significantly reducing its cost,” says the university’s submission to the review.

“If the staff return is restricted to staff with a research element in their contracts there is a risk that institutions alter employment contracts of their academic staff to enable particular individuals to be included or excluded,” it says. “This can be hugely detrimental for those staff who have been excluded.”

It also proposes scrapping a limit of four papers per researcher as this “discriminates against highly-productive, world-leading researchers”.

The university also supports looking at an institution’s overall research performance rather than assessing it at a more granular level, echoing the view of the Russell Group, of which it is a member.

“Cambridge proposes radical change to the current REF model with a move to a process of institutional research evaluation. Cambridge considers that the totality of an institution’s research output must be considered a key element of the evaluation of its research quality and environment,” it says.

This view has already been criticised by the University Alliance of younger institutions, which generally receive less money from the REF, as it would risk handing even more resources to universities that already do well, and potentially ignoring pockets of excellence in less research-intensive universities.

The current review of the REF is being led by Lord Stern, president of the British Academy, and is expected to report in the summer. 

Undergraduates 'poorly prepared for PhDs'

Undergraduate courses are not properly equipping students to pursue doctorates, meaning that many undertaking PhDs are “less confident” than those in past cohorts, a conference has heard.

Alison Hodge, professor of engineering leadership at Aston University, made the warning as universities prepare for a new government loan scheme that could help more students to enter doctoral study.

Undergraduate programmes “have been quite heavily structured”, she told delegates at a conference in London on 7 April. Course leaders have tried to encourage “independence” among undergraduates, but students are nonetheless “less confident, less standalone when they embark on PhDs”, than in the past, she said.

Later during the conference, she added: “With the expansion in numbers there are more people going into PhDs than perhaps were formerly”. But not all of these have the independence, self-reliance and “slightly rebellious” streak needed to get through a doctorate, Professor Hodge warned.

More students believe – having done well at undergraduate level – that they can “sail through” a PhD using the same ways of working, she argued. The conference heard that a sizeable minority of PhD students still start a doctorate without studying a master’s first.

Asked whether she agreed with Professor Hodge, Clare Jones, a senior careers advisor for research staff and students at the University of Nottingham, said: “I do think there is a bigger difference [now] between being on an undergraduate programme and then moving through to a PhD”.

New PhD students “need to get hold of the fact very quickly that they are working differently”, she said.

A total of 12.8 per cent of research degree students in England will end up leaving without a qualification within seven years, according to projections by the Higher Education Council for England (Hefce) relating to those who started a doctorate in 2010-11. However, this is a very slight improvement on earlier cohorts.

In March's Budget, it was confirmed that from 2018-19 doctoral students will be able to take on a £25,000 loan to help cover the cost of a PhD.

Steven Hill, Hefce’s head of research policy, told the event, Next Steps for Postgraduate Research: Funding, Quality of Provision and the High-Skilled Workforce, organised by the Westminster Higher Education Forum, that this sum would not cover the full living and fees cost of a PhD. Many students would therefore still need to find other sources of funding.

Dr Hill added that 56 per cent of postgraduate research students now enter with a master’s qualification, a figure that had been increasing in recent years.

Princeton keeps Woodrow Wilson’s name despite protests

Princeton University has announced that its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs will continue to bear the name of the 28th president, despite protests by student activists seeking to rename the school because of Wilson's record on racial issues, writes David Wright for CNN.

In a press release, Princeton's board of trustees called for “an expanded and more vigorous commitment to diversity and inclusion at Princeton” – but stopped short of renaming the school.

“The trustees accepted the committee's recommendation that the school of public and international affairs and the undergraduate residential college that bear Wilson's name should continue to do so,” they wrote of the former president who had once served as Princeton's president. “But that the university also must be 'honest and forthcoming about its history' and transparent 'in recognising Wilson's failings and shortcomings as well as the visions and achievements that led to the naming of the school and the college in the first place’.”
Full report on the CNN site

New infrastructure programme for universities, colleges

Canada’s Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan announced last week that the government would launch the application process for a CAN$2 billion (US$1.5 billion) fund that will improve research and innovation infrastructure at universities and colleges across the country, reports Marketwired.

Announced in Budget 2016, the Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund will enhance and modernise research facilities on Canadian campuses and improve the environmental sustainability of these facilities. Consultation with the provinces and territories as well as work to implement the initiative as quickly as possible are already under way.

The targeted, short-term investments under the fund will promote economic activity across Canada and help Canada's universities and colleges develop highly skilled workers, act as engines of discovery and collaborate on innovations that help Canadian companies compete and grow internationally.
Full report on the Marketwired site

150 best young universities in the world

Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne has topped the Times Higher Education 150 Under 50 Rankings 2016 – a ranking of the best universities under the age of 50 – for the second year in a row, while the United Kingdom has the most world-class young institutions in the top 150, writes Ellie Bothwell for Times Higher Education.

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne held on to pole position in the table despite fierce competition from universities in East Asia. Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, founded just 25 years ago, came second, making it Asia’s top young institution for the first time in the ranking’s five-year history. This follows Singapore’s success in last year’s Times Higher Education World University Rankings, in which the National University of Singapore was crowned Asia’s best university.

The rest of the top five in the young universities list was filled by Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Netherlands’ Maastricht University and South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology in third, fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Full report on the Times Higher Education site

Lifelong learning units for all public universities

All five public universities in Singapore will this year set up dedicated units to help citizens learn new skills throughout their lives as part of the SkillsFuture programme, it was announced last week, writes Medha Basu for Govinsider.

The five universities are the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University, Singapore University of Technology and Design, and the Singapore Institute of Technology. The new units will help universities prepare themselves to deliver new kinds of courses to mid-career citizens, through shorter courses, more online training and creating deeper ties with employers.

“A key focus of these centres will be to look beyond traditional degree offerings, by offering shorter, bite-sized certificate programmes,” said Ong Ye Kun, Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills), in his Committee of Supply speech. “The purpose is not to offer part-time degrees or masters programmes to fuel the paper chase, but to help workers stay relevant and competitive,” he added.
Full report on the Govinsider site 

Student admissions criteria to widen beyond grades

Polytechnics and universities will have more room to admit students based on their talents and interests rather than just grades, under enhancements to current aptitude-based admission schemes, writes Laura Elizabeth Philomin for Today Online.

At the polytechnics, the Direct Polytechnic Admissions, or DPA, intake allowance will be raised to 12.5% from the current 2.5%, and the scheme will be renamed the Early Admissions Exercise, beginning from the 2017 academic year intake. At the university level, Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University will be able to admit up to 15% of their annual intake under the Discretionary Admissions Scheme – up from the current 10%. It will also begin with the 2017 academic year cohort.

Announcing this during the Ministry of Education’s Committee of Supply debate, Acting Education Minister (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung said studies by the ministry had shown that among students with similar O-Level aggregate scores, those admitted to polytechnics through the DPA do better in their studies and are more likely to continue in careers in the sectors they were trained for.
Full report on the Today Online site 

Former university leaders raise flag over funding

The system for funding American flagship public universities is “gradually breaking down”, said Robert J Birgeneau, a former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and the co-chair of a two-year project to examine the role of public research universities and recommend changes to help them stay competitive, writes Mikhail Zinshteyn for The Hechinger Report.

With states’ investment in public universities having sharply declined since 2000, Birgeneau and Mary Sue Coleman, a former president of the University of Michigan, urged the adoption of new funding methods that rely less on tuition revenue and more on a combination of private, federal and state resources.

The recommendations came on 7 April, in the last of five reports by the group that Birgeneau and Coleman co-chaired, called The Lincoln Project: Excellence and access in public higher education, an initiative of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The report recommended that states reverse the deep cuts to their higher education budgets and, together with the federal government, create tax incentives for businesses to encourage donations to scholarships. 
Full report on The Hechinger Report site 

Universities may have to reveal student admissions scores

Universities may have to reveal student admissions scores
Universities may be forced to reveal their real course cut-offs including the lowest entrance scores they have accepted so students can make better decisions, writes Charis Chang forNews.com.au.

According to a discussion paper, the Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham wants to make it easier for students to find out exactly what marks they need to get into a course. There is concern that some students are struggling to complete their courses and revealing cut-off marks will make universities more accountable.

This could include revealing minimum, median and top Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, or ATAR, marks for all students accepted into a course. The discussion paper hopes to get feedback on the best ways to make it easier for students to find out information, whether that be through an online platform, greater accountability for institutions or better education around high school scores and the ATAR.
Full report on the News.com.au site 

Universities to lose power to allocate student funds

Universities will soon lose their powers to allocate National Student Financial Aid Scheme funds to poor students as the government body tightens its grip on finances, reports BDLive.

Presenting the proposed new funding system at the University of the Witwatersrand last week‚ National Student Financial Aid Scheme, or NSFAS, Chairperson Sizwe Nxasana criticised universities for being part of the problem, hindering students from accessing funding to higher education. He said universities often did as they pleased when allocating NSFAS funds. In some cases universities would give students inadequate financial support and in return the same students would end up as drop-outs with bad debt.

According to the current NSFAS system‚ a single student qualifies for a maximum of R72,000 per year. Nxasana gave an example of a university that was given R400 million‚ but decided to allocate it to too many students. "As a result of that‚ each student got about R20,000 for that year and had to scrape around for extra funding for books and accommodation. Many of them dropped out and were left with heavy debt. This is the reason why we want to take control of every cent‚" Nxasana said.
Full report on the BDLive site 

Calls grow for university chancellor ouster

The University of California's student association has called on University of California, Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi to resign amid revelations that the university paid to remove Internet references to a 2011 incident in which police pepper-sprayed students, write Sarah Parvini and Ruben Vives for the Los Angeles Times.

The group is the latest to join a growing call for Katehi to step down after it was disclosed that UC Davis paid at least US$175,000 to clean up its online reputation. Newly released documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee show the university was determined to improve both its image and that of Katehi.

In a statement, UC Davis officials defended the efforts as an important part of an overall communications strategy. “It is important that the excellent work underway at UC Davis with respect to educating the next generation of students, pursuing ground-breaking research, and providing important services to the state is not lost during a campus crisis, including the crisis that ensued following the extremely regrettable incident when police pepper-sprayed student protesters in 2011,” the statement said.
Full report on the Los Angeles Times site 

Higher university rankings mean higher price – Study

Australian universities with a higher position in global league tables tend to set higher international tuition fees, writes Natalie Marsh for The PIE News.

The comparative analysis of international student fees in Australia was conducted by recruitment firm Studymove Consultants and looked at close to 4,300 programmes at all 39 Australian universities. A strong correlation emerged between the ranking position and the price of the annual tuition fees for international students.

The institutions’ ranking positions were based on the QS World University Rankings. Australian National University was the country’s highest ranked university, in 19th place, followed by the University of Melbourne at 42nd and the University of Sydney at 45th. All three of these universities have their average international tuition fee set at over A$30,000 (US$23,200).
Full report on The PIE News site 

Higher education boosts monthly earnings, says staff body

The Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland has reminded young people that education truly pays off amid its concerns that the ongoing debate over unemployment has blurred public perceptions of reality, writes Aleksi Teivainen for the Helsinki Times.

“Fewer than 7% of people with a postgraduate degree are unemployed, whereas 12.5% of the entire labour force are unemployed. Educated people are considerably more unlikely to experience even a short period of unemployment than they are to be employed for the whole duration of their career,” Ida Mielityinen, an expert at the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff or AKAVA, points out in a press release.

“The monthly earnings of people with a higher education degree (including undergraduate degrees) are €1,100 (US$1,240) higher than those of the average wage earner,” it states, quoting data on the structure of earnings released by Statistics Finland in 2014.
Full report on the Helsinki Times site 

Pharma funnels millions into university sponsorship

The independence of Swiss universities from the corporate world has again been called into question as details of pharmaceutical sponsorship deals were broadcast by a Swiss public television channel. The programme found evidence that one firm may have manipulated academic research data, reports Swissinfo.ch.

Research by Swiss public television channel SRF shows financial links between pharma giants – such as Roche, Novartis, Merck Serono and even the industry lobby group Interpharma – and several leading universities. Pharma funding paid for professorial seats and-or research at the universities of Bern and Basel, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne or EPFL.

The grants ranged from CHF450,000 (US$461,000) annually to a CHF12.5 million contract that runs for 25 years. This last sum was paid by Merck Serono for chairs in neuroscience, drug delivery and oncology at EPFL. The most damning revelation is that Merck Serono demanded to see research every three months and reserved the right to make “acceptable alterations” to results. 
Full report on the Swissinfo.ch site 

Students protest over education law, university fees

Thousands of high school students have staged demonstrations in cities across Spain to protest over the country's education law, changes in the duration of university degrees and university fee hikes, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

The protests were called by the Spanish Students’ Union, with the biggest marches taking place in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. The demonstrations came at the end of a two-day strike by the students that had uneven support.

The education bill was brought in by the conservative Popular Party in 2014. Opposed by most other political parties and many teacher and parent groups, it increases the number of annual exams and reintroduced religion as a subject. The government claimed it was aimed at stemming Spain's school dropout rate.
Full report on the San Francisco Chronicle site 

What is the role of the university in the digital age?

Much of the literature on the future of higher education in the digital age has been almost apocalyptic. Predicting the transformation of the sector by "the forces of technology and globalisation", the UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research warned in its 2013 report, An Avalanche is Coming: Higher education and the revolution ahead: "the solid classical buildings of great universities may look permanent but the storms of change now threaten them". 


Outlining "the threat posed to traditional 20th century universities if key institutions don’t change radically", they identified the "entirely new models of university which are seeking to exploit […] globalisation and the digital revolution" as "the new competition, the real threat".

Similarly Ernst and Young’s 2012 report, University of the Future: A thousand year old industry on the cusp of profound change, suggested that, just as: "digital technologies have transformed media, retail, entertainment and many other industries – higher education is next".

The suggestion of a moral panic comes to mind and such language requires critique. How similar it is to the hubris of the short or abandoned World Bank reports on education as being "the next big private enterprise opportunity" in Africa. Quantity, delivered with a frenzied enthusiasm for action, and without consideration for form, culture, or ancient and indigenous rights would be the hallmark of that erroneous initiative also.

It is important to reflect on the sources, the assumptions and the purpose of the discourses from which those dramatic views have emerged. It is difficult, for example, to find the influence of social policy theorists, philosophy departments, social economists or indeed those engaged in fundamental theoretical work in such analysis.

Narrow debate

Similarly, the political climate and the political assumptions of the day influence academic possibilities. There is a grave danger that debates about the role of the university today are taking place in a narrow political and ideological space. Higher education worldwide has certainly moved from the periphery to the centre of government agendas.

However, with which aspects of our universities have government policy-makers concerned themselves, and with what consequences or benefits, and for whom, are questions that should concern all European citizens.

I suggest that at the present moment in Europe and far beyond it, insofar as policy-makers focus attention on education policy, they tend to view universities in a rather utilitarian way, as foundations of new knowledge and innovative thinking, within the confines of existing trade, commercial and economic paradigms, paradigms that are fading but not without damage to social cohesion.

Policy-makers pursue, perhaps with their own best of intentions, their own narrowly defined project, rather than any purposive change as a means of advancing social justice and mobility. They seek contributors to social and cultural dynamism irrespective of the distribution of the benefits. This is an approach wherein short-term concerns prevail over long-term developmental or social cohesion objectives.

We should recall some first principles of the necessary role of the university in society; principles which might set the parameters within which we can most productively engage with new technologies and reap the dividends of innovation; principles by which new technologies might strengthen rather than undermine the intellectual foundations of Europe that have been carved out over so many centuries; and principles that might remain as vision, however now threatened, for a possible better future for our citizens.

In doing so, we must first recognise that we live at a time when the language and rhetoric of the speculative market have become embedded in the educational culture and have brought some university practices down a precarious road. We have reached a juncture which sees intellectuals challenged to recover the moral purpose of original thought and emancipatory scholarship; a time when we must seek to recapture the human and unifying capacity of scholarship.

The challenge we face is that we must confront as erroneous a prevalent perception that the necessary focus of higher education must be on that which is utilitarian and immediately applicable. 

Such a view sees the primary objective of the university, and those who study within it, as being in preparation for a specific role within the labour market, often at the cost of the development of life-enhancing skills such as creativity, analytical thinking and clarity in written and spoken expression. These are the skills that will be essential to the citizens of the future to make informed choices about life-work balance, about what constitutes survival and consumption, and what is meant by human flourishing, solidarity or humanity itself.

Intellectual crisis

Max Weber, the great social theorist, responded to the events of his time in the second half of the 19th century as a public intellectual, accepting the requirement not only of radical thought but of the duty to communicate as part of a public discourse. Weber’s was a time of radical change and transition, the response to which would be dominated by technocratic thinking. 

Weber supported a commitment to rationality as the key building block of the future. His was not a mission to reject the rationalist heritage of a previous century, but to look beyond that horizon to something that was beyond logic, intuition and religious sentiment.

He critiqued the excesses of both positivism and idealism, but envisioned the consequences of a potential abuse of that which would be claimed to be rational. He foresaw the consequences of irrational thought and action hiding behind the mask of a ‘claimed rationality’ or a ‘bogus inevitability’.

Weber spoke of the threat of a spring that would not beckon with its promise of new life, but would deliver instead a ‘polar night of icy darkness’. He prophesied an iron cage of bureaucracy, a dehumanised landscape within which conformity would be demanded to that which no longer recognised its original moral or reasonable purpose.

While Weber’s view of the future might be seen as dystopian, we can certainly recognise some of the features he predicted in our contemporary situation, in which a ‘claimed rationality’ has led less to what is productive or inclusive but at so many times to what is a speculative gambling of resources and outcomes that has consequences in so much global misery.

Our contemporary European crisis is at least as profound as that faced by previous generations of political and social theorists at the end of the 19th century, but our response seems to be so slow, even, as so many European citizens sense, inadequate. The bucket rattles empty from the well of European intellectual thought. We are left thirsty for visionary possibilities of theory or policy.

The crafting of a response to this intellectual crisis is, I believe, a widespread challenge and one that the Irish and European universities must embrace, insisting on remaining open to originality in theory and research, and committed to humanistic values in teaching. 

Free thinking

We must not forget that it is through the encouragement of creative and free thinking that our universities acquired their status in the past, and correctly claim it today, as unique institutions that accept the responsibility of enabling and empowering citizens to participate fully and effectively at all levels of society. This creative function must be cherished, nurtured and encouraged.

Too many, perhaps unknowingly, have accepted an ‘under labourer’ view of the university, indeed of intellectual work. Put more broadly, as we seek to survive and belong in a form of society/economy relationship where we have lost the capacity to critically evaluate, and as we witness the many great crises currently facing Europe, citizens yearn for the evidence of engaged critical interdisciplinary work.

"Be the arrow, not the target" was the title that the critical theorist, the late Raymond Williams gave to his last address on communications. We cannot allow ourselves to be the dependent variable of a fractured dialogue on the future of the European Union, or of a declining international solidarity. We European citizens cannot allow ourselves to sleepwalk through the crisis that an unaccountable, but reformable, form of globalisation presents.

In this context, the role of the university in enabling citizens to develop the intellectual tools to address the great challenges of our time, which include questions of development and global poverty, of climate change and sustainability, and of conflict and displacement, is one which is vital.

Indeed, that we have heard the call to be responsible in relation to climate change or to sustainable development, that it has been endorsed by world leaders, is due to responsible scholars, thoughtful scientists who have made the intellectual case for political action at the global level – who have combined scholarship with citizenship and activism. 

In this wider social understanding of the university, its relationship with its students cannot in my view, without great loss, be reduced, then, to that of provider of any narrow professional training, guided towards a specific and limited objective, and essentially disengaged from the academic experience which is fundamental to independent thought and scholarly engagement. 

Theirs must be a much broader rapport, one which introduces students to an intellectual life and allows them to develop a critical turn of mind as well as informing an ethical concern with their community and their planet.

Online learning

At the pedagogical level, the increasing availability of online courses has done much to make further education accessible to a wider range of citizens, which presents exciting opportunities for increasing participation – especially among remote or marginalised communities. 

It is critical, however, that students do not become disengaged from the teacher/student experience. Learning from those who are passionate about their subject, face to face collaboration and regular engagement in organic debate and discussion, participation on university societies and clubs, journeying into the false avenues as well as the fruitful ones, is central to a rich and fulfilling educational experience. 

There are great challenges in contemporary research practice too. In the published research in the social sciences, we have witnessed in recent decades the marginalisation of political philosophy and social theory to rather narrow issues of administration and, under pressure of publication and peer competition, to that which can be easily measured. 

More and more pressure has come on universities and scholars to prove their relevance within a hegemonic version of the connection between society and economy that is destructive to social cohesion – one that has demanded a consensus on the desirability, not merely of an economic growth measured in gross terms, but of a singular, limited version of teaching economics. Scholarship requires the breadth and breath of culture for paradigm shift to happen.

We have been living through a period of extreme individualism, a period where, in its early extreme version, the concept of society itself has been questioned. The public space has been shrunk to being presented as a competitive space of consumers rather than citizens. That is the mark of our times, the hegemonic version of the model by which, it is suggested, we should live our lives together.

Neither can there be any doubt that one of the contributing factors of our recent economic crisis was a failure of capacity and intention on the part of our citizens, as well as our institutions, to question, to scrutinise and to interrogate the forms of individualism to which they were led to aspire. Our existence was assumed to be, was defined as, competing individual actors, at times neurotic in our insatiable anxieties for consumption, as Zygmunt Bauman might put it.

However, the will to create bridges and to listen to each other with respect remains as critical in the academic sphere as it is in all areas of life. When scholars are prepared, in their pursuit of knowledge and solutions, to engage in inclusive and interdisciplinary scholarship, to take a broader perspective, and to learn from the viewpoint of others, we can, as a society, only benefit from such an approach.

Defending the humanities

Indeed, even at the economic and most practical level, we must also be mindful that the workplace of the future will have to be a space of creativity, one that will need graduates who are creative thinkers, able to bring disparate ideas into a coherent whole, bringing that broader understanding to complex matters and engaging in the production of integrated solutions, engaging with intuitive intelligence as so much scientific advance and discovery teaches us.

Walter Isaacson has said that “science gives us the empirical data and the theories to tie them together, but humans turn them into narratives with moral, emotional and historical meaning”.

Thus within the university, abandoning or relegation of the humanities in our academic institutions will, in the future, be seen by future generations as a betrayal of the purpose of education. If we wish to develop independent thinkers and questioning, engaged citizens, our universities must, while providing excellence in professional training, avoid an emphasis that is solely or exclusively on that which is measurable and is demanded by short-term outcomes. They must allow for the patience and the peace that is required for memorable university teaching and research.

What I am outlining is not a simple question of any wasteful competition between the humanities and science. Rather, in a complex world, we are called to understand the necessary relationship between the liberal arts – the foundations on which much academic learning must be built – and the fields of science and technology in an integrated approach to learning. Indeed, throughout history the best of our scientists have merged scientific endeavour with the arts, creating a common space in which the best possibilities could be realised. 

Dissent and transformative thinking

We will not now nor will we all agree. Fostering the capacity to dissent is another core function of the university. Third level scholarship has always had, and must retain, a crucial role in creating a society in which the critical exploration of alternatives to any prevailing hegemony is encouraged.

Universities must surely be facilitated and supported, made free and adequately funded, so that they may preserve their role as special places for the generation of alternatives in science, culture and philosophy. Universities must be places where minds are emancipated and citizens enabled to live fully conscious lives in which suggested inevitabilities are constantly questioned. If this is to be achieved, the importance of primary and original research is central.

In our current circumstances in Europe and the world, it is here, in our universities, that we can begin to enact such transformative thinking as is necessary to create the foundations of a society that is more inclusive, participatory and equal and the digitised campus may help us.

Digitisation has great possibilities for the effecting of positive transformation within our society. However, as with all tools of power, the ethical test is its biggest test. Neither technology, nor its potential to disrupt, are remote extrinsic forces over which we as humans have no control. All of us, as members of a global society, must play our role in guiding the pathway of new technology into our society in a way that is ethical and moral.

That transformative thinking will require a real change in consciousness. It is through critical and engaged pedagogy that we can be assured that we are engaging the educators of a generation that will have the capacity to understand and question the assumptions of any status quo, and to understand when that status quo must be challenged and how; a generation who will have the confidence and the wisdom to engage in alternative visions of what a society can be, and bring it into being.

I suggest that the universities and those who work within them are crucial in that struggle for the recovery of the public world, for the emergence of truly emancipatory paradigms of policy and research. 

The contemporary European challenge is not merely a case of connecting the currency, the economy and the people, it is about recovering the right to pose such important questions as Immanuel Kant did in his time – what might we know, what should we do, what may we hope?

As the university repositions itself in a globally connected and more culturally diverse society, it must seek to deliver its capacity to deliver that creative consciousness and participatory citizenship; recognising both the positive and liberating potential of technology and the critical role of emancipatory universal learning in enabling us to connect to the possibilities of an unknown future.

Michael D Higgins is President of Ireland. This is an abridged version of his opening speech to the European University Association or EUA’s annual conference on 7-8 April. As a lecturer in political science and sociology at the National University of Ireland in Galway and in the United States, Michael D Higgins was a passionate proponent for the extension of access to third level education beyond the walls of established universities and was centrally involved in the development of extra-mural studies at National University of Ireland, Galway, travelling extensively across the West of Ireland to provide accessible evening classes for interested citizens. The themes in his EUA speech are central to his presidency, namely championing the importance of ideas, the importance of academic work and the need for a deeper and more ethical public sphere.