Interview with the Vice Chancellor: The full transcript

### The student experience

_RaW: Formerly pro-vice chancellor of research at Oxford and continuing to produce your own publications, there’s no doubt that you want to ensure Warwick maintains and improves its intensive research-led teaching. An article of yours published in the Independent last month claimed that particularly at the moment with the recession, it is critical to the growth path out of recession. Do you think all Warwick students are really benefiting from our supposed excellence in research?_

VC: Do you know, I think they are, and for several reasons. First is, surely students want to be taught by the best there is in the world in particular areas, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve and ensure, the whole time. Secondly, because certainly in a lot of areas, a lot of the sciences, for example, things change very rapidly and if you’re not at the research frontier, you won’t know about that actually. You genuinely won’t know about it. You won’t be keeping up enough if you’re not actually doing it.

_RaW: Is there not an inevitable trade-off between research and the quality of teaching and learning that we can actually give students?_

VC: I don’t think there is. I think you have to understand that first off, universities have a number of missions. They’re there to teach students and to teach them as well as they can. They’re there also to do research, and frankly they’re there to do a lot of other things at this point in time, since the government keeps adding various other missions on. And I don’t think there’s a necessary trade-off at all.

_RaW: But our recent ranking of fourth in the Guardian and sixth in the Independent and Times overall–_

VC: Which is quite pleasing, isn’t it?

_RaW: It is very pleasing._

VC: Isn’t that alright? I mean that’s not too awful? (Laughter)

_RaW: It is very pleasing, but once we break down those tables, do we not see where student satisfaction and staff to student ratios are actually bringing us much lower down than those other top three universities that are just above us. For example, St Andrews is only one place above us in the overall league tables but we’re more than 25 places further down when you look at the criteria for student satisfaction._

VC: Well, I think the first thing to say is—I mean, no-one’s trying to say that you don’t want to have students satisfied in the university, and we’re all working the whole time on that. Let me give you an example: one of the things that comes up in the National Student Survey is that we need to do more about feedback and assessment. And so one of the things we’re striving to do, department by department, is to actually ensure that these kinds of things happen. So all those kinds of things are being worked on. And like everyone else, I would want for us to have the highest student satisfaction of any university, and we will work and work to try and make sure those kinds of things happen. But I’m not trying to make out that the University’s perfect at this point in time, but neither, by the way, is it doing that badly, in terms of student satisfaction either.

We’ve just had a half-million grant from HEFCE to actually look at ways we can improve, in areas around innovative teaching in particular. So, there’s all sorts of things we are trying to do. But I think the thing that would concern me would be if students said, “oh well, we’re doing well in research, that must mean that we can’t be doing well in teaching at the same time,” and I just don’t think that’s true, I think it’s a false trade-off.

_RaW: While Warwick’s teaching and learning strategy, launched last year, claims that this ratio will be reduced, and yet at the same time your most recent letter to staff says there will have to be reduction in staff costs, which will inevitably lead to less staff per student._

VC: Well, I don’t think we can know that at this point in time, and when we’re talking about academic staff—and what you’re talking about is teaching staff—we’re going on to something else at this point, truth to tell, which is the financial situation in which universities find themselves.

### Tuition fees

_RaW: I was wondering if we could move on to tuition fees. A report on the BBC on the 17 March had a survey that said that two thirds of vice-chancellors, speaking anonymously, said that they needed to raise tuition fees, suggesting levels between £4,000 and £20,000._

VC: I think that’s two thirds of vice-chancellors they asked who replied… [laughter]

_RaW: Well, that’s what I’m wondering, did you take part in that survey, vice chancellor?_

VC: Do you think I’m mad enough to reply to a survey like that?

_RaW: I’m not sure—maybe you’re a big fan of the BBC vice chancellor?_

VC: I am a big fan of the BBC, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to reply to every survey they send round.

_RaW: So you definitely didn’t take part in the survey, then?_

VC: No, no. I make no bones about that.

_RaW: Would you call for a rise in the tuition fee cap?_

VC: Under certain circumstances. First of those, and of course this is still to be shown, is that it wasn’t shown to have adverse effects on social equity. So that’s the first thing, and in fact, the jury’s still out on that—it doesn’t seem to be, at this point in time, but I think one of the things about the fees cap review was actually to look at that. The second thing, and I have to say this is something that’s become more pressing lately, is that the increase in tuition fees wasn’t simply put there to actually make up for a shortfall in university funding because of public spending cuts. And I think you have to understand that that’s another condition that I would see as being rather important, because you can see what would happen under those circumstances. In effect, it’s another way of raising government funding.

_RaW: It is another way of raising money. In an interview with us—the media societies—a year and a half ago, you said that you wanted to wait and see the results of the tuition fee review—_

VC: And, they haven’t come! So, I’m holding to my decision.

_RaW: Well, what you said last year it wouldn’t be conceivable to ask at the next election. Are you still ambivalent between whether a student should contribute nothing for their education or say £20,000 tuition fees?_

VC: I mean come on we all know that there’s not going to be £20,000 tuition fees.

_RaW: Yes but I mean what’s your view on that…_

VC: I’m quite happy to say that I don’t think it’s a bad thing for students to have to contribute to their education in some way.

_RaW: But how much?_

VC: The point is the amount, and I don’t know that answer to that. Do you really think I’m going to say I think it should be X or Y? I’m not.

I’m really not and there are really real reasons for this actually and the main one is that I’m not sure if there was to be an increase what it should be to. I don’t know the answer to that.

_RaW: Okay, perhaps putting aside your personal view on tuition fees, do you think there’s an inevitable change given the future of the depths of public spending cuts? And necessary to raise it to something like £5,000 even if it’s a necessary contingent of cutting public borrowing in the future?_

VC: I don’t think it’s inevitable before we go any farther, because actually at the moment both political parties are, I think, wary of this as an issue. And so we’re going to be waiting until after the election to find out what’s actually going to be possible. And it’s not clear to me that even at that point this will necessarily happen. It may, it may not. At the same time, I think students have to realise that our finances are coming under pressure. I’ll give you an example, yesterday HEFCE the funding body announced that they were going to take £65 million off the teaching grant for all universities for next year. Now, if you work that out we don’t really know how much that means for Warwick at this point, we’re modelling it as you might imagine, but you know the pressures are there, and this was in a year in which it was first said there would be no cuts.

_RaW: So will there come a point where you’ll just have to say well we need this extra funding stream to make sure we can give the proper teaching and run the University successfully?_

VC: It might come to that. But even if I say that, doesn’t mean it can be done. I mean I can’t go off and just say, “Right, we’ll have a rise in tuition fees”, it requires national legislation.

_RaW: I know, but I mean you’ll always have a certain degree of influence and legitimacy in calling for it._

VC: I think that may or not be the case to be honest, if we knew that that would be very interesting.

_RaW: And do you think a graduate tax, similar to what the NUS has proposed, would be a good idea in terms of a progressive addition to some sort of income tax that would help fund the universities?_

VC: Well, I mean it’s an interesting thought. And I mean I think there are other ways that it could be done simply by a top-up fee, and I’d be quite clear about that. And the main problem I think is that if you’ve got a short fall, how exactly are you going to plug it? The problem is at the moment, one thing we can know, is that there’s not going to be increased money coming into HE. And that is inevitably the case. I don’t think there’s any way that over the next three to four years that HE will have anything other than in public funding terms, cuts.

Now, having said that, I think the important thing to say is that Warwick is better-placed to withstand this than most universities because we actually get less HEFCE grant than most universities. Now that’s a bad thing in some ways, but it’s a good thing in that we in a sense are protected from these cuts to a greater degree. There are some universities that are massively reliant on government funding. And as cuts appear, of one form or another, proportionately the amount that they are going to have to cut is going to be really enormous.

### Finances and cuts

_Boar: Well you’ve already mentioned finances, but in particular in your letter to staff you’ve stressed “austerity” and that we’re in a “period of great uncertainty”. But in light of this isn’t the goal of a 12 million pound surplus next year wildly optimistic?_

VC: I don’t think it is actually. I don’t think we would have set the figure if we thought we couldn’t get to it. It’s also that – let me come back to go forward – the reason we’re doing it is to make sure that we’re solid for the years following.

_Boar: But I mean last year we only had a £2.9 million surplus and one of the reasons for that was that we’ve invested a lot on campus in research and facilities and also in the pay agreement, but both of those are still ongoing so where will the money come from?_

VC: What to make savings?

_Boar: Well to make the surplus. I mean that’s £10 million between what our surplus was last year and what we’re aiming for._

VC: Well I mean the fact of the matter is the first thing you do is you say to everyone, as indeed we have said, that you have to make a 5 per cent cut in your department. I mean it’s in the letter, there’s absolutely no issue about that at all. And actually, interestingly, quite a few departments will be able to achieve that, there will be difficulties in others.

_Boar: So will those difficulties essentially involve redundancies?_

VC: No, I mean the first thing to say is that we’re trying to do all sorts of things to prevent us having to go to that particular place. So if you look at some of the recent things we’ve been announcing, which are in the letter, enhanced schemes of one form or another. Then they’re precisely, in a sense to try to go away from those kinds of places.

_Boar: Aren’t they really just an attempt to cushion the blow though rather than change direction?_

VC: Really? Why do you think that? I mean why do you say cushion the blow?

_Boar: I mean it’s a 5 per cent cut in each department, it’s a lot to cut, and do those programmes make up for that?_

VC: Which programmes, you mean the 5 per cent cut?

_Boar: As I understand it’s a 5 per cent cut per department, so do the schemes like the Enhanced Leavers Scheme is that going to help make it?_

VC: It will make some impact. And we await to see how much impact at this point in time. A lot of these things are things that other universities are also doing, and they’ve actually been quite successful in those universities. But we wait to see what will happen at Warwick. I don’t think I can say straight off like that. We’re in a sense, one of the things I want to stress, in certain ways we’re in interesting territory here, because really truth to tell for about the last ten years or so universities have had roughly a fairly reasonable increase in income year on year on year for various reasons. And now we’re in a period where that is not going to be the case. And, given that, of course we have to think very seriously about the way that we run the organisation. Having also said that, the other thing to say though, is that the one thing that we’re very keen on is protecting, if you like, the front line – which is precisely the point you were making about teaching and research.

### Vision 2015

_Boar: So with the decrease in income then, does that affect Vision 2015? Because it was written in 2007, when the government was advocating 50 per cent of young adults in HE and no-one was predicting the current economic situation, with the goal of £200 million by 2012, is that now an impossible vision?_

VC: It’s one we’re going to have to modify, but it’s not impossible. Remember, every other university is in exactly the same boat. There’s absolutely no doubt about that, and even our competitors overseas, many of them are in the same boat. Remember that American universities lost on average about a quarter of their endowments in the last six months of 2008. So, you know, around the world, with a few exceptions, this is something that is happening to everybody.

_Boar: So specifically how will that affect the goals for the university by 2015? Will it involve cuts to the building works on campus or some of the expansion plans?_

VC: We’re working through those things at this point in time.

_Boar: So they’re still planned then?_

VC: We might have to defer some building projects etcetera etcetera. But one thing you know, and is very important to say about recessions, is that those institutions which keep investing are the ones that come out in better shape the other side. That actually is an economic law, as close as one can get. And therefore it’s important that we try to keep doing that. And I’ll give you a good example of that, we kept on with the SU, and it will be finished! (laughs) And you know we take that as a priority, and it comes back to the point you made about the student experience, we are really genuinely trying to do those kinds of things.

_Boar: So do you still think that by 2015 we could be in the top 50 world institutions?_

VC: Yeah, I do.

### Fulbright lecture

_Boar: Also, yesterday, you gave a lecture, the Fulbright lecture, where you raised some proposals for HE, are any of these really applicable to Warwick?_

VC: No, and I think the first thing to say straight off and that’s important is that that lecture came from a deep-seated view that the British HE does need a change in order to keep up, if I can put it that way, and to keep standards as high as they need to be. And in that sense its kind of a theoretical paper, what its actually saying is that these are the kinds of things we should at least consider. I’m trying to basically start a debate, and the paper says that very straightforwardly, that you can’t leave anything off the table at this point in time given the kinds of issues that we’re going to face over the next three to four years.

_Boar: So do you see Warwick having the opportunity to merge with an American university?_

VC: Nope, that wasn’t the point. The point was actually to try and get one’s colleagues to think at least logically through all the issues, and many of them would be “we thought about it, and it wouldn’t work”.

_Boar: So what kind of universities then, if its not at Warwick, where would these ideas come into play?_

VC: I think there are issues about quite a number of universities and whether they’re actually going to be large enough to get through this particular recession in good shape. And what I tried to say in the paper is that you don’t have to go for merger, ie as in Manchester, you can do these holding company mergers, where you actually have alliances between two or three universities in which they keep their identity. And that’s actually, for universities, a much more sensible way of proceeding, because they’re very different culturally, one from another, and trying to merge them takes, you know, ages. And actually, again, if you go to business, not that I that’s necessarily a model for universities, mergers are actually intensely difficult things, intensely difficult, which is why I’m suggesting consolidation, that’s the word I’d use, but through these other kinds of mechanisms on the whole.

_Boar: You also talked about privatisation…_

VC: I didn’t. I actually said in the speech, “lest it be misunderstood, this is not privatisation I’m talking about”, what I actually talked about was whether we should have some universities in Britain which were privately owned not for profit, which is what many of the large American universities, private universities are – Stanford, Harvard, MIT, these kinds of places. And that’s not the same thing as privatisation at all. And remember, we already get 70 per cent of our funding competitively, so I mean that doesn’t make us you know a privatised University or anything of that kind.

_Boar: So Warwick Ltd. isn’t going to become a reality?_

VC: No, well, it can’t be. I mean I can tell you why, because if you want to privatise things the reason you’re doing it, is to make a profit. But we’re a not-for-profit organisation, not for profit organisation. Everything we do goes straight back into the enterprise, one way or the other. Nothing is kind of put somewhere else or anything of that kind. And so it’s important to say that. Having said that, there may be some advantages, there may, to being privately-owned not for profit for a number of universities. The point I’m trying to make in the paper is that its an extremely non-diverse sector, which is incredibly reliant a lot of the time on government funding. We’re not, but quite a few other universities actually are.

### Public funding cuts

_Boar: So how detrimental do you think the cuts to government funding will be to HE?_

VC: Well, they’re not going to be good. (Laughter). And that’s all there is to it, I’m not going to beat about the bush about this, it can’t be. We can’t quite tell at the moment because all we know is the 2010-11, but given the fact that one can think about the scale of what has to be paid off in order to pay for the banks, then we’re quite some way away from that and therefore I suspect that after 2010-11 that we might find that there are other cuts coming up, in fact I think its probably inevitable.

_Boar: So how will Warwick prepare for that?_

VC: Well, we’re doing that right now! That’s the point of doing these kinds of things now. If you don’t do them now, you’ll have to do them wildly more severely later on in ways which are not, not, not good, and which would be damaging to the organisation. What you want to do is try and produce something which is controlled and which works, and which is, and I stress this, collegial, in which actually the University has had considerable say one-way or the other.

_Boar: Regards our alternative funding though, especially from businesses and donors, won’t they be taking a hit as well during this time period?_

VC: Well, donors first. The evidence is actually entirely ambiguous on whether donors actually give more or less during a recession. There’s some evidence from the US that they actually give more in some cases, which is interesting in itself. I don’t think we know the answer to that. It’s actually quite interesting that it looks like we’re coming up to perhaps the best year we’ve ever had in terms of fundraising from the development office. So you can’t quite tell with these kinds of things.

If you look at industry, then certainly there’s some way to go in terms of making sure our industrial income is up to scratch. We’re quite low on that actually compared to a lot of universities, except for WMG. So, again, we have things to do there. There are all kinds of other income generating issues we’re going to have to think about. Later this term we’re going to have an ideas competition within the University actually. This is part of the Vision 2015 document that we would do this every couple of years, but actually to make sure that we aren’t missing things.

_Boar: So there’s going to be a need to come up with some more innovative methods of funding?_

VC: Yeah, absolutely. There has to be really in a sense, if you think about it, one of the things you’re not trying to do is simply cut, cut, cut. When you actually get into these situations, what you try to do is grow income, because otherwise a freeze becomes a real freeze.

### Cap on student numbers

_Boar: Also, when it comes to a cap on student numbers, in Vision 2015, there’s talk of expanding PG numbers in particular…_

VC: Which aren’t affected much by the cap…

_Boar: Okay, well Warwick obviously faces the cap, does that affect our vision of the future?_

VC: No, but it is at the same time strange. (Laughs). As a general principal, it is something I do feel quite strongly about. It is very odd at this point in time to have a cap on student numbers, and we know that as a result of that there will be people not getting into university. And what will happen to a lot of those people is they’ll probably become unemployed or something of that kind, so actually I’m not even sure it works out in terms of costs, let alone anything else.

But there’s a real issue, I think, as to whether that’s the right and appropriate thing to be doing in the middle of a recession, when actually a lot of the time it would be much better for people to be going into HE. But the caps there, and you have to understand as well that this is a real cap for us. If you go over your planned quota of home/EU students, you will get financially penalised in a big way. Not messing about, from what we can gather. So we have real difficulties about this, and it seems to be me that it’s a pity and it’s actually a real problem with having a planned economy in these kinds of areas. I think people forget that its still highly planned the British HE system when it comes to home/EU students.

_RaW: So would you be absolutely against the cap then?_

VC: Yeah, I am absolutely against the cap.

_RaW: So the government’s wrong?_

VC: On this, yeah.

Why are you sounding so surprised that I might think that? Are you thinking everything that the government does, I this is great? I mean, you can’t think that.

_RaW: Well, no. It’s just usely rather coded._

VC: No, no, It’s not meant to be coded at all. I mean I think in this particular case it is very very unfortunate and doesn’t I think really pan out, but the fact of the matter is its happening and that’s all there is to it.

_RaW: I’m just a fan of binary answers you see._

### Warwick Prize for Writing

_Boar: This year we also saw the beginnings of the Warwick Literary Prize as well, isn’t that 50,000 pounds that could have been spent elsewhere in a tight financial situation?_

VC: Well, of course it wasn’t such a tight financial situation when we installed that, it has to be said. But having said that, no I don’t think so. I think one of the things to remember is that we’re also trying to do other things at this point in time for the University. And one of the things we have to do is find a whole series of relatively small and modest innovations, which will at the same time increase our profile, and this is good for everybody. You need Warwick to be circulating, if I can put it this way, at a different level in the world, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve. And we are achieving it, I think Peter will agree with that, we’re actually moving this University up in the visibility stakes, and its things like that which are doing it. And that may seem expensive, but actually relatively, it’s actually relatively modest.

_Boar: Won’t standards of researching and teaching though be more likely to raise our international profile than literary prizes?_

VC: It’s a whole series of things at once. But no I mean coming back to that one of the reasons for doing it was actually to put light on our creative writing programme. I think you have to know that, its important to see the way these kinds of things link. We have a very very good creative writing programme which David Morley heads up, and we want to do more with it.

_RaW: Did it receive as much press coverage as was hoped?_

VC: First time round. First time round. You’ve got to remember that these things stack and each time round they become more and more engrained, and more and more will be taken note of.

### Vice Chancellor’s pay

_Boar: So in a period where the University is obviously tightening its belt, I believe you’ve accepted a pay freeze. Would you consider a pay cut?_

VC: You’ve got to understand that I’m actually not in charge of my salary before we go any farther. It’s a standard VC response, but at the same time it’s the Remuneration committee that actually does that. I think it’s worth saying as well of course that along with that all these things will be kept under surveillance over a period of time. But it will be the Remuneration committee doing that, not me.

_RaW: But you could donate some of your salary back in theory, couldn’t you?_

VC: Well, I’m saying nothing about that, but perhaps I might.

_RaW: Well I’m not saying you should, but I’m asking whether you would? Would you envision some sort of cut?_

_Boar: To accept some kind of cut?_

VC: Well I’d actually like to think that that would be something the Remuneration Committee might think about, but I will go no farther than that, because a pay freeze actually is quite substantial for various reasons that we don’t need to go into.

### Vision 2015 – International perspective

_Boar: Looking further at Vision 2015 from a more international perspective. One of the themes highlighted in Vision 2015 is that you want to make Warwick more cosmopolitan, more international and some of the schemes led to this are the International Gateway for Gifted Youth, and the proposed International Centre and so on. What other plans do you have to attract more international students to Warwick? And how are you going to compete with the emerging Universities especially in China and the Far East?_

VC: Well, right. So one of the things I’ve been saying in a way is that one of the things we’re trying to do is keep on investing in the University, even in times which will become more difficult in order to keep it attractive for foreign students.

_Boar: So these schemes will not be affected by any budget cuts?_

VC: We are trying to make sure they are not. I mean, let me come back to what I said before. One of the things that is crucial when you are doing this kind of things, is to make sure that you don’t just close everything down, you just kind of freeze everything and just stop. If you do that everything, everything suggests you will get yourself into worse trouble. That’s something you do not do. What you do instead is of course you look across the landscape of funding in the university and you say can we still afford that, can we still do that etcetera etcetera. But at the same time you try to make sure that you are continuing to go forward on a whole series of things. Sometimes on a small slender budget etcetera.

_Boar: But there have been cuts elsewhere in the university such as the CTCCS which obviously appeals to international students and I think that most of the students were international backgrounds. How would you account for this if this is being closed, not closer, but it’s under review?_

VC: It’s under review and Senate will have to decide what happens vis-à-vis that centre at one of its meetings in June. But having said that I think its important to say that the reason that centre was examined was much more to do with the fact that it wasn’t necessarily doing the kinds of things its needed to do to keep going into the future and therefore one was very careful to make that point. Its not budget cutting as such that it’s being done for.

### International student fees

_Boar: We have talked about fees already for home and EU students, but international students are not included in the Keep the Cap Campaign. I was wondering is Warwick going to look increasing to international students to recover losses elsewhere? And would this include increasing international fees, which are already prohibiting for many potential students?_

VC: The first thing to say is that we are not trying to produce some vast number of new international students. I mean I actually think that the university actually works rather well at roughly this kind of size, okay. And I think that’s important to say. Having said that, there may be areas where more international students are entirely appropriate. I can think of a few. And in those we probably will be trying to attract more international students but we don’t have any particular number in mind at all.

_Boar: So you wouldn’t consider in the near future at least increasing fees for international students?_

VC: I’m not saying that at all. Are you trying to say that there should be a cap on international student fees or something like that?

_Boar: No, I was wondering if you would envisage an increase in fees because obviously international students pay substantially more than home and EU students._

VC: Undeniable.


_Boar: And would this be increasing any further? And how would this affect the attractiveness of Warwick?_

VC: Those kinds of decisions are taken by an actual committee in the university which decides what the appropriate fee level is, and that’s decided for all kinds of reasons. Including, for example, looking at what other people are charging as well. So I think it’s important to know that. But I’m not willing to give some kind of compact that we will not increase ever, from now on, international student fees.

_Boar: You also talked about postgraduates in one of your articles in the Independent earlier this year, and it said that less the ten per cent of international students receive any government support. So how will this affect numbers? Do you think that in the future there will be less international students applying for postgraduate study here?_

VC: The evidence is the other way at the moment. I mean I can’t foresee the future but at the moment there doesn’t seem to be an issue.

### Spying on students

_Boar: Another thing you mentioned earlier was that the government keeps adding responsibilities to universities and so on. One of the more recent ones is the request that lecturers and tutors monitor the attendance and so on of international students. How do you see this happening at Warwick, as a number of lecturers have already said that they would refuse to spy on their students. Would you encourage this kind of monitoring to happen at Warwick?_

VC: Not encouraging it; we are a British national institution which has to actually apply the law as it is.

VC: And which will be applied across the student body. We are not singling out international students to do this. There’s no way we would do that. It would not be right, it would not be ethical to do that.

VC: As a cosmopolitan university the thought, which I value very, very strongly, the thought that we would somehow be singling out international students strikes me as terrible.

### Integration

_Boar: And speaking further on the cosmopolitanness of Warwick campus. The lack of integration between international and home students has been recognised as an issue by many, including the RAE. What has the University done and what can it do to encourage integration between these two groups? Is a degree of segregation inevitable due to language and cultural barriers and so on?_

VC: Well, even if you look at any of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, what you don’t find is every single person talking to every other single person regardless of cultural background and such-like. You have to be careful about what it is you think realistically it is you are aiming for. Having said that, there is still quite a way to go here in trying to make sure there is more integration and we are trying to do that. But there’s only so much we can do. You know I can’t, you know you can’t go around legislating these things, and I can tell you now students would object to that, and quite rightly. And in the end in certain senses this is something I throw back at the students.

_RaW: So realistically what are you aiming for?_

VC: In what sense?

_RaW: In terms in integrating home and international students._

VC: We’d like more integration I think. But I also know that you can’t do it quickly. You just can’t, its not possible to do. For example one of the things I personally would like to do is to try to have more international content in the teaching of the University. Whether we can actually achieve that easily is another matter altogether.

_RaW: Do you think that accommodation could be a very big part of that? Because I found, as a student in Rootes its full of home students, and then you end up with another halls, such as Lakeside that is full of international students. So is there?_

VC: Yeah we try. I mean to be fair…

_RaW: Do you have a quota?_

VC: We don’t have quotas but we do try to make sure that there is some degree of mixing, let me put it like that.

_Boar: It makes it hard though with the amount of the week lets. If they are 39 week lets they inherently attract international students but if they are 36 week lets they will.._

VC: I’m not sure what one could do about that beyond a particular point. One of the problems is that we can set things up to a point but after that frankly it’s up to the students. I mean, I’m not here to try and legislate your daily lives, or who you should meet or this kind of thing. And if I did, you might be fairly teed off about it.

VC: Well I mean there are a whole series of things actually that we do in the university, which actually other places aren’t, which students really ought to be very proud of. One World Week is one. There are a whole series of other things of one form or another.

I was on Friday night at the launch of Project Ayuda, don’t know if you know about that, and I was extraordinarily proud of those students. There are a whole series of other things of that kind where people are reaching out in ways that are really important and kind of demonstrating “cosmopolitanism”, if I can put it that way, in what they’re actually doing.

### League tables

_RaW: And just going back to Vision 2015 and our aim to be in the top 50 Universities by 2015. You know currently we are at 152 in the Shanghai University tables and 69 in the THES World rankings, and given the disparity between these two measurements, what will a place in the top 50 really bring us? And upon what measurements do you want to see us in that top 50?_

VC: Gosh that’s a lot of questions all at once. What would it bring us? It would bring us all sorts of things. The first thing to say is an implicit compact with people that get a degree here, that we will make the University better. So that as they go out into the world their degree is actually, if you like, increasing in value. And that when people look at their CV they say “Aha! They were at Warwick”. So, that’s the first thing to say, and that is something that seems to me to be crucial to achieve. So that’s important in it’s own right.

Secondly, and going on from that, its also important because in order to get the University to be better so that those kinds of things happen you have to actually become more visible on the world stage. In doing that you will get academics from across the world coming in, and we already of course have that to some extent. And all those kinds of things add up into a kind of virtuous circle, people want to come here, in the strongest way. The better those kinds of things are, the more they will come. So there are all sorts of reasons for trying to do these things, but in the end the main one is for the institution to be proud of itself, and Warwick’s always been like that, it’s kind of quite feisty, and that’s quite right too.

_RaW: But upon what measurements are we actually looking, more explicitly? Which measurements do you want to see take us to the top 50?_

VC: Well there are a series we’re using, let me say. So on research we would use citations, but in a limited way because its an art rather than a science. We use a number of highly cited people that we have in the University. We use actually degrees of influence, so for example if you think about the literary prize and creative writing and these kinds of things, they’re important in adding in to what happens on the research side. In terms of teaching, we’re looking particularly I think to be more innovative in terms of the kind of teaching we can actually offer. And I think probably in the end more international in terms of what we offer as well, though that takes a while, its not something you can do over night. And then there are a whole series of other ways that we need to work out what we’re doing, and in particular I suppose I’d use an index, which would be something a bit like world citizenship. This sounds a bit corny, but the ability for example to offer solutions to the world’s great problems, if only in a limited way. These kings of things that seem to me to be also a crucial descriptor of a top 50 university.

_RaW: Do you think the Shanghai Index is good? Because you were Pro-Vice Chancellor at Oxford and in all the UK League table it tends to be Oxford that’s higher than Cambridge, but Cambridge in the Shanghai Index is always higher than Oxford._

VC: God, I don’t know. Let me say straight away, I mean, the most important thing about league tables, as a colleague of mine will often say, is to make sure there’s a lot of them, because that way the importance of any individual one becomes lessened. And I think that is important, because there is no right league table. There is no right league table. There never will be, okay? It cannot exist because if you look at all of them you find people falling, going up, and you know yourself from your own experience “so what’ve they done in the last year or so that’s made them go up or down like that?” and the answer is not much at all.

_RaW: Well you pretty much dismissed the Times World Rankings when we were 57th a year or two ago, so do you pretty much dismiss that now?_

VC: I don’t dismiss it, what I said is you have to be careful, if you live by these kinds of league tables, you will also die by them and that’s not something we’re trying to do, we’re trying to have a balanced view of these kinds of things. It’s really important to say that, I mean one of the things that does concern me is that people in the University should think that whether we rose or fell in any particular league table is a matter for any particular celebration or any particular gloom. What we should be looking at is the overall trajectory, over a period of time.

_RaW: But does that not is someway undermine therefore somewhat the basis of Vision 2015?_

VC: Why?

_RaW: Because the aim is purely to be in top, its not purely, but its essentially to be in the top 50 of the world’s universities._

VC: No, because we’re not trying to just do that by league tables, in that particular way. It’s not possible to do it by league tables, in that sense, because, as I said, they’re so mixed in terms of the way that they proceed. But I think we’ll have a pretty good idea when we’re getting there, let me put it like that, which is a different matter. But it won’t be that one day, on June the 22nd in 2015, we’ll suddenly know that we’re a top 50 university. That ain’t going to happen.

VC: But it’s also because these league tables measure different things. So if you go to the Shanghai Jiao Tong, what it tends to measure is big science concentration, because if you look at the indexes for it then they’re ones around things like publications in nature, nobel prizes and such like. Well you know apart from economics, you’d be a bit hard pressed to find any other area. So I mean it is, you have to understand, that each league table is measuring a different kind of league tableness and there isn’t one single one which will ever tell you the right answer.

_RaW: So which league table do you want to be top 50 in?_

VC: That’s what I just said though, there isn’t a single one. I want to be in one in the top 50 if I’m fine then in the other not…

_RaW: So you’ll take any then?_

VC: No, no, I didn’t say that! I came back to you on that! I didn’t even vaguely say that, naughty, naughty, naughty! What I said was that I think you have to look across the whole landscape of these league tables and you don’t want to take any individual one particularly seriously. You just don’t. If you do, as I said, you live by them, you’ll die by them. And I know universities, without mentioning any in particular, who are at the moment advertising that they’re number something or the other in all their publication literature and this kind of thing. I think that’s a very dangerous thing to do, because next year they could be down 30 places, but they won’t be advertising that.

_RaW: But you’ve got to take some values from them…_

VC: You take some value, of course you do.

_RaW: But which do you think is the best?_

VC: This is in some ways, the league table game is a certain kind of game. But if you look at it as a trend over a period of time, then it becomes important. You want to know that overall you’re going up.

### Student’s Union

_RaW: With regards to the SU, will you be reviewing in terms of your contributions to the SU in the coming year? And of course they’re adjusting to a 52 week trading period, and they should be renewing their incomes and hopefully making a surplus in the future next year. Do you envisage a reduction in their one million pound block grant that happens each year?_

VC: I think we’re examining that at the moment, but I don’t think that at the moment there’s any question of doing that.

_RaW: So you’ll maintain the same funding stream from the University in the future?_

VC: I’m not saying its going to be completely the same funding stream. It’s a bit like saying about international student fees and this kind of thing. If I knew what the future was, then I’d tell you what was actually going to happen, but I don’t.

_RaW: So you have no plans to.._

VC: No plans at the moment.

_RaW: So you’re pretty happy with the relationship with the SU?_

VC: I actually am happy with the relationship with the SU. I mean one of the things I do want to underline is actually how unusual Warwick’s SU is compared with many other universities. I was at a national student forum conference yesterday, which was a meeting of vice chancellors with the students on the national student forum. And one of the things that strikes me about this university is that, in a sense, one how central the SU is, and two how good its facilities are. Believe me, just go to some other universities and have a look at their facilities, compared with what will be on offer up there in October.

_RaW: Have you been disappointed with the delays in the Union Rebuild?_

VC: Well, I mean what am I meant to say! “No, great! We’ve got delays fantastic!”

_RaW: Well how disappointed are you? Is it bundling on the contractors part?_

VC: Not going close. You know and I know that of course I’m disappointed about any delay and of course you always are. I think its true to say with building projects its also true to say that one gets used to the fact that there may be differences in schedule as they actually are produced.

_RaW: But you have full confidence in the SU’s ability to open its commercial outlets and maintain it’s independent revenue stream?_

VC: That’s a different matter altogether. You were asking me about the building schedule, you’ve just moved!

_RaW: Well, I mean they get 90 per cent of their revenue from drinks…_

VC: It’s important its open in October. And as far as I know it will be, and I can see absolutely no reason why it won’t be.

_RaW: You trust in their abilities?_

VC: When you say “trust in their abilities”, I mean its partly about the contractor okay to begin with, then its about the Union after that. And of course I mean the Union cannot actually really control building schedules, it might like to, but it can’t.

_RaW: But I mean you can have oversight…_

VC: You do have oversight, but you don’t have oversight quite at that level. And there are reasons for that and quite good ones. Even the best builder in the world comes across unexpected things every now and then, and its not good trying to deny that. But that’s not trying to say that anyone is pleased about these delays, they’re not. The idea was to have the back bit of it open for this term, and its kind of annoying that it won’t all be.

_RaW: But they were foreseeable, even if not desired?_

VC: Not foreseeable. Not foreseeable in that sense at all.

_RaW: Well if you expect delays, surely you foresee them._

VC: What I said was that one’s experience of building projects is that sometimes there are delays, in that sense of they’re foreseeable. But they’re not foreseeable in the sense that you’re building delays in automatically into everything. And that is not what I’m even vaguely saying.

_RaW: Well I’m not saying that you would accept for this particular project. But I’m just saying there’s a degree of tolerance that you would allow on certain projects in terms of overruns, which are just a natural propensity?_

VC: I don’t think I would want to go that far. I mean you’ve got to remember most of these things have penalty contracts associated with them if you do overrun. And I think it’s important to note that.

VC: Yeah, I mean we are genuinely committed to trying to make the student experience better, and it won’t all work at once.

_RaW: I know, I’m not challenging that…_

VC: Well, it sounded a bit like you were. (Laughs). And the Union, I mean the new Union complex is part of that, but there’s plenty of other things we need to do at the same time. But if you think about it, on a serious point, it would be a bit stupid not to be trying to do that, we want to attract the best students, and students are becoming more selective, and therefore we need to make sure that where we can we try to be up to scratch on these kinds of things. I’m not saying its something you can do overnight, it isn’t.

### Local economy

_Boar: In regards to the local economy, with the University scaling back on expenses, do you think that will have a negative impact on the local economy?_

VC: Two things. First thing to say if of course we’ve been trying to help the local economy through the recession. If you look on the website, I don’t know if you’ve seen, there’s a 10 point plan of things the University’s trying to do at the moment to help the local economy. It is up there.

VC: So that’s one thing. And then recently, for example, I spoke at a gathering for small firms that wanted to work with the University. Small firms actually have some problems trying to work with the University because the tenders we put out are actually quite large. And they’re bigger than any small firm sometimes can actually handle. So we’re trying to get them to work in consortia, and so that conference was partly about that, and a big turn out of people.

_Boar: But if we’re talking about 5 per cent cuts in each department. Departments hosting conferences and using local businesses and local food outlets, won’t that all decrease?_

VC: We’re actually trying to shove more money into the local economy at this point in time, one way or the other. But we have to spend what we have to spend, okay? We do live ourselves in the real world. It’s worth remembering that we have quite a large number of commercial activities, which themselves are going to be inevitably hit by the recession to some degree. So in a sense it’s not a matter that we can just ignore these kinds of things.

_Boar: So our positive role in the local economy might well decrease?_

VC: I’d like to think not, actually. We do have a very positive role… Again, you’re trying to make me say things, which I can’t possibly guarantee you. I just can’t do that.

_RaW: You could do an 80 per cent probability…_

VC: You know I can’t, you know perfectly well I can’t. I think we will try very hard to make sure that our contribution to the local economy stays where it is, but subject to the obvious caveat that if we’re getting less money in, then we will have less money to spend.

_WTV: How did you respond to the comments of local MP Bill Evans when he said that students were reducing the quality of life in Leamington Spa?_

VC: Well, I don’t think it would be unfair to say that I rather disagree with that as a point of view. And, indeed, the University itself said it and pointed out that, exactly your point, students actually produce a very substantive economic multiplier in Leamington, which is worth thinking about in all sorts of ways. The only issues I think there have really been in Leamington have been in just a few streets, where there are a lot of students. And I think we’re trying to address those kinds of issues in a cooperative way with the local residents. And actually, I feel that on the whole Leamington rather favours students actually.

_WTV: I thought he was wrong._

VC: Subject to the caveat, the other thing that you get a real problem with is they see any young person out late at night, making a noise, and they kind of automatically assume that these people are students. And of course, a lot of the time, they’re not. Which is, if you like, something as a vice chancellor you simply have to cope with over a period of time.