Vice-Chancellor to chair HE commission

Warwick’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nigel Thrift, is to chair a major new independent commission on the future of higher education in England.

The Commission will run for 12 months before publishing a report in February 2013. Thrift will chair the Commission, with four other heads of leading universities in Britain and the United States on the panel.

It is the latest in a series of independent policy inquiries on higher education in the last few weeks, in response to the changes made to the system by the Coalition government.

The Commission, launched by the centre-left think-tank Institute for Public Policy Research, aims to address how higher education should respond to the major challenges it faces in the next two decades and to develop a policy framework to strengthen its institutions.

Additionally, it will examine the role higher education plays in public life and the wider institutional context within which universities operate. It will particularly address how higher education can best help promote sustainable economic growth, the balance between market and state influence, and the governance of higher education institutions.

Sean Ruston, the Students’ Union (SU) Education Officer, commented: “The timing is perfect as there is a wider debate going on at the moment about the idea of the public university.

“With the Coalition taking the view that higher education should be seen as private investment for personal gain, there is a big backlash in the higher education sector, reaffirming the university as a public contributor not only instrumentally to economic growth but also towards a greater intellectual and cultural life of the nation.”

The findings and suggestions of the Commission may impact the higher education policies of the major political parties.

Ruston said that the Commission’s findings are likely to “feed into the policy review that Labour is currently undergoing in their Shadow Business, Innovation and Skills team.”

Equally important are the ramifications of the Commission’s findings for public funding and the institutional autonomy of universities, which are often considered to be in opposition.

According to Ruston, “Institutional autonomy is not necessarily at odds with increasing public funding for universities.” It remains to be seen what conclusions, if any, the Commission will draw.

Ruston concluded, “Warwick students will probably be affected on a longer-term, policy-making basis.”

He also encouraged Thrift to contact both Warwick SU and the National Union of Students on the issues to be discussed by the Commission to increase the role of students in the commission’s work, stating that Warwick students are “not as involved as they should be”.