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Governance as a topic in Higher Education Studies

By Michael Shattock

Editor’s note: Michael Shattock is a global authority on governance studies in HE; SRHE Blog is delighted to bring you his invitation to researchers in HE to expand their work in governance – a definitive statement about the many contributions that governance research can make to our understanding of higher education.

Introduction

Higher Education Studies is not an academic discipline like History, Politics or Sociology but falls naturally within Marginson’s definition of it as a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary field of enquiry (Marginson, 2024). The study of the governance of higher education, at national and institutional levels, is, however, an important but often neglected strand of the larger field. Having just completed three books around the topic (Shattock and Horvath, 2020; Shattock, Horvath and Enders, 2023; and Shattock and Horvath, 2023) I thought it might be useful to spell out how the study of governance can frame researching the development of higher education and how changes in its structure or modus operandi, whether introduced from above or below, can influence the underlying principles and practices on which higher education is based. Thus, besides being an important strand in its own right it provides a context for other studies to be pursued in the field.

‘Governance’ is not well defined in the literature. The OED offers no more than “The act or manner of governing” and, misleadingly in respect to universities, defines a governing body as “the managers of the institution” ignoring the concept of ‘shared governance’ between governing bodies and senates implicit historically in the constitutions of most pre-1992 universities. Moodie and Eustace, authors of the classic Power and Authority in British Universities, published in 1974, 50 years ago, duck the question of definition and merely write, complacently as it seems now: “British universities continue to govern themselves and by any test seem to do reasonably well” (p24). In the absence of an authoritative definition we adopted the following form of words:

“Forms of governance [in higher education] at both national and institutional levels critically shape the culture , creativity and academic outcomes of higher education. Governance … is not just a matter of constitutional structures but encompasses how decisions are made and by whom, how different levels of governance interface with one another, what pressures are exerted by internal and external forces and how institutions and their members respond to them” (Shattock and Horvath, 2020 p1).

I have used the UK as the basis of my argument for recognising the importance of governance as a contributory discipline to higher education studies. This is not to undervalue other systems as case studies but to assist the presentation of a coherent account of a single system for illustrative purposes: if we look at continental Europe or at the USA similar principles apply even when their constitutional structures are different. It was, after all the USA which gave us, through the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the phrase ‘shared governance’ to describe the desired relationships between governing boards and the academic community. (This was a phrase that had little traction in the UK until the constitution of the former polytechnics was first published in 1992). In Europe we have the European Universities Association’s (EUA) monumental series of reports which  purport to measure and rank levels of university autonomy across countries. It is, however, difficult to reconcile the UK’s (and particularly England’s) high ranking with the situation on the ground unless the ranking is based on legislative provisions alone rather than other measures (Prevot, Estermann and Poprhadze, 2023). My own research would suggest that from the point of view of an academic many European country systems in practice offer as great or greater  autonomy than is now available in UK universities.

Governance and the State

A good illustration of how changes in governance at system level can change the context and indeed the culture of university work can be found in the decision by the UK Government (but not by the Scottish Government) to abandon the direct recurrent funding of teaching in institutions and substitute a tuition fee regime in which the student borrows the cost of the fee from a Student Loan Company and repays the loan over the next 40 years. Simultaneously the Government removed the cap on home student numbers in each institution administered by the Higher Education Funding Councils thus creating a highly marketized system. There were benefits both for the pro- and anti- sides of the argument about doing this:

  • It fulfilled a political ambition of the Government to make the development of higher education more responsive to market forces;
  • At a time of financial constraint it provided a way to respond to complaints from institutions about underfunding while keeping the costs off the Government’s annual budget by using the accounting device of counting the fees as debts which were an off line government expenditure;
  • It represented a considerable potential increase in university funding at a time when university costs were rising rapidly;
  • It gave institutions greater freedom in terms of student expansion and additional resources to support it – universities could plan against targets they had designed themselves. To most people’s surprise the new fee regime did not discourage continuing progress in widening participation.

What was less clearly seen were the changes it brought in institutional organisational cultures: the university system became necessarily much more competitive; students became more consumerist; historic inequalities between institutions were enhanced; marketing departments began to play a role in student selection; and, in some universities, in curriculum formation, universities became more top down and directive in their management style, the professional lives of academics were strongly affected. In addition mental health issues among students assumed a new prominence as they found debt and employment prospects weighed heavily on them. In time the greater freedoms offered to institutions have largely evaporated with the Government’s freezing of tuition fees so that in 12 years they have not kept pace with inflation, rising only minimally. The boom period following the introduction of tuition fees in 2012 has been replaced by financial crisis in the system.

While the introduction of full cost fees and the relaxation of student number controls may have been the largest governance change in the last 20 years we should not forget the impact of research selectivity, now crystalised in the Research Excellence Framework (REF), and the impact of the Teaching Excellent Framework (TEF) on the governance and management of the institutions and on the working lives of their staff and students. The REF is perhaps the more important both because of its longevity and the way it has affected the internal academic character of universities. Introduced in 1985-86 under pressure from H M Treasury, on the grounds that there was inadequate accountability  for the research element of the recurrent grant to universities, it was Initially intended as a one off exercise but became a regular feature every five years or so acting as a sorting mechanism between universities and a determinant of the distribution of research resources from central government to institutions.

Data collection for the REF has always been rooted in the research performance of individual members of academic staff discipline by discipline and the process has fed into ranking orders in the media enhancing institutional ambition. Most universities will now have a pro-vice-chancellor  (research) and a research office within its administration and will buy in advisers, often from previous REF subject committees, to assist in the construction of REF submissions. The results represent a key indicator of external institutional reputation as well as a critical component of an institutional budget. No exercise is more calculated to breed stress within the academic community or to shape academic career profiles.

The TEF is not so personal in its outcomes. It was introduced to attempt to offer a counterbalancing  force to the REF, and a populist institutional reward structure of Gold, Silver and Bronze was intended to provide simplified information to the student market. Of course, it also plays to media ranking tables so represents an incentive to institutions to seek high scores. From the internal university point of view the most significant consequence has been the increase in the bureaucracy and internal regulation it has brought about and the creation of new authority structures which have significantly changed the academic workplace. From a governance perspective the TEF’s origin, like the REF’s, began in government concern over accountability:

“‘The taxpayer’, the Minister of Higher Education said, ‘has a right to know what is being provided in return for public funding. Prospective students also have a right to know the quality of courses on offer’”. (quoted in Shattock, 2012 p201)

‘ Accountability’ became redefined as ‘quality assurance’ (and in some circles as ‘standards’) and, after numerous structural compromises in respect to the extent that the processes remained controlled by the universities, was at last made firmly the responsibility of a government body, the Office for Students (OfS). This was a final realisation of the government’s intention to create the legal conditions which enable it to be able to intervene over and above the academic authority of a university on what is taught in universities and how. It contrasts starkly with Moodie and Eustace’s statement of 50 years ago:

“In general the formal limitations upon institutional autonomy [in the UK] are minimal. There is a tradition of non-interference by the state in the affairs of the university”. (Moodie and Eustace, 1974 p46)

The two exercises, REF and TEF combined, represent a severe reorientation of university academic work and the prosecution of their core business of teaching and research. They are augmented by individual interventions on matters such as freedom of speech. The system is being substantially reshaped from above even when it is responding to pressures set by a market framework.

Higher education is now formally regulated by a government body, the OfS, while in 1974, the university sector, as it was then, was self regulated and had an intermediary body, the University Grants Committee (and later the Higher Education Funding Councils), to withstand possible political encroachments on autonomy from the government or elsewhere. System change in governance of this significance affects how higher education is delivered, how teachers and scholars approach their profession and their relationship, and that of their students, to society and provides a crucial sub text to the study of higher education as a whole.

Governance within institutions.

It is often assumed that the study of institutional governance is primarily a matter of the role of university governing bodies but this ignores the hierarchy of bodies within institutions which in effect determine academic strategy, implicitly define priorities and coordinate the academic and financial affairs of a university. Here we are talking about not just the relationships between the governing body  and the senate/academic board but the constitutional roles within the university of a senate/ academic board, a vice-chancellor’s executive committee, the powers of specialist senate/academic board committees, the relationships between faculty boards and with academic departments/ schools of studies. One might also include the constitutional powers of the vice-chancellor, pro-vice-chancellors, deans and heads of departments.

For governance and decision-making to operate smoothly and inclusively the procedures need to be well understood and trusted. Such a modus operandi may be dismissed, as it was by the Jarrett Committee on Efficiency Studies in Universities (1985) established to review university governance and management in the light of the 1981 cuts ,or in the Lambert Review on internal decision-making  (2003) which described university committees as “tortuous, time consuming and indecisive”. The fact remains that no university went bankrupt as a result of the 1981 cuts even with one being cut by 47% while, in direct contradiction of Lambert’s views on the effectiveness of academic committees, the senate at another university voted down a proposal by its vice-chancellor to open a campus in Singapore. The proposal was heavily supported by his governing body which regarded the invitation from the Singapore Government as a sign of the university’s international reputation. The senate’s decision to reject the invitation was regarded as decisive however. Two years later it was vindicated by the withdrawal, at a heavy cost, of a major Australian university, which had received a parallel invitation. The importance of good governance in maintaining a flow of opinions on the complex issues confronted by institutions on the boundaries  between academic policy and financial security is that it can make a major contribution to institutional strategy and wellbeing.

There is no doubt that, within a university, the most fundamental set of governance relationships  are between the triangle of the governing body, the senate/academic board and the variously described vice-chancellor’s executive committee. It is often forgotten that the UK university system contains two radically different constitutional models. The first is the historic pre-1992 model of a council (governing body) and a senate (often described in the university’s statutes as the ‘supreme academic authority) and a vice-chancellor, seen primarily as an academic leader, and chair of the senate but who the Jarrett Committee (1985) said was also a university’s ‘chief executive.’ The council and senate worked closely in tandem and in many universities, de facto if not de jure, the council’s decision-making was mostly shaped by senate’s recommendations. One third of the council’s membership comprised members of the senate nominated by the senate effectively to provide support for the vice-chancellor in the presentation of the senate’s report to council. The second model is the post-1992 Higher Education Corporation (HEC) where the vice-chancellor is designated as the ‘chief executive’ answerable to a lay governing body which acts like a board and is responsible for the determination of the educational character and mission of the university. Under this model the academic board was confined to narrowly conceived academic matters with no formal role in academic planning, which was reserved to the chief executive answerable directly to the governing body. Academic membership of the governing body was restricted to one or two members  elected often from the body of the academic staff who in practice acted more like tribunes of the people than supporters of the vice-chancellor. It might be thought that this model, which we might call ‘the business model’ was the creation of the government but in fact it was the product of ideas put forward in 1988 by a group of polytechnic directors in the face of the management situation they were confronting in the transfer of the polytechnics out of local authority control. No attempt was made to amend this constitution when the polytechnics became universities in 1992.

Thirty plus years since 1992 has blurred the distinction between the two governance approaches: most pre-1992 vice-chancellors have adopted the chief executive role exercised in the HECs, the government’s clear preference of the two models. The heavy reinforcement of the governing bodies’ responsibilities for finance, strategy and even academic quality has been influential in ‘modernising’ pre-1992 practice. Many HECs have moved rather closer to recognising the strength of the voice of the academic board. But it remains the fact that the divide has an impact on the organisational culture of the institution, the decision-making processes and the management style: academics and academic concerns can be less integral to the academic direction of the institution; governance is more ‘top down’.

This is reinforced by the practice in both pre-1992 and HEC universities of appointing senior academic officers, pro-vice-chancellors and deans, from outside the institution rather than through internal promotion. Originally intended to import new ideas or new leadership to an academic area, analogous to bringing in a new professor to give new leadership to an academic discipline, these new appointments have tended to become explicitly managerial, answerable to the vice-chancellor not to the academic community and to be part of the vice-chancellor’s management team. They take over responsibility for specific areas of university business, quality assurance, research including the REF submission, student welfare and relations with students, international recruitment or, if deans, the management of groups of academic departments/schools and the unelected chairmanship of faculty boards where they continued to exist. Even more important they become members of the vice-chancellor’s executive or senior management committee and, meeting weekly, suck authority away from senates and academic boards. In almost all universities they become a decision-making hub which can bypass academic protocols and, in some universities, can have a direct relationship with governing bodies. These are not appointments where the holders return to their academic posts when their term of office ends. If they move on it will be to similar or more senior posts elsewhere.

The result is that, instead of being participants in a university’s governance, academics can often be relegated to the role of simply an academic workforce lacking secure academic employment in the event of a market downturn. Of course these changes have been brought about in considerable part through growth in institutional size, the management challenge of responding to income cuts and the demands of government but they have also had the effect of changing the balances of internal governance and of substituting a managerial authority for a culture which was designed to encourage participation and debate in a climate of professional engagement.

There is considerable diversity in actual practice: governing bodies may be dominant and demanding, or collegial and respectful of the concept of ‘shared governance’; senates may have become rubber stamps or may have retained the ability to enforce a view on priorities and principles; academic boards may have become partners in decision-making or continue to have only a narrow remit; vice-chancellors’ executive committees may be consultative over policies or directorial; heads of departments may be disciplinary leaders or simply middle managers working to targets. These variations in internal governance provide the context in which academic work is carried out. Whether staff have freedom to innovate in teaching and research and whether a university’s organisation is sufficiently flexible to take on board ‘left field’ ideas or objections to new and resented management decisions, they become too easily airbrushed out in sectoral surveys or wide scale reviews but may be critical to the way an institution manages itself. Good governance sits at the heart of good staff morale, good academic performance and a sense of institutional wellbeing; flawed governance, on the other hand, can undermine academic performance, poison staff relations and encourage disaffection amongst students.

Universities as communities – the governance implications

All communities need governance arrangements; most do so through a mixture of formal rules and informal understandings. Universities are in principle no different although the degree of internal governance control, binding regulation or managerial hierarchy may differ from institution to institution and by type and history. The charters of the pre-1992 universities normally define the membership of the ultimate authority of the university, the Corporate Body, as the officers, lay and academic, the members of the governing body and the senate, the academic staff and the graduate and undergraduate students of the university. By contrast the articles of governance of the HEC universities are more restrictive vesting Corporate Body status and power in the governing body alone and excluding the academic board or staff or students.

The differences of approach in the practical day to day management of the institution and the application of the Common Seal are negligible and may be unremarked by academic staff and students but the pre-1992 constitution reflects implicitly the view of the university as a self-governing community rather than that of an organisation managed on the basis of an externally dominated governing body, a chief executive and associated managerial staff. The pre-1992 formulation assumes that the academic staff are partners in the organisation, not simply employees, and that students are not just consumers but are contributors to a learning enterprise where their views on its operations are a legitimate and entirely appropriate part of the governance process. It would be a caricature to assume that these stereotypes from over 30 years ago are representative in the diversity of universities  now but in some respects they still provide an underlying set of assumptions, particularly in regard to the position of academic staff in relation to representation in policy consideration and decision-making. The practice of HR in some universities does not reflect to any degree that academic staff might professionally have a sense of partnership with their institution.

The concept of community implies a degree of equality among its members. This is clearly under threat across the university sector. Referred to in the 1960s as ‘an academic civil service’ (Sloman, 1963) university administration found itself responding to a more authority-laden climate and to increasing demands for data on accountability from external sources: ‘administrators’ became ‘managers’ and more managerialist as they became agents of decisions handed down from the decision-making hierarchy  in their universities. (The current favoured designation of them as ‘professional services staff’ is ambiguous in relation to the status of their academic colleagues and by implication derogatory). For both academics and administrators, universities have become less stimulating and more divisive places in which to work.

A key element in a well governed community is trust. Good governance in universities does not breed a highly regulated environment because its organs of governance are trusted and because their individual members act within an understood framework. A newcomer will be told ‘This is the way we do things around here’ not ‘This is the way it is done’. Good governance encourages supportiveness rather than naked competition between colleagues and departments. In 1957, when the Science Research Council (SRC) failed to renew its grant to support the Jodrell Bank radio telescope at the University of Manchester, the senate of the University, then representative of all departments, voted that the University should carry the costs itself even though to do so would have had a crippling effect across all academic activities. (The grant was later restored after the telescope’s successful monitoring of Sputnik).

Trust builds confidence in a decision-making process even when negative decisions have to be taken. It also builds a climate of mutual respect for academic endeavour across the institution so that young academics feel encouraged to propose new teaching modules in their own areas of interest or young scientists feel emboldened to bid for additional lab space to accommodate promising research ideas. Above all it provides a route whereby issues can be ventilated and discussed in an orderly way and new ideas can be transmitted upwards in the decision-making structure and perhaps be captured as new sources of progress and change. Good governance is thus a stimulus to innovation and new thinking. By encouraging a heterarchical approach to issues  (Stark et al, 2009) it unlocks flexibility and new ideas in institutions while at the day to day level it provides a consistent and regular format for the conduct of institutional business.

Nowhere is this more important than in relations with students. Students’ interests in governance are markedly different from academic staff: at the academic level the primary student interest is to be a partner in the teaching enterprise, to have the opportunity at departmental and faculty level to address issues in the educational process but in social and political matters their priorities are more short term and are more appropriately considered in discussion centrally with university officers or at meetings of senate or governing body. A critical element here is the stability of the governance machinery, the consistency in the way issues are handled and the seriousness and respect with which they are addressed. Widespread student dissent can be destructive of a university’s sense of community.

Conclusion

We live in unsettled times in higher education both in the UK and across an international spectrum of systems: questions of governance are becoming more pressing. Good and bad governance at system and institutional levels are linked and can sometimes reinforce one another but neither captures as much discussion and research attention as it deserves. Large issues remain unexplored, for example:

  • In the UK does the separation at government level of research management from the management of the rest of higher education benefit the government’s innovation agenda more than it dislocates the higher education system?
  • Has the application of market principles in the management of UK higher education been in force for a sufficient period to be made the subject of a searching review?
  • Should higher and further education in England be brought together in a single tertiary system and be decentralised?
  • How should institutional governance best adapt itself to institutional growth?
  • What principles of governance should guide universities in respect to satellite campuses?
  • How far should resources be devolved to academic areas (faculties, departments or schools) while maintaining an appropriate balance between encouraging academic autonomy and initiative and central accountability?

These and many other governance issues can be lost in more short term concerns. But besides offering fruitful areas of research in its own right, governance also offers an underlying context to much else within the field of higher education studies. As such it is arguable that it is fundamental to study in the field.

Michael Shattock holds an OBE and an MA Oxon and honorary degrees from Aberdeen, Leicester, Reading and Warwick Universities and the University of Education, Ghana.  He is a Fellow of SRHE and was Registrar of the University of Warwick 1983-99. He is currently a Visiting Professor in Higher Education at UCL Institute of Education and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Education, Oxford, and was the leader of the Governance Group in the Centre for Global Higher Education, Oxford 2017-24.

References

Lambert, R (2003) Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration, Final Report London: HMSO

Marginson, S (2024) Higher Education and the Public and Common Good  CGHE Working Paper No 114, April

Moodie, G and Eustace, R (1974) Power and Authority in British Universities London: George Allen and Unwin

Shattock, ML (2012) Making Policy in British Higher Education 1945-2011 Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill

Shattock, ML and Horvath, A (2020) The Governance of British Higher Education: The impact of governmental, financial and market pressures London: Bloomsbury

Shattock, ML, Horvath, A and Enders, J (2023) The Governance of European Higher Education: Convergence or Divergence London: Bloomsbury

Shattock, ML and Horvath, A (2023) Universities and Regions: The impact of locality and region on university governance and strategies London: Bloomsbury

Sloman, AE (1963) A University in the Making London: BBC

Stark, D, Beunza, D, Girard, M and Lukacs, J (2009) The Sense of Dissonance Princeton: Princeton University Press Prevot, EB, Estermann, T and Popkhadze, N (2023) University Autonomy in Europe IV  The Scorecard 2023 Brussels: EUA


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How can PhDs support solutions to local challenges?

by Rachel Handforth and Rebekah Smith-McGloin

Recent news headlines highlight the range of social and economic challenges faced by cities and counties across the UK (BBC, 2024; Financial Times, 2024; Guardian, 2024), reflecting wider predictions of ongoing economic challenges for the UK as a whole (OECD, 2024). Recent local election results seem to indicate public desire for change in their communities – and whilst we await the national democratic process later this year – the devolution process to combined local authorities indicates a positive shift towards increased funding, resources and power for those working to achieve positive change in their local communities.

What is the role of universities in all this? And how might the highest-level qualification that they offer hope to address any of the complex, systemic issues faced by local communities, and those that live and work within them?

The answer to these questions is not clear-cut, but exploring the ways in which the doctorate might lend itself to addressing locally relevant challenges – in theory and in practice – may offer a vision for how universities might enact their civic mission, and consider themselves ‘truly civic’. Yet whilst undergraduate curricula often contain elements of civic engagement through service learning, volunteering, and policy discussions (McCunney, 2017), work on civic and community-informed practice has been slow to emerge at doctoral level.

The last decade has seen an increase in the number of doctoral researchers in the UK (Smith-McGloin and Wynne, 2022) and in the proportion of doctoral graduates working beyond academia (Vitae, 2022). Yet the capacity of the doctorate to contribute to positive place-based change has not been fully explored. Indeed, a recent report from the National Civic Impact Accelerator highlights the ongoing positive economic and social impacts of doctoral graduates; boosting research productivity across sectors, contributing to cutting edge research and development, as well as adding to research capacity through a highly skilled workforce.

Existing literature on doctoral education and wider engagement with communities focuses predominantly on praxis in the context of industrial and professional doctorates (see Boud et al, 2021; Terzioğlu, 2011; Wildy, Peden and Chan, 2015). Too often, doctoral education is still conceptualised as an instrumentalist tool of neoliberal higher education, producing highly-skilled postgraduate researchers and knowledge for the economy. For example, professional doctorates are viewed as a mechanism by which the university can realise its potential, through close interaction with industry and government, to deliver innovation and economic development in a knowledge society.

At the last Society for Research in Higher Education conference in December 2023, we presented our early thoughts on how place-based partnership programmes such as the Public Scholars Initiative and Co(l)laboratory might seek to address socioeconomic challenges, and legitimise broader conceptions of scholarship within doctoral education. Following Gibbons et al’s (1994) consideration of knowledge production modes in relation to university knowledge transfer, and drawing on recent literature relating to modes of knowledge production (Liyanage et al, 2022; Miller et al, 2018; Peris-Ortiz, 2016), we considered how discussions around doctoral education and the public good (Deem, 2020) may be reimagined in the context of these programmes.

Our own experience of leading and working within Co(l)laboratory, a new Nottingham-based doctoral training programme which recruits a diverse range of candidates to co-created research projects, developed with local employers to address place-based issues, has shown the great potential of doctoral education to drive positive change locally. We have seen in practice how programmes such as Co(l)laboratory can act as a node in a wider civic knowledge and innovation system, and produce an expansive network currently involving two universities, 12 civic agreement partners, 30 community organisations, as well as current doctoral students and supervisors on 20 distinct research projects. This new model for doctoral training positions the doctorate as an agile, socially responsive and community-engaged catalyst to enable local people to tackle local problems.

Whilst it is clear that the complex and persistent challenges faced by communities across the UK require significant regional and national investment to resolve, the capacity of place-based doctoral education, shaped by civic partners and their local universities, should not be underestimated.

Dr Rachel Handforth joined Nottingham Trent University as Senior Lecturer in Doctoral Education and Civic Engagement in January 2023 to work on the Co(l)laboratory programme, working with local employers to build a community-informed model for developing place-based PhD research projects. Her research interests include gender inequality in higher education, and belonging, access and participation in doctoral education. She was recently funded by the Society for Research in Higher Education to explore public attitudes to, and engagement with, doctoral research programmes.

Dr Rebekah Smith McGloin is Director of Research Culture and Environment and Director of the Doctoral School at Nottingham Trent University. She provides strategic leadership in the area of inclusive research culture, environment and doctoral education. She is currently principal investigator on two major projects in the field of inclusive doctoral education; the Universities for Nottingham Co(l)laboratory Research Hub and Equity in Doctoral Education through Partnership and Innovation. She is an executive committee member and trustee of the UK Council for Graduate Education.  She was a member of the UKRI Bioscience Skills and Careers Strategy Panel (2015-2022) and an expert panel reviewer for the UK Concordat for Researchers (2019). Her research interests lie in higher education management, postgraduate research student experience, widening participation and access to higher education.


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How individual accommodation creates barriers to the inclusion of students with disabilities

by Pascal Angerhausen and Shweta Mishra

The inclusion of students with disability in higher education

Individual assessment accommodation is a widely used instrument for inclusion of students with disabilities. It aims at reducing barriers and promoting equal participation, by taking into account the individual needs of a person. However, our research in the project SuccessInclusive (ErfolgInklusiv) has shown that it can also create barriers and lead to new forms of exclusion. It shifts the responsibility to the individual and creates an additional bureaucratic burden for students and university staff. Further, there are issues of legitimacy associated with individual accommodation. If some students are treated differently from others, this raises issues of fairness and equality. Lastly, individual accommodation makes students dependent on those who provide it. We therefore urge universities and policy makers to rethink their focus on individual accommodation and prioritize universal design measures.

Individual accommodation and universal design in German higher education

Universities can choose between two different strategies to promote inclusion in higher education. Universal design and individual accommodation. Universal design aims to reduce or eliminate barriers for all, a priori, whereas individual accommodation consists of solutions that meet the individual needs of specific students. Both approaches have their own benefits and problems. Usually, a combination of the two is used to promote inclusion. If we look at German higher education, universal design plays a minor role. Even though universities are obliged to implement universal design measures, these are mostly limited to physical accessibility. Instead, inclusion in German higher education relies heavily on individual accommodation (Gattermann-Kasper/Schütt, 2022; Steinkühler et al, 2023).

Individual responsibility and bureaucratic burden

If students want to use individual accommodation in German higher education, they need to know about their rights. For many students, this is the biggest obstacle to using Disadvantage Compensation, as they either do not know about their rights or see themselves as entitled to it (Steinkühler et al, 2023). Once these barriers have been overcome, they need to apply on the basis of a medically certificated impairment. The application process can cost time, energy and sometimes even money. Students reported a lack of information, long waiting times and unclear bureaucratic processes. Some of them talked of having to travel long distances to see specific doctors who would issue the necessary medical certificates. In some cases, students also had to pay for these certificates themselves. If these students must renew their application every year – as some faculties require – applying for individual accommodation means a great deal of effort to the students and can in itself be a barrier. 

Additionally, individual accommodation involves a great deal of effort not only for the students but also for the university staff. At the German university where we conducted our interviews, each faculty accepts and handles applications on its own. The staff and the responsible professors review the applications, check them for form and plausibility, and must decide, if and to what extent students can be granted individual accommodation. These decisions are often based on previous decisions and experiences, rather than on official guidelines or laws. The small number of cases handled by individual faculties makes it difficult to build up experience and develop best practice. Thus, staff reported of uncertainty in dealing with individual accommodation requests.

The question of legitimacy

The lack of guidelines on the appropriate form and scope of individual accommodation creates uncertainties that undermine its legitimacy. Students who used individual accommodation reported that both, students and lecturers questioned the fairness of their accommodations. For example, fellow students asked them about their “advantage” and asked for advice on how they could get access to it so that their studies would be “easier”. Thus, students with disabilities who use individual accommodation often doubt its fairness and necessity, while simultaneously lacking an objective perspective. Social networks and previous experiences of accommodation can help in legitimizing accommodation and supporting the experience of studying as an equal.

Individual accommodation creates individual dependencies

Students also emphasized that individual accommodation strengthens the influence of individual people. To receive individual accommodation, students become dependent on doctors, university staff, lecturers and professors. While all of these can be helpful – and many students reported of positive and supportive encounters – this dependency can create impossible barriers. Students, whether they experienced negative or positive situations, highlighted this dependency as problematic. At every step, individuals can act as gatekeepers and prevent them from receiving the accommodations they need to rightfully study. For example, a student reported that he has to write several emails before every exam just to make sure the lecturers organize the accommodations that he is entitled to – and still does not always receive them. Another student was told by the university staff that the accommodation they requested would not be necessary, even though they provided a medical certificate. Many students shared stories of just being ignored by their lecturers, or of lecturers telling them that they did not have the resources to provide appropriate accommodations. Thus, individual accommodation was often experienced as creating an additional work load for the lecturers. In the worst case, these experiences can lead to students dropping out and missing the chance to pursue an academic degree; which is directly linked to the opportunity for students with disabilities to live a decent and independent life.

Accessing individual accommodation requires individual resources

Lastly, our interviews showed that the process of accessing individual accommodation requires resources that are unequally distributed. Students from academic backgrounds, with extensive financial resources or extended social networks are better equipped to access individual accommodations. They can get a second opinion from another doctor, receive information on how to formulate applications, how to appeal or even legal advice. Further, dealing with the problems of gatekeeping also appears to be a gendered issue. Women in particular reported being doubted by others. For some, this went as far as medical gaslighting, the experience of being systematically doubted by medical professionals. Some of those who experienced these doubts resigned themselves when they encountered someone who did not want to believe or support them, rather than fight for their rights. Thus, not all students have equal access to individual accommodation. For some, receiving information about their rights, attaining a medical certificate, applying for individual accommodation,or dealing with gatekeepers is more problematic than for others. So, while other researchers have highlighted differences between students with obvious and stable disabilities and those with invisible and variable disabilities (Goldberg, 2016), our research showed that social networks, academic background, and gender of the students play an important role in the use of individual accommodation.

Concluding remarks

While we have focussed on the ways in which individual accommodation hinders inclusion, students and university staff also emphasized the positive aspects of individual accommodation. If there is a supportive culture and university staff have adequate resources, focussing on the individual needs allows them to find appropriate solutions and highlights the individual situation of each student. Students can feel heard and their disadvantages can be properly compensated for. However, this is rather the ideal case scenario. In our interviews, students reported a lack of a supportive culture in many disciplines, and in society in general, while the staff and lecturers experienced individual accommodation as demanding in terms of time and resources. We can therefore conclude that relying on individual accommodation to include students with disabilities can create significant barriers that can (re)produce exclusion. Universities should therefore rethink the way they implement inclusion and instead refer to measurements of universal design.

Pascal Angerhausen is a research assistant and doctoral candidate at the International Center for Higher Education Research (INCHER) at the University of Kassel. Email: angerhausen@incher.uni-kassel.de

Shweta Mishra is the Managing Director of the German Institute for Interdisciplinary Social Policy Research. She is the Associate Editor of the Research into Higher Education Abstracts Journal. Her research focuses on social inequalities in higher education access and outcomes. She is an associate member of the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER) at the University of Kassel.

References

Gattermann-Kasper M, Schütt M-L. (2022) Inklusive Hochschule. Konzeptionelle Grundlagen, aktueller Stand und Entwicklungen. In: Recht der Jugend und des Bildungswesens, 70, p. 92-106

Goldberg, C (2016). Is Intersectionality a Disabled Framework? Presenting PWIVID: In/Visibility and Variability as Intracategorical Interventions Critical Disability Discourses, 7: 55-88

Steinkühler J, Beuße M, Kroher M, Gerdes F, Schwabe U, Koopmann J, Becker K, Völk D, Schommer T, Buchholz S (2023) Die Studierendenbefragung in Deutschland: best3. Studieren mit einer gesundheitlichen Beeinträchtigung Hannover: DZHW


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What is a ‘research culture’?

by GR Evans

Should  higher education providers foster a ‘research culture’? As the body responsible for research under the Higher Education and Research Act (2017), UK Research and Innovation offers its own definition. Such a ‘culture’ will encompass ‘the behaviours, values, expectations, attitudes and norms’ of ‘research communities’, influence ‘researchers’ career paths and determine ‘the way that research is conducted and communicated’.  The Royal Society adopts the same wording.

Nevertheless, agreed definition seems elusive. The British Academy points to ‘the impact and value research’ in the humanities and related disciplines ‘can deliver to policy makers and the wider public’. The Wellcome Trust is critical of ‘current practices’, which it says ‘prioritise outputs at almost any cost’ It encourages ‘curiosity-based ideas’, even if they fail to make discoveries. Cambridge University has an Action Research on Research Culture project in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, Leiden University, Freie Universität Berlin and ETH Zurich, suggesting international reach towards defining such a culture.  A Concordat and Agreements Review (April 2023) formed a joint attempt to define ‘research culture’ initiated by Universities UK, UKRI and Wellcome. It found it was not sure ‘what a positive research culture looks like’ or what ‘research culture framework to adopt’.

Research is a relative newcomer to the work of English universities. Under the Oxford and Cambridge Act (1877). s.15, the  Commissioners who were to  frame new Statutes for each of the two universities were required to ‘have regard to the interests of education, religion, learning and research’. The inclusion of ‘research’ was still a recent arrival in universities. The prompting had come from German universities, whose influence in linking a doctorate with research had rather reluctantly been recognised. Research-based Doctorates of Philosophy began to be awarded in the USA, with Yale leading the way in 1861.

Oxford and Cambridge took note. Reform of their ancient doctorates was called for in any case. The award of doctorates in Divinity had ceased to depend on advanced scholarship, and had often became more or less honorific as new Bishops began to be granted an automatic Doctorate of Divinity. The transatlantic Doctorates of Philosophy were something new because they were expressly intended for award to younger scholars on the basis of a first research exercise. From the end of the nineteenth century Oxford and Cambridge experimented with postgraduate Bachelors degrees awarded on the basis of a piece of original research. Doctorates for young scholars came next and in 1921 Oxford granted its first DPhil and Cambridge its first PhD, both expecting original research. After some debate the existing ancient doctorates became ‘higher ‘doctorates, to be awarded to more senior scholars, normally on the basis of a significant body of published research. In all this lay the beginnings of an academic ‘research culture’, though well into the twentieth century the Fellows of Colleges did not usually have – or seek – doctorates. ‘Vacancies’ for academic jobs commonly express a preference for a candidate to have a postgraduate degree but do not  require  it.

The multiplication of English universities which began in the early nineteenth century was added to considerably from the end of the nineteenth century with the creation of the ‘redbrick’ universities in major cities. It began to be taken for granted that universities would be responsible for research as well as teaching. However when polytechnics became universities under the Further and Higher Education Act in 1992 they preserved contracts mainly concerned with teaching. That has remained the case with UCU’s ‘Post-1992 National Contract’. An institution may choose to add research to the contracts of its own academics. ‘Teaching-only’, ‘Teaching and Scholarship’ and ‘Teaching-focussed’ academic jobs have  become increasingly common.

Some universities now seek to fix the proportions of the time their teaching-and-research academics may spent on research. The private ‘alternative providers’ encouraged by Governments in the first decades of the twenty-first century have rarely made a significant effort to be research-active so far. with the Office for Students mentioning only one actively seeking research-degree-awarding powers. Cuts to contracted research time are threatened with the increasing pressure on university budgets,  Kent for example lowering it from 40% to 20%.

Doctorates continue to proliferate at DPhil/PhD level, but they may no longer require research as formerly understood. With many providers offering ‘Professional’ doctorates, leading for example to a Doctorate in Business, a Doctorate in Education, a Doctorate in Engineering,  the thesis may be replaced partly or wholly by professional experience and study may take place in conjunction with paid work as a required element.

‘Taught’ Masters degrees and even ‘taught doctorates’  have begun to multiply. For ‘Taught Doctorates’, advanced study may involve taught courses rather than, or in addition to, independent research. The ‘taught’ element may involve lectures on or exposition of the skills needed in research, or include elements in the content of the subject of the Doctorate.

Research expands to include ‘innovation’ and ‘knowledge exchange’

The definition of ‘research’ has been expanding to include ‘innovation’ and ‘knowledge exchange’, both now responsibilities of UKRI. ‘Innovate UK’ had its origins in the ‘Lambert’ Review of Business-University Collaboration (2003). This considered the ‘demand for research from business’ alongside the ‘dual support’ system of university funding, with infrastructure funded from the block grant and funding for research projects dependent on grants and the Research Councils. Lambert ‘proposed a number of principles that should be adopted to encourage world-class business research’. This encouraged the view that the ‘originality’ of research could include ‘innovation’.

Governments have actively encouraged ‘Knowledge Exchange’. The Knowledge Exchange Framework is now the responsibility of Research England within UKRI.It embraces a range of modes of ‘exchange’: partnerships involving collaborative research; contract research; consultancy; working with business; ‘continuing professional development’; intellectual property and its commercialisation; public and community engagement; local growth and regeneration, some but not all  having a defined ‘research’ element. In 2020 a Concordat for the advancement of Knowledge Exchange in Higher Education, was prompted in part to ‘deliver the UK Government’s R&D 2.4% target’ and also to ‘tackle challenges such as levelling up prosperity across the country’, as Amanda Solloway, then Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, put  in her Foreword in 2020.

In 2015 the creation of Degree Apprenticeships added a recognised further addition to ‘teaching’ in higher education, offering a form of  ‘professional’ or ‘technical’ research. Providers were to ‘specialise in working with industry and employers’. Their teaching would be: “hands-on and designed to prepare students for their careers. Their knowledge and research drive industry and the public services to innovate, thrive and meet challenges”.

However an apprenticeship is first and foremost an employment. The relationship with the exercise of degree-awarding powers has been found to carry a  heavy ‘regulatory burden’. Providers complain that they are ‘caught up in a tangle of regulation and unnecessary bureaucracy, which is hampering growth and innovation’. Degree apprenticeships have not yet caught on, for these reasons and because they are found to be ‘costly to deliver’.

Funding for them may be uncertain. The Apprenticeship Levy is a tax dating from 2015 and enforced by the  Finance Act (2016). Its operation is one of the responsibilities of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). It is paid by employers with a pay bill of over £3m, with Government contributing from it to the training costs for small businesses. However the Levy does not fund Degree Apprenticeships.

There have been calls for the Lifelong Loan Entitlement to include degree apprenticeships but the most recent Government Policy Paper (April 2024) embracing Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs) and including ‘modules of technical courses of clear value to employers’, is still working with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) about the possible application of  the LLE when ‘qualifications submitted to the gateway are technical in nature’. There is therefore some way to go before degree apprenticeships can become accepted postgraduate qualifications expressly involving research and with reliable sources of funding.

Funding for an institutional ‘research culture’ goes beyond higher education providers

Taxpayer-funding for universities began to be allocated by the academic-led University Grants Committee (UGC) from 1919. It was to take the form of a block grant, which the recipient university might allocate as it chose. At the end of the twentieth century the UGC was replaced first, briefly, by a single Funding Council and then, under the Further Education and Research Act (1992) by four separate Funding Councils for the nations of the UK, with the Higher Education Funding Council for England taking over the task for England. The new Act stipulated the permitted application of taxpayer funding for higher education between teaching and research, or for the support of either.

Under the Thatcher Government public funding for higher education was reduced, leaving the University Grants Committee less to allocate from the 1980s. (Shattock, 1984; Shattock, 2008) The decision was taken to vary grants for funding according to the research performance of universities. The resulting ‘quality-related’ (QR) research ‘selectivity’ made it necessary to devise measurements of the research results to be rewarded. In 1986 the UGS sought statements from universities on their subject areas by cost, with samples of  five ‘outputs’ from each. Satisfactory research performance came to be shaped largely by measurements of this kind.

A further exercise in ‘research selectivity’ followed in 1989. When the UGC was replaced by the statutory Universities Funding Council, another exercise followed in 1992. Its findings prompted an application for judicial review from the Institute of Dental Surgery alleging that its performance had not been properly measured. The court accepted that the Institute had had independent status for grant purposes under Education Reform Act (1988), s.235(1) and the judgment gave a detailed description of the process which had been followed in arriving at the relatively low rating the Institute was challenging. It faulted the Funding Council for its failure to give reasons for a decision which would affect future funding for the Institute of Dental Surgery.  That prompted some rethinking of the procedure to be used for rating a higher education provider’s research so as to allocate funding selectively.

The Further and Higher Education Act of 1992 replaced the short-lived first single Funding Council with four national statutory funding bodies. The resulting Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) conducted its own Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) every few years,  amending the procedure and requirements each time, with  infrastructure ‘teaching and research’ funding duly allocated on the basis of  its results.

After the exercise of 2001 with its 68 Units of Assessment there was growing concern about the fairness of a method of assessment based on disciplinary or subject ‘units’. The Second Report of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (April 2002) heard evidence to that effect and recommended that HEFCE ‘ensure that its quality assessment does not discourage or disadvantage interdisciplinary research’, arguing that ‘such research offers some of the most fertile ground for innovation and discovery’. That adjustment proved difficult to achieve.

The RAE was replaced in 2014 by the Research Excellence Framework (REF). Costing £246m in 2014, the REF proved to be vastly more expensive than the RAE, which had cost £66m for the 2008 exercise. It was last held in 2021 with Research England in charge instead of HEFCE. It is scheduled to be repeated in 2029.

The ‘Stern’ Report, Building on Success and Learning from Experience: an Independent Review of the Research Excellence Framework (2016), was commissioned to report on the REF of 2014. It recommended simplification of the REF submission requirements for HEIs, and rethinking of the use to be made by Government of the resulting data. It approved of continuing the long-established dual support system, with a non-hypothecated taxpayer-funded block grant dependent on institutional performance and separate project funding to be sought competitively from the Research Councils, charities and other funders.

Stern,arguing that assessment should better recognise the reality of the ways in which academic research was conducted in HEIs, used the expression  ‘research environment’ rather than ‘research culture’. In the light of the problems caused for ‘career choices, progression and morale’ for academic and research staff of selection of individuals for submission it recommended that ‘all research active staff should be returned in the REF’ and that ‘outputs’ should not be ‘portable’ to other institutions. It discouraged the hiring of ‘tall poppies’ to improve an institution’s standing in research and urged that peer review should be made more transparent. Like the RAE the REF has encouraged gaming in the recruitment of researchers. However, the REF added the criterion of ‘impact’, broadly conceived in terms of the benefit an institution’s research brought to the economy and society. That addition began to reshape public policy and  encourage the framing of a concept of an institutional ‘research culture’.

The separation of research from teaching

The ‘block grant’ lasted for nearly a century until the Higher Education and Research Act of 2017 abolished HEFCE and placed teaching and research in different Departments of State, allocating the responsibilities respectively to new bodies, the Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation. In future a much-reduced portion of teaching funding was to be allocated to providers by a new Office for Students, to supplement the income now available from higher undergraduate tuition fees. With the abolition of HEFCE, public infrastructure funding for research (laboratories and libraries) was to be allocated by Research England which was placed within  the new UK Research and Innovation. Project funding was to continue to be sought in the form of grants, including those from Research Councils  which were also moved within UKRI.

Uncertainty about the acceptability of the REF continues despite these radical organisational changes. UKRI published a review of ‘perceptions’ about the exercise of 2021. It found that views were mixed. Among the negatives were the institutional cost and negative effects of repeated measurement and the potential distortion of freedom to pursue an inquiry which might not turn out to improve the institution’s ratings, with damaging funding consequences. The review also had something to say on the effect the REF was felt to have on early career researchers. An international Agreement on reforming research assessment was arrived at in July 2022. This called for assessment to ‘reward the originality of ideas, the professional research conduct, and results beyond the state-of-the-art’.  There were calls for the abolition of the REF in England, or for changes to be made before it was held again.   

Public funding of research beyond higher education

In How we fund higher education providers (May 2023), Research England gives an account of its responsibilities in allocating the taxpayer funding of research. It is not limited to providers of higher education. Research England explains that it can fund  the research and ‘knowledge exchange’ activities not only of higher education providers (HEPs)’ and also ‘other organisations that carry out services in relation to research or knowledge exchange in eligible HEPs’.

Plans for completion of the next REF were deferred to 2029 in response to concerns raised about its content and purpose, in particular how it was to reflect the element of ‘People, Culture and Environment’. It was agreed that a ‘pilot’, still conducted in eight disciplinary areas, would be needed to settle the design of ‘indicators’. This agreement was initiated with the help of Technopolis and CRAC-Vitae (part of the Careers Research & Advisory Centre). Vice-Chancellors and other heads of research-active higher education providers funded by Research England were sent a letter explaining the plan and with a link to current expectations. However there were mixed views about the definition of ‘research culture’.

The need for ‘selectivity’ has continued to require ‘measurement’. This encourages an emphasis  on ‘research activity’ rather than the fostering of the still imperfectly-defined ‘research culture’.

SRHE member GR Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History in the University of Cambridge.


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Unveiling the role of sustainability reporting in UK universities

by Maryna Lakhno

Sustainability reporting in higher education

In the increasingly digital world of higher education, the significance of sustainability reporting has grown, driven by demands for greater transparency and accountability. This evolution reflects a dual expectation: that universities not only commit to sustainable practices but also openly communicate these efforts to their communities.

While many believe that sustainability reports could spearhead substantial changes and lead to the solidification of sustainability within institutional operations, there is a growing scepticism about their efficacy and authenticity. Critics argue that such reporting can sometimes serve as mere green-washing or window-dressing, aimed more at appeasing stakeholders than effecting real change. This criticism is rooted in the tendency of reports to focus predominantly on successes while glossing over areas needing improvement.

Furthermore, current sustainability reports often focus narrowly on environmental and physical aspects of campuses, such as energy efficiency or waste management. Though these are important, they represent only a fraction of what true sustainability encompasses. This limited focus can overshadow crucial areas such as social justice, economic stability, and cultural vitality, which are essential for a comprehensive sustainability strategy.

By analysing reports from UK universities, the paper “Green or green‐washed? Examining sustainability reporting in higher education” published in Higher Education Quarterly (online 1 April 2024) identified a common trend among UK universities: while many universities are quick to highlight their eco-friendly initiatives, there is often a noticeable lack of critical self-evaluation and comprehensive coverage of all sustainability dimensions apart from the attention to green campus space.

More than just green facades?

The findings from the paper reveal a complex picture. In total, 107 reports were collected spanning a 7-year period, covering approximately one-third of the total universities in the UK. 78% of these universities showcase their sustainability performance online. Several universities genuinely integrate sustainability into their operational and educational frameworks.

However, a significant portion of the reports tended to focus heavily on physical and visible interventions, like energy-efficient buildings or campus recycling programs, potentially sidelining the equally crucial aspects of social sustainability, such as inclusivity, economic impact, and community engagement. One of the primary challenges identified is the selective reporting on positive outcomes while neglecting areas that require improvement or failed initiatives. This trend raises concerns about the authenticity of these reports as tools for genuine self-reflection and accountability rather than merely as marketing instruments designed to enhance institutional reputations.

Moving forward: beyond the green mask

Universities should not only address their environmental impacts but also embed sustainability culturally and socially within their institutions. Additionally, there should be a balance between showcasing achievements and critically addressing shortcomings and areas for development. This approach ensures that educational institutions do not merely pursue sustainability as a checkbox exercise but actively integrate it into their core values and operational strategies.

To advance beyond superficial sustainability, UK universities need to develop more rigorous, transparent, and comprehensive reporting mechanisms. These reports should not only serve as reflections of past actions but as genuine, forward-looking documents that guide future sustainable practices across all university operations.

Maryna Lakhno, a PhD candidate at the Department of Public Policy, Central European University, Vienna, specializes in exploring the intersections of policy, education, and sustainable practices within higher education.

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The Secret Lecturer: What Really Goes on at University

Canbury Press 2024, 208pp. ISBN 9781914487217 (paperback), 9781914487224 (ebook)

Review by Rob Cuthbert

If you do research in higher education, this book might make you angry – but probably not for the reasons the author hopes. The blurb says: ”For more than a decade, the deteriorating state of the higher education sector in the UK has been known to insiders, but not to the public. Now … an academic who must remain anonymous … presents a no-holds-barred account of life on campus.”

I had high hopes. The Secret Barrister was a runaway success, earning the respect of professionals and public alike. The Secret Doctor trod much the same path. Surely The Secret Lecturer could not fail to do for higher education what its predecessors had done for law and medicine?

Yes it could. So why was it such a disappointment? Not because it is full of jaw-dropping anecdotes and stories which could be hard to believe. I believed all of them, and too many HE staff will have had many similar experiences. The disappointment is at an opportunity wasted, with the book’s opening sentence enough to deflate all expectations:

“For many people the question, ‘Are British universities f***ed?’ is as rhetorical as ‘Does the Supreme Pontiff devoutly believe in the monotheistic faith he leads?’ or ‘Do members of the Ursidae family of carnivorous mammals defecate in arboreal regions?’”

Many would be tempted to stop there. This “no-holds-barred account” comes from someone too bitter to let his professed love of higher education show, and not as clever as he thinks he is (the text suggests it is a ‘he’).

Where other secret professionals enrich their anecdotes with insights on how their profession could be better and develop a convincing narrative, The Secret Lecturer just indulges in stereotypes. Students are either lazy drug-taking plagiarists who make fantastic excuses for their lack of effort, or disadvantaged and benighted souls who have been cruelly betrayed by their schools, lecturers, departments, university or the system. Academic and professional colleagues are mostly treacherous, cowardly, prejudiced, ambitious, lazy backstabbers, apart from the few who share the world view of the author, and a dedicated administrator or two. Managers are all intellectually dull time-wasting control freaks who get in the way of proper academic work, often with “meaningless HE rituals”. Academics in business, marketing and law collude in lowering academic standards – “it’s all poster presentations and multiple-answer quizzes” – which in other disciplines are jeopardised mostly by fear and management pressure – “If you exhibit talent round here, you’re likely to be hated rather than appreciated.” And when The Secret Lecturer steps outside the campus he finds only a dystopian ghost town where all the shops have gone out of business and the bureaucrats’ blood runs even colder than in the university.

Clunky similes and metaphors keep popping up: the inflation rate is “as high as Johnny Depp atop a heap of hard drugs” before “another gormless rectangle of a senior manager” intervenes. They become even more mysteriously obscure – on just one page not only: “feeling more forlorn and nauseous than if I’d been forced at gunpoint to watch the complete television work of Ross Kemp”, but also “It’s hotter than the air that issues from Adrian Chiles’ mouth.”. The author presents events as if they are from just one academic year, which is a perfectly legitimate device, but his day-by-day account through two semesters is the only structure for the text. The longer-running threads such as a job application to a foreign university and giving a paper at an overseas conference are less convincing, suggesting lack of due diligence by the author as much as bad faith by others. And surely hardly anyone who still does it believes that external examining is “a nice little earner”.

The brief Epilogue purports to suggest a way forward, involving abolishing fees, culling the massed ranks of management, decarbonising, demilitarising, decolonialising and restoring institutional democracy. But these remain mere slogans in the absence of any coherent narrative, and the horror stories remain as symptoms in the absence of any coherent diagnosis of the underlying problems. “My idealistic aim is that someone, somewhere might read this book and be cheesed off enough to clear up the mess.” Higher education may be a mess, but ranting while waiting for someone else to clear it up is not a solution.

Rob Cuthbert is editor of SRHE News and the SRHE Blog, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics. Email rob.cuthbert@uwe.ac.uk. Twitter @RobCuthbert.