For British higher education, 2014 will be a period of consolidation. Specifically, I think we will see four trends grow as budgets tighten, as the system becomes more market oriented, and as universities face more pressure to produce better education and research with less resources.

A recent report by the Martin School at the University of Oxford (whose remarkable benefactor, James Martin, sadly died this year) bemoans the lack of institutions able to manage the interconnected world in which we now find ourselves. The report is surely right about that...