Our Vice-Chancellor

Civility is a nebulous word. The dictionary defines it as 'formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech'. More generally, it is often used as a means of belaboring what often seems like the increasingly destructive nature of public debate with its nasty ad hominem attacks and its displays of vitriol which are often out of all proportion to the offense.

The annual conference of the European Universities Association (EUA) will take place at Warwick on March 22-23. The conference will be attended by over 300 university heads from all over Europe. It will cover many issues including, no doubt, the vagaries of E.U. financing, the different degrees of university autonomy, and the idiosyncrasies of university rankings (it is worth mentioning that the EUA report on university rankings is by far the best available to date). But, inevitably, hanging over the proceedings like a cloud, will be the parlous state of higher-education finances in many of the countries of Europe in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis..