Our Vice-Chancellor

Over the last 20 years, the British higher-education sector has become used to continuous change and it has adapted triumphantly, at least if we consider the sector’s current position as a world leader. But even by historical standards the current rate of policy change in England is extreme and the risks to the sector’s preeminent world position are correspondingly greater.

Universities are routinely described as public goods. But it is remarkable how little the phrase still tends to be interrogated even though, as the vast literature in economics shows, there are genuine problems of definition.