Are British research universities losing their way or are they finding a
new way? Nigel Thrift, a well-known academic and a former
Vice-Chancellor, explores recent changes in the British research
university that threaten to erode the quality of these higher education
institutions. He considers what a research university has now become by
examining the quandaries that have arisen from a succession of misplaced
strategies and false expectations. Challenging both higher education
policy and leadership, he argues that the focus on student number growth
and a series of research policy missteps has upset research
universities' priorities just at a point in the history of planetary
breakdown when their research is most needed.