Publications

"British Universities in China:
The Reality Beyond the Rhetoric"

An Agora discussion paper, December 2007

The discussion paper "British Universities in China: The Reality Beyond the Rhetoric" examines the challenge posed by Chinese higher education to British institutions. Reportedly one UK vice chancellor or pro vice chancellor a week has been landing in Beijing or Shanghai to explore future partnership opportunities. But what form should these partnerships take? And are we doing enough to protect our advantage?

The expansion of higher education in China ushers in a new era for UK universities, which we hope will be met with some fresh thinking about the nature and purpose of international partnership, and about how to create campuses that can really claim to be global communities. Yet we must not become victims of our own hype. Institutions must not be swept into China without proper thought. If we are to negotiate the tide of global competition, boldness is crucial, but so is sensible navigation.

Agora has interviewed six key individuals who have personal experience of higher education partnerships on the ground in China and Asia more broadly. We hope that their views, which include clear advice on how to build relationships with this huge and complicated country, as well as strong warnings about errors we are already making, will stimulate reflection and debate. You can download a copy of the discussion paper here.

Professor Ian Gow:

"The Chinese no longer have to persuade, they seem to have everyone eating out of their hands. The pull factor is being replaced by a push from the foreign institutions. But we are not thinking sufficiently about how to engineer a win-win situation."

Professor Michael Shattock:

"In my opinion setting up overseas campuses is a strategic mistake. They involve a huge commitment of time and resources, and they are a diversion from the core business of running your university."

Professor Rebecca Hughes:

"Many students become active ambassadors for China in the local community. However, some Chinese students are very 'driven' and there is always a danger of the students simply treating their time in the host institution as time spent to 'get the bit of paper' and putting up with intense isolation and misery to do this."

Editor: Anna Fazackerley

"Can The Prizes Still Glitter?
The Future of British Universities in a Changing World"

Agora's first book was published in May 2007

In "Can The Prizes Still Glitter?" published by the University of Buckingham Press, vice chancellors, politicians, business people and academics from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and a range of institutions have written personal essays about where universities are now and when they ought to be. Between them they tackle an impressively broad range of topics - from declining standards and student selection to the management of a university, and from the future of science and media studies to the dual missions of teaching and research. You can read some of these essays below, or purchase a copy of the book here.

"Recently a colleague at a redbrick university asked me to provide my views on the suitability of a group of applicants to an academic post... What struck me as particularly depressing was the fact that none of them attempted to present themselves as scholars or thinkers. It was evident that they applied for grants, sometimes got one, did the research, published a couple of monographs and went on to apply for a further round of grants." - Frank Furedi.

Download a PDF of "Do Academics Still Think?" an essay by Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent here

"I think there is every likelihood that the lack of scientifically educated and aware young people in the UK will result in ever poorer performance on a global scale, and a takeover by the next generation of young Chinese and Indians, ravenous for the scientific knowledge that will free them from the shackles of present poverty levels. They are being actively encouraged by their governments, who understand that the future lies in a scientific education based on doubt and questioning, rather than on belief." - Sir Harry Kroto.

Read The Guardian newspaper's abridged version of Nobel prize-winning chemist Sir Harry Kroto's essay, "Killing Science is Killing Our Culture" here

" It is always the middle classes who are able to manipulate this supposedly universalist system. If there is a good church school, it is they who have the time and the wit to do the necessary in the eyes of the Lord to get their children in. If there is a good school in a certain area, it is they who have the economic throw-weight to move. And so we bully the universities into remedying injustices that have been perpetrated long ago at primary level." - Boris Johnson.

Read The Independent newspaper's abridged version of former Shadow HE Minister Boris Johnson's essay, "Universities and Schools: The Great White Lies" here

"The American liberal arts college is an admirable (and widely admired) institution...In sharp contrast, 'teaching only' is a status to which European and British universities fear relegation, a second class status within the commonwealth as universities as a whole." - Gordon Graham.

Download a PDF of "Globalisation and a two-tier university system" by Gordon Graham, Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy & the Arts, Princeton Theoogical Seminary, here

Other contributors include:

Bill Rammell, Minister of State for Higher Education
Lord Patten, Chancellor of the University of Oxford
Eric Thomas, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bristol
Steve Smith, Vice Chancellor of the University of Exeter
Michael Harloe, Vice Chancellor of the University of Salford
Gary Day, Professor of English at De Montfort University
Alison Wolf, Sir Roy Griffiths Prof of Public Sector Management, Kings College London
Alec Reed, Founder of Reed Employment and the Academy of Enterprise

Editors: Hugo de Burgh, Anna Fazackerley, Jeremy Black.

You can view a full contents list, with all our authors and their chosen topics, here.

You can order a copy of the book for £ 15.99 by clicking here.