Full Description
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.
Contents
1: Is that a 'university'? I'm not sure
Part I: The research university
2: So what is a 'university'? Part 1: Architecture and academics
3: So what is a 'university'? Part 2: Students, parents and other constituencies
Part II: The contemporary British university system
4: A new Robbins? Recent changes in British universities
5: The hardy perennials
6: The Australianisation of British higher education
7: On vice- chancelloring - a footnote
Part III: The research university of the future
8: So what is a research university?
9: Redesigning the research university
