I am Professor Martin A. Mills, Chair of Anthropology at Aberdeen University. A twice-elected university governor, regular writer for the Times Higher Education magazine, and founding member of Aberdeen’s Reclaim Our Universities movement, I am also a specialist in knowledge economies.
I believe that universities stand at a historic fork in the road. For many, the view that universities are outdated medieval institutions, drowning in a world of global digital communication, artificial intelligence and information consumerism, seems both terrible and inescapable. This is incorrect, but it is a time of both unique hazard and marvellous opportunity. At precisely the moment when politicians, policymakers and administrators – beguiled by limited and increasingly outdated market models – are seeking to undermine and jettison them, universities as expert human communities constitute a vital anchor of knowledge legitimacy, value and meaning within the growing social, political and economic confusion in the world. We are in no sense unique in this regard: the same difficulties apply in equal measure to all other knowledge institutions working to create reliable knowledge for the public benefit. This includes encyclopedias, scientific journals, publishing houses and indeed the journalistic press – with all of whom we should be seeking common cause.
