Words by Ed Mackenzie.    The incentive The 2022–23 House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee report on Reproducibility and Research Integrity reached a conclusion about incentives in the academy: “Reward structures in academia disincentivise reproducibility by placing disproportionate value on secured funding and frequent publication in prestigious journals.” (HC 101, ¶127) Asked what...Read More

The Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU) has endorsed the British Academy’s call for a comprehensive review of higher education and encourages all members to lobby their MPs to call upon the new Prime Minister and his government to institute such a review as a matter of urgency. We have produced this template...Read More

  The Annual General Meeting for 2026 of the Council for the Defence of British Universities will take place online via Zoom on Wednesday 22 July at 3pm.  The meeting is open to members and non-members but only members have voting rights. Non-members are encouraged to fill out the membership application form on the website....Read More

We would like to wish all our members and subscribers a very Happy New Year!   One highlight of last year was the launch of our Code of Ethical University Governance, written by Professor Steven Jones, a member of our Executive Committee. Professor Jones launched the Code at a successful event at the House of...Read More

Summary  The CDBU Code of Ethical University Governance is underpinned by the principle that governing bodies have a substantive part to play in affirming higher education as a prized public asset. The Code encourages governors to see themselves as ambassadors for their sector, promoting the university to everyone in society and providing reassurance that income...Read More

The Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU) was established at Oxford in 2012 by Sir Keith Thomas. He worked tirelessly to recruit famous names from culture and science, law and the media, as well as academe, and set up an organisational infrastructure in double quick time. Government was instituting radical plans for HE...Read More

We are pleased to publish the results of one of our funded research projects.  ‘Satisfied Customers?: Interrogating “the student experience” in the neoliberal university’, by Professor Leo McCann (University of York) explores UK students’ perspectives on the marketized university.  The research found that UK university students are largely enthusiastic about the content and quality of their degrees,...Read More

Professor Karl Leydecker Senior Vice Principal  Aberdeen University 26 November 2023   Dear Karl It has been a few years since we saw each other last when I left the University of Kent in the summer of 2007 to become professor of German in Swansea shortly after you arrived to head up the School of...Read More

Interview conducted by Sean McMahon Academic staff do the work that defines a university: teaching, scholarship and research. But too often in British universities the voices of academics are marginalised by undemocratic forms of governance. Top-down, unaccountable, corporate-style management has increasingly replaced collegial decision-making, stifling the autonomy of academics and impeding rather than facilitating academic...Read More