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
20 July 2026 Dear Prime Minister On behalf of the Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU), I request a meeting with you to discuss Higher Education. The sector needs a review of management, purpose and funding. British universities were envied until recently in other countries for our teaching, research, and openness to the...Read More
The ill-conceived attempt to marketise universities has been a major contributor to the current difficulties in our universities. Whatever your view of the ideology it is difficult to argue that it has been a success and the problems were foreseeable (see for example ‘English Universities in Crisis’, Frank, Gowar, Naef, Bristol University Press, 2019). Without...Read More
Since the Labour party were elected in early July to form the UK Government, I have been eagerly awaiting announcements of plans to try and fix the crisis facing British universities. Having spent the last five years researching a PhD thesis at the University of Essex which examined the relationship between political narratives of social...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
Words by David Feldman. The war in Gaza reverberates globally. One consequence is renewed controversy over when criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights becomes antisemitic. This debate has been crystallized by two definitions of antisemitism: the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Both definitions agree...Read More
Words by Susan Bruce with Kelli Rudolph. Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, generally so illuminating on the multiple topics they discuss in their podcast The Rest is Politics, were less informative than they usually are in their 13 December discussion of the US House Education and Workforce committee hearing of 5/12/2023 wherein the Presidents of...Read More
The Office for Students (OfS) is currently caught up in the crossfire of a government-inspired ‘culture-war’ on universities. This has included passage of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act in May 2023 to address an alleged ‘no platforming’ of right-wing and gender-critical speakers. The OfS has now published its proposals for an independent complaints...Read More
PRESS RELEASE: 19.07.23 “Government proposals to cap the student numbers on what they define as ‘low value degrees’ show once again the limits of market-driven thinking when applied to education. The value of a university degree can manifest itself in many ways after graduation and over a longer term than metrics deployed by the Office...Read More
In September this year, The Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU) and Professor Paul Baines (University of Leicester) co-organised a cross-party policy workshop to discuss and debate the role of universities in building the society and economy of the future. After two years of global political, social and financial instability due to the consequences...Read More
