There is a glorious row rumbling on about the salaries of Vice-Chancellors [general managers] of Universities. A new Vice-Chancellor of Oxford feels constrained to defend a salary of less than £400,000 as the head of one of the half-dozen most powerful and effective academic communities in the world: and that is quite inappropriate. To attract a significant global academic-cum-manager needs that amount of money: though it is only a couple of decades since Sir Colin Lucas occupied the office of Vice Chancellor for a couple of years as Master of Balliol College. Colin was able to persuade the powers-that-be in the university that the time had come to drop the hit-or-miss rotation of the Vice-Chancellorship among the heads of colleges and to employ a top manager on a longer-term contract. Cambridge did the same thing about the same time, and so far the two institutions between them had some successes and some embarrassments: but nobody is proposing a reversion to the medieval system.
The silly title of Vice-Chancellor implies an assistant or deputy to the honorific head of a university, who may be a member of the aristocracy [even a minor royal] or a politician or a benefactor or a distinguished scholar or scientist: but who is in no way involved in the routine management of the place. Several vice-chancellors have added titles like 'president' to their portfolio [evincing a painful need to say 'I'm really the boss'] and Scots avoid the whole morass by being known as 'principals'.
The route to being a vice-chancellor is complex, but now that there are some 120 of them it has become obvious that both the institutions and their general managers are of very different quality. The vice-chancellor of Bolton University [yes, there is even one there now] has waded onto the media several times, bragging of his importance despite his institution wallowing near the bottom of the league. He claims to be worth what he is paid, in a way that would perhaps justify £50,000 a year plus expenses and pension: the fact that he is within spitting distance of the top 'earners' is absurd on any objective criterion.
The row started with somebody making the observation that all the vice-chancellors are paid more than the Prime Minister is paid. This has been developed into something close to a vendetta by the obsessive proponent of the useless HS2 railway, who has been unable to make any inroad into the system; while the government looks most unwilling to intervene. There are at least twenty world-class university institutions in the United Kingdom, including the leading colleges of the University of London. Their heads need to be global figures. But for the rest of the so-say university system the salaries are indeed inflated. How did this happen? I was there at the time. During the 'seventies and the 'eighties of the last century several 'polytechnics' were created, usually by amalgamating teacher-training colleges and craft colleges with city technical colleges. These institutions grew quickly as they 'produced' graduates more cheaply than did the 'traditional' universities; so their Directors were able to negotiate high salaries with their local-authority-dominated employers. Then the government decided that the polys should be given 'parity of esteem' by being designated as universities. Then the pre-existing vice-chancellors found it impossible to ignore the fact that their median salaries were below those of ex-poly directors; and a game of catch-up went crazy: resulting in the present system.
Then somebody drew in the comparison with the Prime Minister: if she gets a much more modest salary for 'running the country', then it can be claimed to stand as self-evident that V-Cs are paid 'too much'.
This is daft: everybody knows that most prime ministers in recent decades have been quite young people, who had a great deal of lifetime remaining in which to make a great deal of money, if they are so inclined. Gordon Brown is not so inclined: he has a comfortable existence doing global good works. But his old sparring-partner Blair was quickly notorious for the millions that have passed through his personal accounts as well as through the charities that give him a public profile that has not yet diminished his odious personal reputation. David Cameron's cowardly exit from Downing Street and the Commons was followed by the purchase of a hut-on-wheels in which he is writing the memoirs that he hopes will begin the repletion of the fortunes that he and his wife have inherited. Mrs May's impending departure will give her the opportunity to accumulate a cash pile to set alongside her husband's City earnings; starting, again, with heavily-supported memoirs.
The 'granny of them all' among ex-politician big earners, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is in the UK now to promote the memoirs that have been written and published in quick time since her election defeat last November. Like her husband, she had outblaired Blair himself in the league of big post-political earners. So to make a current prime minister's salary a template for anything is simply silly. Some civil servants, NHS managers and others in the public sector are necessarily paid more than the prime minister. If Labour re-nationalise any industries or utilities, they will have to pay their managers more than the prime minister, if they want the re-nationalisation to work. That is the way of the world. Meanwhile, the vice-chancellor of Bolton University will be the living proof that some people in the semi-public sector are indeed overpaid.
Showing posts with label Cambridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cambridge. Show all posts
Saturday, 14 October 2017
Tuesday, 5 September 2017
Aveva: Another Case Against British Policy
The technological software company Aveva is a very successful Cambridge spin-off company. Although in a different field of activity from ARM, it shares many similarities with the firm that Mrs May allowed to go to Japanese owners in her first days in office. These include the availability of talent and significant start-up funding in physical and intellectual proximity to Cambridge, and strongly competent management.
This company has become a world leader in an area where there is an almost-infinite global demand for their software, which provides a template for designing almost any process plant and the structures in which it can best operate. It is growing promisingly, and could probably have a great future on its own. However, a leading French company has decided that they way forward [regardless of Brexit] is to take Aveva over, then incorporate some of its operations into Aveva, and profit further.
There is no French university in the global big league: where Cambridge, Oxford and the leading London colleges are stars; so it makes sense for the intending French owners of Aveva - as with the Japanese owners of ARM - for the time being [at least] to maintain and even extend the operations and the investment at the Cambridge site. Cross-fertilisation and the simple buzz of social and physical proximity to talent are huge benefits that Britain gains from having top quality intellectual resources.
Even the dim politicians who are dawdling about the Brexit discussions, and balking at the inevitable decision that any sane leaders have to take, that Britain must remain within the European Economic Area must see, yet again, that Britain has huge resources of inventiveness that have for centuries been the country's greatest economic asset. Discussions about how far the UK can collaborate with EU institutions that will keep the UK in the closest contact with the intellectual developments forging ahead are a very important aspect of the whole Brexit debate. There are some signs that collaboration and the transfer of people between UK and continental universities are already being reduced by the irrational fears which people like Liam Fox and the 'hard Brexiteers' are unconsciously fostering in people who are concerned about their personal futures.
As with the concentration of intellectual and technical resources in insurance and banking in the City of London, so with the leading universities the concentration of technical and scientific talent in the British hubs is massively greater than anywhere on the continent. If the City or Cambridge University is weakened by any sort of boycott by the EU, it will not enable the French to build up Paris as a hub for finance, or Bonn or Bologna as a global technology giant: any spiteful weakening of British institutions will merely strengthen New York, Singapore and other non-EU business centres, and the great universities of the USA as foci for research. Specialist journalists have been making this point effectively over some years, but it has not yet spread into the wider public consciousness and has barely touched the limited wits of the political class. It would be hoped that the example of Aveva would enlighten them, but my expectations of those woodentops are extremely low.
This company has become a world leader in an area where there is an almost-infinite global demand for their software, which provides a template for designing almost any process plant and the structures in which it can best operate. It is growing promisingly, and could probably have a great future on its own. However, a leading French company has decided that they way forward [regardless of Brexit] is to take Aveva over, then incorporate some of its operations into Aveva, and profit further.
There is no French university in the global big league: where Cambridge, Oxford and the leading London colleges are stars; so it makes sense for the intending French owners of Aveva - as with the Japanese owners of ARM - for the time being [at least] to maintain and even extend the operations and the investment at the Cambridge site. Cross-fertilisation and the simple buzz of social and physical proximity to talent are huge benefits that Britain gains from having top quality intellectual resources.
Even the dim politicians who are dawdling about the Brexit discussions, and balking at the inevitable decision that any sane leaders have to take, that Britain must remain within the European Economic Area must see, yet again, that Britain has huge resources of inventiveness that have for centuries been the country's greatest economic asset. Discussions about how far the UK can collaborate with EU institutions that will keep the UK in the closest contact with the intellectual developments forging ahead are a very important aspect of the whole Brexit debate. There are some signs that collaboration and the transfer of people between UK and continental universities are already being reduced by the irrational fears which people like Liam Fox and the 'hard Brexiteers' are unconsciously fostering in people who are concerned about their personal futures.
As with the concentration of intellectual and technical resources in insurance and banking in the City of London, so with the leading universities the concentration of technical and scientific talent in the British hubs is massively greater than anywhere on the continent. If the City or Cambridge University is weakened by any sort of boycott by the EU, it will not enable the French to build up Paris as a hub for finance, or Bonn or Bologna as a global technology giant: any spiteful weakening of British institutions will merely strengthen New York, Singapore and other non-EU business centres, and the great universities of the USA as foci for research. Specialist journalists have been making this point effectively over some years, but it has not yet spread into the wider public consciousness and has barely touched the limited wits of the political class. It would be hoped that the example of Aveva would enlighten them, but my expectations of those woodentops are extremely low.
Thursday, 17 August 2017
The Uses of University
The principal social purpose of universities today is to keep around 44% of the age group 18-22 out of the jobs market and [in the main] in a life of sufficient social indulgence to keep them from radicalisation in support of any real or imagined cause. In England [which forms the bulk of the population] the cost of achieving this objective has been shunted from the state budget into a La-la-Land where it appears as a debt owed by the graduate community; which no one believes will be repaid in full, or even in half. The fact that the interest that is added to the accumulated debt has now increased to more than 6% - compound - makes the dream of repayment even more laughable.
It is still argued in some quarters that the universities have an economic purpose, to train the inventors of the future and to nurture some of the best researchers as teachers in the universities who combine their pedagogic work with the selection of the best students to join their research teams who will thus extend and perpetuate their work. This happens, on a depressingly small scale in comparison to the massive size of the university sector overall. Some buildings that were provided by the state in the nineteen sixties and seventies for university schools of science - especially of applied science and engineering - have been 're-purposed' to take some of the expansion in social studies: especially business and media. Where applied science capacity has been maintained, since the mid-seventies it has been occupied by an increasing proportion of overseas students [at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels] who mostly take their skills to competitor countries after graduating. Around the best scientific, medical and engineering departments have been gathered spin-off companies, which have developed innovations formed in the academic context into potentially successful businesses. Where these grow into conspicuous successes, the probability of them being taken over and developed by aliens, rather than by British capitalists, is overwhelming.
It is also worth noting that much of the best spun-off development has been in business parks funded by richly-endowed colleges, especially in Cambridge; which have been better resourced that spin-offs from Manchester or Sheffield Universities. Bullshit about the Northern Powerhouse has drawn heavily on the resources of the universities in the region for its rhetoric: but the Oxbridge endowments have not been matched by state funding for spin-offs from the multiple universities in Leeds or Birmingham.
The chief function of the universities is indeed to maintain intelligent young people in suspense over a period of years in which they have a good chance of being softened by drink, drugs, sex and idleness, or of being diverted into sports and hobbies that absorb their attention in ways that are not economically or politically disruptive. The school results that determine which university and course [if any] pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will take up are being announced today, and the universities are competing vigorously to attract the best talent [insofar as it is revealed by A-level results]. The short-term motives for this are to be able to claim a 'high quality' of intake to keep a flow of good applicants coming to the university, and to get their fees through the university's books. The longer-term objective is to be a survivor when the inevitable cull of the over-bloated higher education system is begun. Economic and social usefulness will then be asserted as the criteria for selection as to which institutions should be culled and which retained: but the objectivity and validity of those criteria will be subject to challenge. The outcome, as to the size, shape and orientation of the higher education system cannot now be predicted.
There still are great scholars and sensible researchers in the British higher educational system. One such has just challenged the increasing optimism of government and the media about the extent of the oil and gas supplies that can be gained by fracking shale. He has gently suggested that the shales that are to be found in the UK are mostly too new [in Geological terms] to yield much that is economically useful. So another bubble may be about to burst: which shows how important it is - and always has been - to develop and retain the applied sciences: they can provide counterbalance to the fantasies that emerge from the Econocracy, which currently corrupt far too great a proportion of the university population.
It is still argued in some quarters that the universities have an economic purpose, to train the inventors of the future and to nurture some of the best researchers as teachers in the universities who combine their pedagogic work with the selection of the best students to join their research teams who will thus extend and perpetuate their work. This happens, on a depressingly small scale in comparison to the massive size of the university sector overall. Some buildings that were provided by the state in the nineteen sixties and seventies for university schools of science - especially of applied science and engineering - have been 're-purposed' to take some of the expansion in social studies: especially business and media. Where applied science capacity has been maintained, since the mid-seventies it has been occupied by an increasing proportion of overseas students [at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels] who mostly take their skills to competitor countries after graduating. Around the best scientific, medical and engineering departments have been gathered spin-off companies, which have developed innovations formed in the academic context into potentially successful businesses. Where these grow into conspicuous successes, the probability of them being taken over and developed by aliens, rather than by British capitalists, is overwhelming.
It is also worth noting that much of the best spun-off development has been in business parks funded by richly-endowed colleges, especially in Cambridge; which have been better resourced that spin-offs from Manchester or Sheffield Universities. Bullshit about the Northern Powerhouse has drawn heavily on the resources of the universities in the region for its rhetoric: but the Oxbridge endowments have not been matched by state funding for spin-offs from the multiple universities in Leeds or Birmingham.
The chief function of the universities is indeed to maintain intelligent young people in suspense over a period of years in which they have a good chance of being softened by drink, drugs, sex and idleness, or of being diverted into sports and hobbies that absorb their attention in ways that are not economically or politically disruptive. The school results that determine which university and course [if any] pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will take up are being announced today, and the universities are competing vigorously to attract the best talent [insofar as it is revealed by A-level results]. The short-term motives for this are to be able to claim a 'high quality' of intake to keep a flow of good applicants coming to the university, and to get their fees through the university's books. The longer-term objective is to be a survivor when the inevitable cull of the over-bloated higher education system is begun. Economic and social usefulness will then be asserted as the criteria for selection as to which institutions should be culled and which retained: but the objectivity and validity of those criteria will be subject to challenge. The outcome, as to the size, shape and orientation of the higher education system cannot now be predicted.
There still are great scholars and sensible researchers in the British higher educational system. One such has just challenged the increasing optimism of government and the media about the extent of the oil and gas supplies that can be gained by fracking shale. He has gently suggested that the shales that are to be found in the UK are mostly too new [in Geological terms] to yield much that is economically useful. So another bubble may be about to burst: which shows how important it is - and always has been - to develop and retain the applied sciences: they can provide counterbalance to the fantasies that emerge from the Econocracy, which currently corrupt far too great a proportion of the university population.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)