What should universities be?
Speaker David Willetts will analyse the different roles of the modern university and the different types of benefits they bring.
He will argue that universities do bring substantial economic benefits but that these are not the only type of benefit they bring. He will consider objections to the so-called ‘marketization of universities’ and argue that universities’ growing significance in a modern market economy does not conflict with their core mission of transmitting and creating knowledge and the conceptual skills to enhance understanding.
David Willetts is Executive Chairman of the Resolution Foundation and a Visiting Professor at King’s College London. He is Governor of the Ditchley Foundation and a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
He was Minister for Universities and Science, attending Cabinet, from 2010-2014. He was the Member of Parliament for Havant from 1992-2015. Before that David worked at HM Treasury and the Number 10 Policy Unit. He also served as Paymaster General in the last Conservative Government.
David has written widely on economic and social policy. His most recent book ‘The Pinch’ was published by Atlantic Books in 2010.
Other lectures in this series
The Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics & Ethics (CAPPE) at the University of Brighton is hosting a series of talks about what universities should be. These talks form the David Watson Memorial Lecture Series, 2015-2016.
Please note that the David Willetts talk (first talk in the series) will be in the Sallis Benney Theatre but all future talks will take place in the Old Courtroom Lecture Theatre , Church Street, Brighton, 6-30 – 8.00 pm.
27 October 2015
Miriam David Higher Education: a Feminist Critique
Professor Emerita in Sociology of Education, University College, London, Institute of Education
10 November 2015
Bob Brecher Universities and the Neoliberal Agenda
Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Brighton and Director, CAPPE
24 November 2015
Elizabeth Nixon and John Scullion Deconstructing the Sovereign Student
Assistant Professor in Marketing, Nottingham University,
Senior Lecturer in Marketing Communications and Political Communications, Bournemouth University
8 December 2015
David Salomon The Politicization of the Universities?
Associate Professor, Political Science, Universität Siegen
5 January 2016
Jo Williams Academic Freedom in an Age of Conformity: Confronting the Fear of Knowledge
Director, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Kent
19 January 2016
John Holmwood The University, Democracy and the Public Interest
Professor of Sociology, Nottingham University and Co-Founder, Campaign for the Public University
2 February 2016
Howard Hotson Educating homo sapiens
Professor of Early Modern Intellectual History, University of Oxford.
16 February 2016
David Eastwood Question Time
Vice-Chancellor, Birmingham University, Member, Browne Review and CEO Higher Education Funding Council, 2006-9
1 March 2016
Stefan Collini Reading the Ruins; imagining the future of Universities
Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature, University of Cambridge
8 March 2016
Julia Goodfellow Universities as Shapeshifters
Vice-Chancellor, University of Kent and Chair, Universities UK