League of European Research Universities Have Their Say as to Their Role. (October 3, 2008)

Twenty of Europe's leading Research Universities have just released a nineteen page pamphlet What are Universities For written by Geoffrey Boulton, Vice Principal and Regius Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in the University of Edinburgh, and Sir Colin Lucas,Warden of Rhodes House and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

Founded in 2002, initially as a group of twelve, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) was expanded to 20 institutions in 2006.

The LERU describes itself as an association of research-intensive universities which shares "the values of high-quality teaching in an environment of internationally competitive research. The League is committed to: education through an awareness of the frontiers of human understanding; the creation of new knowledge through basic research, which is the ultimate source of innovation in society; the promotion of research across a broad front, which creates a unique capacity to reconfigure activities in response to new opportunities and problems. The purpose of the League is to advocate these values, to influence policy in Europe and to develop best practice through mutual exchange of experience.

The crux of the League's argument is that:

It is the totality of the university enterprise that is important, as the only place where that totality of ourselves and our world is brought together, and which makes it the strongest provider of the rational explanation and meaning that societies need. It is the complex, interacting whole that is the source of the separate benefits valued by society. It needs to be understood, valued and managed as a whole.

And it spells out the details of its views in a manner that is in fact a direct challenge to not only to governments but to university administrators who have been either cowed or seduced into:

slipshod thinking that is leading to demands that universities cannot satisfy, whilst obscuring their most important contributions.

What may be termed the League's take home message may be summed up as:

The “western” university has provided an almost universal model for higher education.

In research, universities create new possibilities; in teaching, they shape new people.

There is a growing tendency to see universities as sources of highly specific, marketable commodities.

It is crucial that the true role of universities is understood before mechanisms to promote change are put in place.

Universities must articulate more clearly what they stand for, and what their true role in society is.

A university that moulds itself only to present demands is not listening to its historians.

The most useful knowledge is that grounded in deep understanding. It is often relinquished for shallower perceptions of utility.

Statements about the deeper values of education can be traduced as sentimental. We regard them as deeply utilitarian.

Universities are unique amongst human institutions in the range of knowledge they encompass.

Innovation is dominantly a process of business engagement with markets. Universities can only play a minor active role.

Autonomous academics have the freedom, and the duty, liberally to contribute their understanding to the benefit of society.

The challenge is to exploit the potential of autonomy and freedom without oppressive accountability.

And specifically who are the League?