Universities Personnel Association

Wednesday, 14th September 2005

Can I start by thanking you for this invitation to open your proceedings this morning.

The Scottish Parliament may be a remote and unfamiliar body to most of you but it is one that has responsibility for presiding over the nurturing of Scottish higher education and I hope you take away this week some interesting insights about how we are evolving up here.

I speak this morning very much an outsider to your profession.

Because despite having studied at a couple of British and overseas universities, been employed by another, sat on the governing body of a third and presided over the funding and policy for all Scotland’s Universities, I have rarely met a university director of HR.

Indeed my most frequent direct encounters were probably as a student campaigner against canteen price or rocketing halls of residence fees. 

But as I reflected on who, collectively, you really are — it struck me that perhaps you were the “secret cogs” who oil the wheels of our Universities.

And so despite the fact that thousands and thousands of students all over Britain who come up, or return, to college in the coming weeks are never likely to meet you  — you do have a fundamental role in shaping the educational experience that those students will enjoy. 

You are the people who increasingly shape: 

 

So it is with some trepidation, that I turn to my main theme Higher Education and the Economy.   

Of course all like all well trained Scottish graduates brought up in the tutorial tradition (which by the way we are proud to think we pioneered), I was always invited by my academic mentors to begin with identifying the question I am trying to answer. 

So instead of meandering through the myriad Scottish of higher education and economy linkages, I thought instead I would try and answer the question  

 “Are Universities becoming more economically important today”?

I have no doubt that most of you are thinking  — well that is a pretty obvious straw man – of course Universities are more important today than they were in the past, human capital is at the heart of future growth, and so inevitably today’s universities are more important than their predecessors.   

But allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment and talk to you briefly about the Scottish University tradition that was flourishing in this country some 250 years ago. 

Let me try and convince you that you can make a persuasive case that Scottish Universities are now less important than they were in the middle of the 18th century.   

Scotland then was home to five universities:  2 in Aberdeen and universities in Glasgow, Edinburgh and St. Andrews; a stark contrast – with only 2 in England and in Wales, but I shall not dwell on that point in the interests of harmonious relations. 

And those 5 universities were the crucible of the Scottish Enlightenment. 

And what differentiated Scotland’s universities in the 18th century was not simply their number, but their capacity to reinvent the meaning and purpose of a university.   

Firstly, it was in the 18th century that lectures in Scotland began to be in English rather than Latin.   

Secondly, for the first time, the professorial system replaced the previous regent system as the foundation of academic scholarship.

Increasingly academics specialised in subjects with students rotating between academics of increasing specialism rather than as previously students remaining throughout their university career with a single generalist teacher. 

And thirdly, of course there was the importation from continental Europe of tutorial discussions as the centrepiece of the learning experience creating that vital exchange of ideas alongside the formal lectures. 

“Very interesting” I hear you say but where is the evidence that such a fundamental change in the organisation of universities made any difference to their wider role and influence?    

Here I think you have only to look these “reformed” Scottish institutions global legacy.

The Scottish university tradition quite literally produced a generation who not only founded the United States but also for a decade or more had a leading role in the British Empire. 

Scots – trained in practical skills of medicine and engineering in particular were invaluable in the growing Empire. 

Scholars in the Scottish philosophical tradition of Hutchison and Hume gave intellectual depth to the framers of the American constitution. 

Of the some 818 college or university educated men that came to the American colonies from Britain and Europe.   

About one third of this total (211) had been educated at three Scottish universities, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.   

And with just one tenth of the population of the British Isles in the eighteenth century. 

Scotland’s contribution to Bengal, (the richest Indian province) was to provide 50% of the workers for the civil service, and more than 50 per cent of the assistant surgeons.  

Time dictates I cannot dwell any more on statistics to make my point on the importance of Scotland’s 18th century universities.

I simply wanted to observe the importance of a group of institutions who reinvented themselves — ceasing to essentially be institutions for the education of clerics to ones that were largely geared to producing individuals with highly practical, specialised, and sought after skills.  

Furthermore those universities as the crucible of Enlightenment thought exuded an unbounded optimism that pervaded the whole Scottish, and indeed the British elite.

They changed the way the elite saw the world – to believe it could be tamed by the power of reason and in so doing transform structures of governance, not simply at home but also abroad.   

I have begun with recalling Scotland’s 18th century universities because I think it tells us something profound the heritage of the university tradition but also about the transformatory power of change. 

So whilst many of you doubtless struggle on a daily basis with the consequences of that venerability of the tradition – particularly when becomes simply a bastion of resistance to change – I hope you recall that history rather suggests that relevance resides with those who have the courage to change.   

I hope as you begin your proceedings I have shared with you a sense of the possibilities of transformation, inspired by an earlier era.   

Interestingly one of the things, that remains timeless is the essential function of the universities down through the ages. 

Firstly the transmission of knowledge, and  secondly the advancement of that knowledge. 

Put another way in the much more work-a-day language of the modern higher education sector 

The transmission of knowledge – is teaching

And the advancement of knowledge – is research. 

And those choices about the balance between research and teaching – come very close to the daily preoccupations of many of you. 

And for any of you sometimes tempted to throw all your eggs in the teaching basket – I have just one final lesson of history.  

When those 18th century Scottish universities stopped advancing knowledge, as well as transmitting it, Scotland’s educational tradition moved into a much less glorious era.   

Time for and recognition of research does matter if universities are to remain the engines of intellectual progress that they have been in the past.   

So – to move on to my main themes of the morning. 

Having contested the proposition that universities are more important today than they were in the past let me offer you a few pointers about how to enhance your collective contribution in the future. 

I stress that I am not arguing here for some crude economic reductionism to inform funding decisions – but for institutions themselves to think much more seriously and systematically about their relevance and political contribution to addressing contemporary challenges.  

I want to deal with essentially three themes.  

Let me turn to the first of these themes – how important is human capital as a basis for economic success? 

I want to begin with what have we learned about the growth process in general the last half century. 

So in economic terms where are we headed in the twenty-first century? 

None of this will come as a surprise to you, but what are the implications for economic policy making? 

Given recent successes in achieving relative macro-economic stability, micro issues are, and are likely to remain centre stage when it comes to improving productivity, with the emphasis on  

Given these long term policy drivers – universities are well placed – lifelong learning, innovation, and attracting migrant human capital – are all your business. 

And there is evidence to support a conviction that universities are becoming more important in the process. 

Last year with the help of Strathclyde University, I was involved in bringing the U.S.’s best expert on cities – Ed Glaeser, to Scotland. 

First he noted the role of cities in driving growth in the future. 

Then he turned to what drives city growth. 

His prescription for city success was “sun, skills and sprawl.”

In the US apparently, if you have sun you do not need either skills or sprawl – his shorthand for affordable housing. 

Places with good climates did not require skills to thrive.

People just came to California in the early and mid 20th century looking for the good life.

However, the places that were cold, former manufacturing towns only survived when they had skilled residents. 

So for all of us in more northern climes, skills become the critical differentiator.  

Glaeser was unambiguous – after sun – the most reliable predictor of city growth in the last 40 years is skills and the environment for learning in that city.

He brought it home to this city by explaining that if Glasgow wastes time or resources hankering after its heritage as a Detroit on the Clyde, rather than determining to become a Boston of the future it will condemn itself to the economic slow lane. 

All of which leads to an interesting paradox – governments interested in accelerating growth need you – the universities – as much as you need them.

 A comforting thought next time you are trying to help the financial director balance the universities’ books! 

So having established the increasing role of human capital in generating growth can we all sit back and relax – sure in the knowledge that universities are where it is at?  Well not exactly – which brings me to my second theme:  

What is the role of Universities in strengthening human capital?   

One of the most interesting academics we invited to Scotland last year was Economics Nobel Laureate James Heckman. 

Now for those of you who follow economics the people that win Nobel Prizes these days typically win it for econometric models of such obscurity and complexity that nobody other than their peers could possibly understand whether they had contributed to learning – useful or otherwise – and therefore it’s a rare Nobel Prize winning economist who has indeed contributed something accessible as well as useful. 

James Heckman is one such man. 

He comes from Chicago with all the baggage of being the home of Milton Friedman, but has the commitment to helping his fellow human beings understand how we all learn with the most extraordinary statistical analysis to support his arguments.  

He researches human capital and the formation of individual capabilities and skills.  

And his insights strike at the heart of contemporary education and skills policy.

He demonstrates that: 

He contends that support for tuition and student maintenance in higher education can only be justified on need, which affects only a small minority (8%) of the student age cohort.   

So whilst human capital is increasingly important to economic performance, there are profound questions about when the returns to education investment are highest. 

He demonstrates these highest returns are in the early years. 

Put simply, if you win the lottery, when your child is 6 months old you can transform their life chances – but if you win it once they are 16 – their life chances are already largely fixed.   

He is not against helping those who cannot pay – but for those who can pay – he wants them to shoulder more of the burden for the rewards they will reap individually in later life.   

Challenging stuff. 

But let me end not with his financial implications but his policy implications about the need to refocus on non-cognitive as well as cognitive skills. 

Scotland now conducts large annual employer’s surveys under the auspices of carried out on behalf of Scottish Enterprise, Scotland’s economic development agency.  

And there is another finding that should be of interest to colleagues south of the border – not least since in Scotland we have been sending almost 50% of our youngsters to university for almost a decade now.

Hence we are all too familiar with the tabloid claims that these days we are training everyone in media studies but you cannot find a good plumber.  

Self-evidently our ambition should be to do both.

But in Scotland with a decade of experience of near 50% of youngsters going onto university the sharp increase in the supply of graduates has been absorbed by increased demand. 

Relative to 10 years ago, graduates in Scotland have pretty well maintained their chances of being in work, being unemployed and being under-employed, as well as the size of their wage premium.

This is partly because the economic changes over the last decade have led to the sharpest rises in high wage/high skill jobs, of the type that many graduates seek. 

For example some of the largest % change in job numbers have come in: the health professions, Research and teaching, Science and engineering, legal and business professions, artistic, design, media, and so on. 

Let me turn very briefly to my third and final theme: Does the type of human capital universities produce matter?  

Some of you may be familiar with the literature that has emerged in recent years – around the writings of Richard Florida.

In essence his thesis is that some types of human capital are more valuable than others.  

In Florida’s recent book The Rise of the Creative Class – he argues in favour of nurturing “creativity” over more run-of-the-mill types of human capital.  

Florida argues that cities and universities that want to succeed in the future must aim to attract the creative types who are, he argues, the wave of the future.

But he then goes on to argue that there is a difference between the mainstream urban views that human capital generates growth and his “creative capital”.

And that the emerging evidence should encourage cities and universities to favour bohemian types who like funky, socially exciting areas with cool downtowns.   

The implication for a University HR Director with constrained resources is to – recruit the bohemians and success will follow.  

But in the last couple of years fellow academics such as the aforementioned Ed Glaeser have tested Florida’s “bohemians over nerds” thesis to destruction.  

And their conclusion –  

Whilst the presence of high concentrations of human capital is vital — there is no evidence to suggest that there is anything to special that Bohemianism or diversity brings.  

Given this — cities and by extension universities are better served by focusing on the basic faculties desired by those with skills? -  good schools, good transportation systems and safe streets instead opf being seduced into believing that there is a quick fix involved in creating a funky, hip, Bohemian downtown or campus.  

In short both the nerds and the Bohemians look for the same things as the rest of us! 

So on that rather reassuring note let me draw to a conclusion. 

I want to draw to an end with a warning.  

If as HR professionals you become simply,

then you will be as dispensable as the clerks of old, devalued and degraded with the passage of time and technology.   

In fairness, your profession seems acutely aware of these risks and more and more you are becoming the “invisible, yet strategic hand” guiding your institution’s discretely shaping the entire students, academic and staff experience.

If you are willing to take a view on the institution’s strategic choices you will become ever more important in shaping the character and ethos of your own institution. 

So let me end by quickly re-capping.  

My opening discussion of 18th century Scottish universities was simply to make the case that you it is possible, to be both venerable and committed to change.

Indeed there is some evidence that if you want to be venerable in the future – you have to be committed to change. 

It is unlikely that any change you make in the next 10 or 20 years will be as fundamental as that undergone in Scottish universities in the 18th century.

So when you are ensconced in one of your most intractable pay framework committee I suggest you hold on to that fact.   

The other thoughts I wish to leave with you with arise from our three themes –   

Human capital is ever more important and therein lies your continuing opportunity. 

But human capital comes in many forms and universities have to be willing to acknowledge the complimentary role of the earlier stages of skill foundation in contributing to economic success – as well as increasingly addressing their own potential contribution in deepening non cognitive skills, as well as the more directly functional cognitive ones. 

Finally, you need both the nerds and the bohos – however hard they may find it to accommodate each other on your campus. 

And finally remain inspired by both parts of your timeless vision–  

Yes, the transmission of knowledge matters – but so does its advancement. 

I know how hard that commitment to advancing knowledge can be in a world of global poaching – but I am sure this conference’s proceedings will give you a few more weapons in your armoury. 

Many thanks for the opportunity to address you this morning. Can I start by thanking you for this invitation to open your proceedings this morning.

The Scottish Parliament may be a remote and unfamiliar body to most of you but it is one that has responsibility for presiding over the nurturing of Scottish higher education and I hope you take away this week some interesting insights about how we are evolving up here.

I speak this morning very much an outsider to your profession.

Because despite having studied at a couple of British and overseas universities, been employed by another, sat on the governing body of a third and presided over the funding and policy for all Scotland’s Universities, I have rarely met a university director of HR.

Indeed my most frequent direct encounters were probably as a student campaigner against canteen price or rocketing halls of residence fees. 

But as I reflected on who, collectively, you really are — it struck me that perhaps you were the “secret cogs” who oil the wheels of our Universities.

And so despite the fact that thousands and thousands of students all over Britain who come up, or return, to college in the coming weeks are never likely to meet you  — you do have a fundamental role in shaping the educational experience that those students will enjoy. 

You are the people who increasingly shape: 

So it is with some trepidation, that I turn to my main theme Higher Education and the Economy.   

Of course all like all well trained Scottish graduates brought up in the tutorial tradition (which by the way we are proud to think we pioneered), I was always invited by my academic mentors to begin with identifying the question I am trying to answer. 

So instead of meandering through the myriad Scottish of higher education and economy linkages, I thought instead I would try and answer the question  

 “Are Universities becoming more economically important today”?

I have no doubt that most of you are thinking  — well that is a pretty obvious straw man – of course Universities are more important today than they were in the past, human capital is at the heart of future growth, and so inevitably today’s universities are more important than their predecessors.   

But allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment and talk to you briefly about the Scottish University tradition that was flourishing in this country some 250 years ago. 

Let me try and convince you that you can make a persuasive case that Scottish Universities are now less important than they were in the middle of the 18th century.   

Scotland then was home to five universities:  2 in Aberdeen and universities in Glasgow, Edinburgh and St. Andrews; a stark contrast – with only 2 in England and in Wales, but I shall not dwell on that point in the interests of harmonious relations. 

And those 5 universities were the crucible of the Scottish Enlightenment. 

And what differentiated Scotland’s universities in the 18th century was not simply their number, but their capacity to reinvent the meaning and purpose of a university.   

Firstly, it was in the 18th century that lectures in Scotland began to be in English rather than Latin.   

Secondly, for the first time, the professorial system replaced the previous regent system as the foundation of academic scholarship.

Increasingly academics specialised in subjects with students rotating between academics of increasing specialism rather than as previously students remaining throughout their university career with a single generalist teacher. 

And thirdly, of course there was the importation from continental Europe of tutorial discussions as the centrepiece of the learning experience creating that vital exchange of ideas alongside the formal lectures. 

“Very interesting” I hear you say but where is the evidence that such a fundamental change in the organisation of universities made any difference to their wider role and influence?    

Here I think you have only to look these “reformed” Scottish institutions global legacy.

The Scottish university tradition quite literally produced a generation who not only founded the United States but also for a decade or more had a leading role in the British Empire. 

Scots – trained in practical skills of medicine and engineering in particular were invaluable in the growing Empire. 

Scholars in the Scottish philosophical tradition of Hutchison and Hume gave intellectual depth to the framers of the American constitution. 

Of the some 818 college or university educated men that came to the American colonies from Britain and Europe.   

About one third of this total (211) had been educated at three Scottish universities, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.   

And with just one tenth of the population of the British Isles in the eighteenth century. 

Scotland’s contribution to Bengal, (the richest Indian province) was to provide 50% of the workers for the civil service, and more than 50 per cent of the assistant surgeons.  

Time dictates I cannot dwell any more on statistics to make my point on the importance of Scotland’s 18th century universities.

I simply wanted to observe the importance of a group of institutions who reinvented themselves — ceasing to essentially be institutions for the education of clerics to ones that were largely geared to producing individuals with highly practical, specialised, and sought after skills.  

Furthermore those universities as the crucible of Enlightenment thought exuded an unbounded optimism that pervaded the whole Scottish, and indeed the British elite.

They changed the way the elite saw the world – to believe it could be tamed by the power of reason and in so doing transform structures of governance, not simply at home but also abroad.   

I have begun with recalling Scotland’s 18th century universities because I think it tells us something profound the heritage of the university tradition but also about the transformatory power of change. 

So whilst many of you doubtless struggle on a daily basis with the consequences of that venerability of the tradition – particularly when becomes simply a bastion of resistance to change – I hope you recall that history rather suggests that relevance resides with those who have the courage to change.   

I hope as you begin your proceedings I have shared with you a sense of the possibilities of transformation, inspired by an earlier era.   

Interestingly one of the things, that remains timeless is the essential function of the universities down through the ages. 

Firstly the transmission of knowledge, and  secondly the advancement of that knowledge. 

Put another way in the much more work-a-day language of the modern higher education sector 

The transmission of knowledge – is teaching

And the advancement of knowledge – is research. 

And those choices about the balance between research and teaching – come very close to the daily preoccupations of many of you. 

And for any of you sometimes tempted to throw all your eggs in the teaching basket – I have just one final lesson of history.  

When those 18th century Scottish universities stopped advancing knowledge, as well as transmitting it, Scotland’s educational tradition moved into a much less glorious era.   

Time for and recognition of research does matter if universities are to remain the engines of intellectual progress that they have been in the past.   

So – to move on to my main themes of the morning. 

Having contested the proposition that universities are more important today than they were in the past let me offer you a few pointers about how to enhance your collective contribution in the future. 

I stress that I am not arguing here for some crude economic reductionism to inform funding decisions – but for institutions themselves to think much more seriously and systematically about their relevance and political contribution to addressing contemporary challenges.  

I want to deal with essentially three themes.  

Let me turn to the first of these themes – how important is human capital as a basis for economic success? 

I want to begin with what have we learned about the growth process in general the last half century. 

So in economic terms where are we headed in the twenty-first century? 

None of this will come as a surprise to you, but what are the implications for economic policy making? 

Given recent successes in achieving relative macro-economic stability, micro issues are, and are likely to remain centre stage when it comes to improving productivity, with the emphasis on  

Given these long term policy drivers – universities are well placed – lifelong learning, innovation, and attracting migrant human capital – are all your business. 

And there is evidence to support a conviction that universities are becoming more important in the process. 

Last year with the help of Strathclyde University, I was involved in bringing the U.S.’s best expert on cities – Ed Glaeser, to Scotland. 

First he noted the role of cities in driving growth in the future. 

Then he turned to what drives city growth. 

His prescription for city success was “sun, skills and sprawl.”

In the US apparently, if you have sun you do not need either skills or sprawl – his shorthand for affordable housing. 

Places with good climates did not require skills to thrive.

People just came to California in the early and mid 20th century looking for the good life.

However, the places that were cold, former manufacturing towns only survived when they had skilled residents. 

So for all of us in more northern climes, skills become the critical differentiator.  

Glaeser was unambiguous – after sun – the most reliable predictor of city growth in the last 40 years is skills and the environment for learning in that city.

He brought it home to this city by explaining that if Glasgow wastes time or resources hankering after its heritage as a Detroit on the Clyde, rather than determining to become a Boston of the future it will condemn itself to the economic slow lane. 

All of which leads to an interesting paradox – governments interested in accelerating growth need you – the universities – as much as you need them.

 A comforting thought next time you are trying to help the financial director balance the universities’ books! 

So having established the increasing role of human capital in generating growth can we all sit back and relax – sure in the knowledge that universities are where it is at?  Well not exactly – which brings me to my second theme:  

What is the role of Universities in strengthening human capital?   

One of the most interesting academics we invited to Scotland last year was Economics Nobel Laureate James Heckman. 

Now for those of you who follow economics the people that win Nobel Prizes these days typically win it for econometric models of such obscurity and complexity that nobody other than their peers could possibly understand whether they had contributed to learning – useful or otherwise – and therefore it’s a rare Nobel Prize winning economist who has indeed contributed something accessible as well as useful. 

James Heckman is one such man. 

He comes from Chicago with all the baggage of being the home of Milton Friedman, but has the commitment to helping his fellow human beings understand how we all learn with the most extraordinary statistical analysis to support his arguments.  

He researches human capital and the formation of individual capabilities and skills.  

And his insights strike at the heart of contemporary education and skills policy.

He demonstrates that: 

He contends that support for tuition and student maintenance in higher education can only be justified on need, which affects only a small minority (8%) of the student age cohort.   

So whilst human capital is increasingly important to economic performance, there are profound questions about when the returns to education investment are highest. 

He demonstrates these highest returns are in the early years. 

Put simply, if you win the lottery, when your child is 6 months old you can transform their life chances – but if you win it once they are 16 – their life chances are already largely fixed.   

He is not against helping those who cannot pay – but for those who can pay – he wants them to shoulder more of the burden for the rewards they will reap individually in later life.   

Challenging stuff. 

But let me end not with his financial implications but his policy implications about the need to refocus on non-cognitive as well as cognitive skills. 

Scotland now conducts large annual employer’s surveys under the auspices of carried out on behalf of Scottish Enterprise, Scotland’s economic development agency.  

And there is another finding that should be of interest to colleagues south of the border – not least since in Scotland we have been sending almost 50% of our youngsters to university for almost a decade now.

Hence we are all too familiar with the tabloid claims that these days we are training everyone in media studies but you cannot find a good plumber.  

Self-evidently our ambition should be to do both.

But in Scotland with a decade of experience of near 50% of youngsters going onto university the sharp increase in the supply of graduates has been absorbed by increased demand. 

Relative to 10 years ago, graduates in Scotland have pretty well maintained their chances of being in work, being unemployed and being under-employed, as well as the size of their wage premium.

This is partly because the economic changes over the last decade have led to the sharpest rises in high wage/high skill jobs, of the type that many graduates seek. 

For example some of the largest % change in job numbers have come in: the health professions, Research and teaching, Science and engineering, legal and business professions, artistic, design, media, and so on. 

Let me turn very briefly to my third and final theme: Does the type of human capital universities produce matter?  

Some of you may be familiar with the literature that has emerged in recent years – around the writings of Richard Florida.

In essence his thesis is that some types of human capital are more valuable than others.  

In Florida’s recent book The Rise of the Creative Class – he argues in favour of nurturing “creativity” over more run-of-the-mill types of human capital.  

Florida argues that cities and universities that want to succeed in the future must aim to attract the creative types who are, he argues, the wave of the future.

But he then goes on to argue that there is a difference between the mainstream urban views that human capital generates growth and his “creative capital”.

And that the emerging evidence should encourage cities and universities to favour bohemian types who like funky, socially exciting areas with cool downtowns.   

The implication for a University HR Director with constrained resources is to – recruit the bohemians and success will follow.  

But in the last couple of years fellow academics such as the aforementioned Ed Glaeser have tested Florida’s “bohemians over nerds” thesis to destruction.  

And their conclusion –  

Whilst the presence of high concentrations of human capital is vital — there is no evidence to suggest that there is anything to special that Bohemianism or diversity brings.  

Given this — cities and by extension universities are better served by focusing on the basic faculties desired by those with skills? -  good schools, good transportation systems and safe streets instead opf being seduced into believing that there is a quick fix involved in creating a funky, hip, Bohemian downtown or campus.  

In short both the nerds and the Bohemians look for the same things as the rest of us! 

So on that rather reassuring note let me draw to a conclusion. 

I want to draw to an end with a warning.  

If as HR professionals you become simply,

then you will be as dispensable as the clerks of old, devalued and degraded with the passage of time and technology.   

In fairness, your profession seems acutely aware of these risks and more and more you are becoming the “invisible, yet strategic hand” guiding your institution’s discretely shaping the entire students, academic and staff experience.

If you are willing to take a view on the institution’s strategic choices you will become ever more important in shaping the character and ethos of your own institution. 

So let me end by quickly re-capping.  

My opening discussion of 18th century Scottish universities was simply to make the case that you it is possible, to be both venerable and committed to change.

Indeed there is some evidence that if you want to be venerable in the future – you have to be committed to change. 

It is unlikely that any change you make in the next 10 or 20 years will be as fundamental as that undergone in Scottish universities in the 18th century.

So when you are ensconced in one of your most intractable pay framework committee I suggest you hold on to that fact.   

The other thoughts I wish to leave with you with arise from our three themes –   

Human capital is ever more important and therein lies your continuing opportunity. 

But human capital comes in many forms and universities have to be willing to acknowledge the complimentary role of the earlier stages of skill foundation in contributing to economic success – as well as increasingly addressing their own potential contribution in deepening non cognitive skills, as well as the more directly functional cognitive ones. 

Finally, you need both the nerds and the bohos – however hard they may find it to accommodate each other on your campus. 

And finally remain inspired by both parts of your timeless vision-  

Yes, the transmission of knowledge matters – but so does its advancement. 

I know how hard that commitment to advancing knowledge can be in a world of global poaching – but I am sure this conference’s proceedings will give you a few more weapons in your armoury. 

Many thanks for the opportunity to address you this morning.