Civic Universities
This folder includes the text, PowerPoints and recordings of public lectures that I have given over the years on the Civic role of the universities. The introductions and conclusions of each lecture are different according to the audience I was addressing the core material is similar across all of the lectures.
​Brian Robson memorial lecture Manchester University 2025
National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education 1997
For me the civic university movement can be traced back to a 1994 report commissioned from the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) at Newcastle by the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principles (CVCP) the predecessor to the current association Universities UK on Universities and Communities as part of its evidence to the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, chaired by Lord Dearing and published in 1997. The report was commissioned by the UK government and was the largest review of higher education in the UK since the Robbins Committee in the early 1960s. Whilst he was chair of the Government Office for the North East, Dearing sought advice from CURDS and asked CVCP to commission this review.
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National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education 1997
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