New Crewe member for Hefce?

At the Higher Education Policy Institute's seminar at the House of Commons last week, Ivor Crewe, past president of Universities UK and vice-chancellor of Essex University, gave a robust answer to the question:

"What are universities for?". In fact, Professor Crewe, tipped as a possible successor to Sir Howard Newby, who stands down as Higher Education Funding Council for England chief next year, gave such a robust answer that one audience member observed it was "just the sort of answer the next head of Hefce might give". We'll soon know - the job is advertised on page 32, with the surprisingly tight deadline of December5