‘Whole operating model’ of universities needs to change, says v-c

The way universities operate needs a complete rethink because most can no longer afford to teach using a “scaled-up Oxbridge model”, according to a vice-chancellor.

Wendy Larner, who has led Cardiff University since 2023, said the British sector still “hadn’t really grappled with” the fact that not every provider needs to follow the example of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

“For me, this is the nub of the issue,” she told Times Higher Education’s Student Success UK&IE event, hosted by the University of Bath. “We’re still trying to deliver, in this country, a scaled-up Oxbridge model, and we can’t afford it any more. We cannot do it any more.”

Larner continued: “This is about the entire operating model needing a rethink, not just our funding mechanisms needing a rethink.”

The leader, who joined Cardiff in 2023 from New Zealand, said this was behind much of the restructuring taking place at her university, which has transformed its professional services operation and reorganised its academic departments over the past year.

“It’s partly why we’ve been doing the controversial work we’ve been doing at Cardiff because I think the challenge is really profound,” said Larner, who added that she had a team of university college leaders “run their fingers down the list of every programme [and] every single module” this week to assess where streamlining could be possible.

“I fully expect us to be doing some house cleaning,” she added.

Larner said she felt lucky to be based in Wales, criticising the “compliance obsession” of the English regulator, the Office for Students.

Proposed revisions to the Teaching Excellence Framework announced by the regulator last month include potential sanctions such as student number reductions for those performing particularly badly.

Phil Taylor, vice-chancellor at Bath, said the “assessment needs to be proportionate” and “sensitive”.

“You can’t really argue with the aspirations,” he said, acknowledging the need to emphasise good student outcomes and excellent teaching.

But he added that the new TEF risks rounds of university closures. “You can assess an institution, decide they’re not doing particularly well, put punitive measures in place; what that does is mean the institution is hamstrung and therefore can’t perform as well and performs even worse the next year…you essentially end up running an institution into the ground.”

He called instead for assessments like the TEF to consider how to “support” institutions towards improving.

Shân Wareing, vice-chancellor of Middlesex University, said institutions should “engage with the reality” that income from international students “has changed and it’s not going to return to how it was”

Those from overseas, paying higher fees, had previously helped top up university budgets, but a combination of visa policy and growing educational opportunities in source countries are restricting demand.

Wareing said she had expected international recruitment to decline but that Middlesex was “still surprised” by the changes that have happened in the past few months – which have caused visa refusal rates for certain countries to rise.

Bath had never been “heavily dependent” on international students, Taylor said, with overseas attendees making up about 25 per cent of its population.

He suggested that although transnational education (TNE) cannot replace lost income for the sector, it was potentially more environmentally friendly than flying students over, and that “those kind of partnerships can be more equitable, less extractive of [source] countries, which is a good thing”.

“We need to look at that and try and be positive about it, embrace it,” he said of TNE activity outpacing international students relocating to the UK. “It’s different, but that’s the way the world is,” he added.

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com