Mission groups disempower universities

Membership of university mission groups encourages fragmentation and promotes the idea that universities are ‘brands’, while reproducing the English class system, says Peter Scott, a professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education.

“All this disempowers universities at a key moment of struggle,” Scott writes in a comment article published on 4 March. “Politicians love to divide and rule; the media loves to stereotype. The respective ‘lines’ of the Russell Group and Million+ are entirely predictable; I could write their press releases for them. More seriously, their furious lobbying is in vain because they cancel each other out.”