Principal's column

There were signs at the turn of the year that the Scottish Executive and the Parliament were losing momentum on higher education. With the focus on health, education in schools and transport, the future of our universities appeared to be moving down the list of political imperatives.

The tide seems to have turned in the past couple of weeks. The Parliament's enterprise and lifelong learning committee are following up their report on teaching and research funding with a more fundamental inquiry into lifelong learning, the role and operation of SHEFC is being scrutinised and details of Wendy Alexander's higher education review are beginning to emerge. The review panel includes the director general of the research councils, two vice-chancellors from England, the new chief executive of SHEFC and representatives of the business and enterprise community. Scottish principals are to have their say through individual meetings with civil servants, group meetings with the Minister and discussions between Universities Scotland and the Minister's review panel.

I have concerns that this process will be hidebound by the financial constraints facing the sector and that too much time will be spent on sterile discussions about governance, management and the fine detail of planning and resource allocation methodologies. This is a game of diminishing returns - with the predicted fall in the number of 18 year olds and tight resources likely over the next five years as other parts of the public service are made good, the opportunity for a more fundamental review needs to be grasped.

If the review process is to serve us well it must:

• restate the purpose of higher education and the values that underpin it. The current focus on defining our universities as an economic good is understandable but the social and cultural dimensions of our work must not be lost.
• face the funding realities. Universities starved of capital investment or asked to meet the costs of a new national pay and grading system from their own internal resources will stumble rather than forge ahead. If growth in public funding for higher education is going to dry up even further, we need an honest debate about alternative means of funding our future development.
• avoid a dirigiste approach. It would be very easy to erode the autonomy of our universities by allowing SHEFC to introduce the trappings of central management control - stricter planning guidelines, performance targets and reporting systems - all in the name of public accountability. But this would drain energy and purpose from the sector and stifle initiative and enterprise - the very qualities that Ministers are trying to promote in other parts of the economy.
• enable our universities to compete successfully with their counterparts in the rest of the UK and overseas. The higher education sector is one of Scotland's greatest assets; it must maintain and improve its comparative advantage.

The University of Dundee has improved in leaps and bounds in recent years. We are developing our own future strategy with the intention of achieving excellence in learning and teaching and continuing to support world class research and enterprise. And we are making difficult short-term decisions about staffing to support new academic initiatives and capital investment. It is important that national policy in higher education provides a positive environment for change, that staff are rewarded fairly, that staff and students have good facilities to work in and that the incentive structure supports excellence.

My intention is to do all that I can to influence the current debate in this direction.

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