Status anxiety ‘harms university cooperation’

Times Higher Education 09 April 2016

Snobbish attitudes among some universities towards their less prestigious peers are stopping cooperation that could save institutions millions of pounds in efficiency savings, a Leadership Foundation study says, writes Jack Grove for Times Higher Education .

Negative views of universities based on their perceived “lower prestige” might also be harming efforts to bring together universities, business and government to boost local economic growth, according to the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education report, titled The Role of Prestige in UK Universities: Vice-chancellors’ perspectives which draws on candid interviews with 20 unnamed university leaders from across the sector.

Several vice-chancellors explained how they had struggled to forge relationships with nearby higher education institutions given the vexed issue of working with more prestigious universities, said the report’s author Paul Blackmore, professor of higher education at King’s College London.
Full report on the Times Higher Education site

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