Universities are ancient institutions that were fundamentally reorganised in the nineteenth century, and the model established then dominates globally.
The earlier institution
Universities existed for centuries teaching a defined curriculum, with research conducted elsewhere or not at all.
Which meant scholarship and teaching were largely separate activities.
Learned societies and academies were the venues for research.
The research university
A model combining research and teaching, with academic freedom and with graduate training in research methods.
Which developed in nineteenth-century Germany and was adopted widely, particularly in the United States.
The doctorate as a research training qualification originates here, and it spread with the model.
Expansion
Participation rose enormously across the twentieth century, from a small elite to a substantial proportion of each cohort in many countries.
Which changed the institution's function, from training a small professional class to mass education.
Funding models struggled to keep pace, which is the source of much subsequent difficulty.
Funding models
Public funding, tuition fees, research grants, philanthropy and commercial activity in varying combinations.
Which differ enormously between countries and determine institutional behaviour substantially.
Shifts from public funding toward fees have occurred in several countries, transferring cost to students and changing the relationship.
The research funding system
Competitive grants awarded through peer review.
Which allocates by assessed quality and produces substantial time spent on applications that are largely unsuccessful.
Success rates in several systems are low enough that the aggregate time cost of applications is comparable to the research funded.
Publication and assessment
Academic careers depend substantially on publication in journals ranked by influence measures.
Which produces incentives toward quantity, toward positive results and toward fashionable topics.
Replication studies and negative results are systematically undervalued, which contributed to the replication problems identified in several fields.
Open access
Publicly funded research published behind subscription paywalls prompted sustained argument.
Which produced funder mandates requiring open publication and various models for paying for it.
Article processing charges shift cost from readers to authors, which raises its own equity questions for researchers without funding.
International students
Fee income from international students cross-subsidises other activity substantially in several countries.
Which makes institutions dependent on immigration policy and on international relations.
Policy changes have produced rapid shifts in application volumes, with substantial financial consequences.
Academic freedom
Protection for academics to research and teach without institutional or political interference.
Which is legislated or constitutionally protected in some jurisdictions and conventional in others.
Its scope and limits are contested, particularly regarding speech outside a person's expertise.
Tenure and casualisation
Permanent positions with security were the traditional model.
Which has declined substantially, with growing proportions of teaching delivered on fixed-term and hourly contracts.
Casualisation affects career development, research capacity and, arguably, academic freedom itself.
Rankings
League tables ranking institutions have become influential in student choice and in policy.
Which use methodologies that weight research output, reputation surveys and various proxies heavily.
Their effect on institutional behaviour has been documented, including decisions taken to improve rankings rather than outcomes.
The value question
Returns to higher education vary enormously by subject, institution and individual.
Which means average figures conceal wide distributions, and published data on graduate outcomes by course has improved in several countries.
Research integrity
Fabrication, falsification and plagiarism are the defined categories of misconduct.
Which are addressed through institutional procedures, journal retraction and, in serious cases, funder sanctions.
Retraction rates have risen, which reflects better detection as much as more misconduct.
Peer review
Assessment by other researchers before publication.
Which is the quality mechanism and has documented limitations including inconsistency between reviewers and failure to detect fabrication.
Alternatives including open review and post-publication review have been trialled.
Student experience
Mental health difficulties among students have been documented at substantial rates, with services generally under-resourced.
Which reflects the age of onset for many conditions coinciding with the student years, alongside financial and academic pressure.
What universities also do
Regional economic contribution, cultural provision and public engagement alongside teaching and research.
Which is frequently substantial in the towns and cities hosting them.
Widening participation
Programmes aimed at increasing entry from underrepresented groups.
Which have produced measurable increases in participation and smaller changes in the distribution across institutions.
Contextual admissions, adjusting entry requirements for applicant circumstances, have been adopted in several systems.
Technology and teaching
Online delivery expanded substantially and has been evaluated with findings that outcomes depend heavily on design rather than on the medium.
Which means well-designed online teaching performs comparably and poorly designed online teaching performs badly.
Blended approaches combining both have generally performed best in the comparisons.
Vocational and technical routes
Parallel systems providing technical education exist in several countries with different status.
Which affects who goes where and what outcomes follow, and countries with strong technical routes show different patterns of participation and earnings.
Parity of esteem between academic and technical routes is a stated policy objective in many countries and is rarely achieved.