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In the two years she has been at the helm of Universities UK (UUK), Sally Mapstone has had to twice lead the resistance against successive governments¡¯ attempts to axe the graduate route, a visa that allows international students to stay and work in the UK.?

The?second time around, it was, she said, ¡°slightly groundhog day¡±.

¡°We thought that we had preserved it a year ago under the Tories and then we had to fight very similar battles this year,¡± she told?51³Ô¹Ï?as her term as UUK president comes to an end.?

While most in the higher education sector had hoped Labour¡¯s ascent to power last year would mark a new era for relations between universities and the government, many of the concerns that caused tensions with the Conservatives remain.?

Education minister Bridget Phillipson started her term with a video welcoming international students to the UK ¨C a clear departure from the negative rhetoric of the previous government, and what Mapstone described as ¡°a very positive and welcome approach¡±.?

But, one year on, it has become clear that Labour cannot escape the challenges faced by the previous government ¨C perhaps most strikingly, the swift rise of Reform.

¡°When you¡¯re constantly constructing your policies in opposition to a party that appears to have come out of nowhere and is alarming you, it makes it harder to take the sort of decent longer-term view,¡± Mapstone said.?

¡°Nobody could deny that they find themselves, a year on, mired in the challenges of short-termism in policy terms, and that¡¯s not good for higher education.¡±

While Mapstone, who is also principal of the University of St Andrews, had positive things to say about the Labour ministers currently responsible for education, skills and science, their outlook on the future of higher education ¨C and solving the funding crisis gripping the university sector ¨C?remains unclear, she said.?

¡°There¡¯s much more of a sense of vision in relation to other parts of the education landscape than there is in relation to higher education,¡± she said. ¡°Frankly, I think there¡¯s clearly a greater emphasis on skills, and skills being very much tied into the premises of the industrial strategy.

¡°We¡¯re waiting for this kind of sophisticated articulation of vision¡­but at the moment we¡¯re only seeing bits and pieces of it in policy statements from ministers.¡±

Asked whether the sector is going to get any answers in?the form of a long-term funding settlement, Mapstone said it might be a case of managing expectations.

¡°To my mind, a kind of ambitious, enlightened government would see the advantage of supporting a sector that does so much for the economy but do I think we¡¯re going to see a mature exposition of that??I¡¯d like to think so, but realistically, I don¡¯t see that many really strong indications of it.¡±

In September 2024, under Mapstone¡¯s presidency, UUK?released a blueprint?for the future of the sector, calling on the government to raise fees with inflation, increase teaching grants and support university-led transformation.?

Mapstone believed that blueprint ¡°filled a kind of vacuum in terms of policy argumentation in the sector¡±, most notably influencing the government to uplift fees for one year.?

The other side of the blueprint was, she said, showing that the sector ¡°has to have some agency¡± in dealing with the problems in the current system. A key part of that has been the?creation of a transformation task force, which now has?begun work on driving efficiency?in the sector, including looking at federations, partnerships and mergers.?

¡°I think we¡¯ll see more of that,¡± Mapstone said, but added that the government also needs to provide ¡°real assistance¡± to enable that change.?

As she prepares to hand the reins over to Malcolm Press, vice-chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University, Mapstone is optimistic about the sector¡¯s ability to survive, despite the challenges ahead.?

¡°I don¡¯t think the sector ever should just change because government says it needs to do better,¡± she said. ¡°It should change because great institutions do change with the times.¡±

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com