A desire to slip gently into retirement would have been an understandable attitude for Anton Muscatelli to adopt, having served the University of Glasgow with distinction for nearly 40 years as a lecturer, professor, dean and, since 2009, principal and vice-chancellor. But the recent announcement of changes to the Research Excellence Framework serves as one of the most potent examples in his career of what an adept political operator he is, admirers suggest.

Weeks before the end of Muscatelli¡¯s 17-month notice period on 30 September, science minister Patrick Vallance paused the REF for three months in order to conduct what promises to be a radical overhaul ¨C or even scrapping ¨C of the new people, culture and environment (PCE) section.

In public, Muscatelli has been customarily wry about PCE ¨C which was slated to replace the environment section of the 2021 REF and increase its weighting from 15 to 25 per cent of total scores. In August 2023, for instance ¨C the summer of the ¡°Barbenheimer¡± phenomenon, when both the Oppenheimer and Barbie films were enjoying massive box-office success ¨C he a still from Oppenheimer featuring Einstein and Oppenheimer, with Ryan Gosling¡¯s fluorescent-pink Ken photoshopped between them. ¡°REF Outputs, Culture/Environment, and Impact¡± was Muscatelli¡¯s comment.

But behind the humour there was little doubt that Muscatelli and his Russell Group allies were serious about halting the PCE plans ¨C and it appears they have got their way.

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Not that Muscatelli is against the push to improve research culture in UK universities. ¡°I believe strongly in improving research culture and environment, and [at Glasgow] we¡¯ve done more on this than many other universities. This includes developing mechanisms?[for]?promotions and hiring that seek to reward collegiality,¡± he reflected, in an interview with 51³Ô¹Ï conducted before Vallance¡¯s announcement.

One bold move, introduced in 2019, was to rate internal professorship candidates on their ¡°collegiality¡± ¨C a move designed to reward those who make efforts to help others climb the academic ladder: ¡°Thinking about research culture as an idea is part of what Glasgow does.¡±

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However, Muscatelli is far from convinced that such factors could be robustly assessed in the REF. ¡°I don¡¯t believe you can score a set of metrics on research culture. What does it mean if an institution gets a 3.2 grade point average (GPA) in the REF on research culture and another one gets a 3.5 GPA? Can we really score research culture and environment in this way and award funding on this basis?¡± asked the former Russell Group chair.

The attempted development of PCE metrics in a Research England pilot are believed to have proved disappointing, although the results have not been published. Muscatelli would ¡°love to see¡± their publication ¡°for transparency reasons¡± as it is ¡°difficult for anyone to comment before they¡¯ve been put out¡±. But he admits to ¡°concerns that we are drifting down a non-excellence basis for awarding funding¡±.

Indeed, some even question the wisdom of any assessment of research environment in the REF, which has previously been assessed on the basis of a word-limited narrative statement addressing factors such as research strategy, staff development, research income, research students and collaboration. One vice-chancellor of a research-intensive university told THE at the Universities UK annual conference at the University of Exeter, where Vallance¡¯s shock announcement was made on 4 September, that ¡°scoring research culture in the REF has always been tricky ¨C you¡¯re essentially extracting a numerical score from a narrative submission¡±.

And, for his part, Muscatelli believes that research culture should be treated as an input of research and, as such, should not be assessed in an output-focused exercise such as the REF ¨C on the basis of which of quality-related research funding is distributed each year in England alone.

¡°If we are worried about research culture, having a good research environment should be [treated as] a condition of funding,¡± he said. ¡°It should become a regulatory issue: does research funding go to those institutions that do not reach certain standards related to research culture¡± because they don¡¯t follow policies on research integrity ¡°in a way that supports the health of research culture?¡­[Assessing this] could be part of the REF but not a part of the GPA; it should not inform funding.¡±

That view seems to have landed in Whitehall, with Research England stating, in the wake of Vallance¡¯s announcement, that it is exploring the option of removing research funding?from universities?that fail to meet ¡°baseline performance¡± measures in research culture.

But Muscatelli still has serious concerns about other aspects of UK research policy ¨C to which, perhaps, he will turn his lobbying focus as he concentrates on the presidency of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which he took up in April.

¡°We need to think about research training ¨C in particular, PhD training and training down to master¡¯s level. If we look back 10 to 15 years, to the time when the [UK] business department¡¯s budgets were a bit more flush, we saw a lot of investment in doctoral training programmes,¡± he explained. ¡°If we are serious about industrial strategy then a fundamental part will be the high-level skills going into industry. We need to be sure that we still have the skills and talent we need and, even when money becomes tight, investment in higher-level skills should not begin to wane.¡±

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This is even more important, he added, given the recent decline in international master¡¯s students coming to the UK, following the ban on their bringing dependants.

So should the research councils offer master¡¯s scholarships? ¡°UKRI will need to focus on PhD-level training, I suspect,¡± Muscatelli answers. ¡°But we cannot just say [master¡¯s-level training] is non-publicly funded and industry needs to step up to the plate if there is a market failure ¨C clearly it¡¯s something we need to think about.¡±

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The decline in international master¡¯s students could not have come at a worse time for universities themselves either. The financial crisis into which UK higher education has been plunged is particularly acute north of the border, where biomedical powerhouse the University of Dundee was recently pushed to brink of collapse (in June it announced plans to cut 632 full-time equivalent jobs as it looked to plug a ?35 million deficit for 2024-25).

Given the depth of the crisis, along with for the Scottish National Party, which has governed Scotland since 2007, some university leaders have suggested that this is the moment to reconsider whether Scotland should introduce tuition fees ¨C a move the SNP has always adamantly opposed. Indeed, Scottish politicians have recently begun such a discussion, facilitated by Universities Scotland.

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So is it inevitable that some level of undergraduate tuition fee will ultimately be introduced to shore up sector finances? Muscatelli acknowledges the Scottish sector¡¯s financial precarity, noting that only Glasgow and Edinburgh universities had surpluses in 2024-25 and pointing to analyses from London Economics and the Institute for Fiscal Studies showing that student funding has been ¡°systematically lower¡± in Scotland than in England since the tripling of English tuition fees in 2012. ¡°Not having fees is core to this,¡± he said.

Muscatelli¡¯s influence at Holyrood is arguably even greater than his influence in Whitehall. ¡°His ability to work effectively across all the political parties ¨C particularly with the Scottish National Party ¨C has been incredible,¡± said another vice-chancellor at the UUK conference, noting that for Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on economic development, ahead of next year¡¯s Holyrood elections. ¡°He is so good at this stuff you can¡¯t afford not to have him involved ¨C the SNP knew they had to have him in the tent,¡± he added.

So will Muscatelli throw his weight behind the introduction of tuition fees?

Impartial to the end, he wouldn¡¯t be drawn on that question. ¡°I have always taken the view that it is up to those in elected positions to decide the right maximum fee levels,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s a matter for politicians about what proportion of higher education is publicly funded.¡±

Moreover, he sees the question of ¡°who pays in the university funding domain¡± as ¡°really the last piece of the puzzle. If you are going to review higher education in the future, you should begin by asking, ¡®What is the right size of the sector?¡¯ Only then should politicians decide [on fee levels].¡± However, ¡°if you have only so much funding¡± the question of sector size needs to be addressed first ¨C or at least the number of different missions that universities are expected to pursue.

Apart from a two-year stint as Heriot-Watt University¡¯s vice-chancellor from 2007 to 2009, Muscatelli has been at Glasgow since he enrolled as an undergraduate in 1980. Over that time, he has seen ¡°an incredible increase in participation¡± ¨C but, with it, an increasing need for universities to ¡°find more resources to develop things themselves¡±, rather than relying on public funding to maintain the unit of resource.

Muscatelli counted as a domestic student, having been to secondary school in Glasgow after his family relocated to Scotland in his early years. But as part of its search for new sources of income, Glasgow has ¡°changed its ethos¡± during his time and embraced internationalisation.

¡°Much of our focus was on being a local Scottish university; we are now a very international university, with 35 per cent of our students international,¡± he said. ¡°We¡¯re a global university, which has tremendous impact for Glasgow and Scotland in many ways.¡±

International student revenue is made easier to tap by the fact that Glasgow has also grown its research income, such that ¡°we are now in the top 10 of the Russell Group in terms of research profile, with ?200 million in research income¡± ¨C underwriting the institution¡¯s status as ¡°a top 100 university in the world¡±.

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Muscatelli¡¯s longevity contrasts with some of the shorter tenures of vice-chancellors appointed at the same time as him around 2010, particularly those from outside higher education or outside the UK. ¡°He¡¯s a brilliant example of appointing an insider who knows how an institution works ¨C and how Scottish politics works ¨C so gets stuff done,¡± one senior professor who has worked in Scotland for decades told THE.

¡°Too often you have someone arriving from outside the sector and it takes them two or three years to get to grips with things; by that time, they¡¯re in their early sixties and they¡¯re looking forward to retirement,¡± he added.

But Muscatelli does not necessarily agree that the sector should return to more traditional vice-chancellor appointments: ¡°I don¡¯t think you can generalise, and I¡¯ve seen very successful people in my own senior management group come from academic careers and professional backgrounds ¨C there¡¯s certainly a strength in having a diversity of views.¡± That said, ¡°if you come from outside the sector then you do have a pretty steep learning curve ahead of you.¡±

He insists that his own rapid ascent through academia ¨C appointed professor five years after gaining his PhD, head of department three years later and then dean within another five years ¨C was not the enactment of some grand plan to lead Glasgow hatched at the beginning of his career.

¡°My career started as a teaching assistant,¡± he pointed out. ¡°I¡¯d been accepted on to a graduate trainee scheme for a high-street bank but was persuaded to stay on for another year. Most of my academic management experience was also very accidental ¨C I was a very young head of department, about 34 or 35, but only because the previous head retired unexpectedly and I was asked to do the job. It wasn¡¯t until I became vice-principal in 2004 and became interested in strategy did I think this was becoming a one-way street ¨C I was quite happy being an academic.¡±

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Many of his fellow academics, at Glasgow and beyond, will be glad that he went down that street ¨C and kept walking for so long. It is clear that his successor, former Lancaster University vice-chancellor Andy Schofield, has very big and well-worn boots to fill.