Higher education¡¯s need to adapt?because of widespread ¡°disruption¡± caused by funding challenges and government attacks will leave universities looking very different by the end of the decade, a summit has heard.

Stuart Coles, professor and associate dean (research) at the University of Warwick, said that this and other emerging challenges, including AI, climate change and health inequality, should underpin the need for greater interdisciplinary work both within and across providers.

¡°From a UK perspective, innovation [and] the way in which universities act in 2030 will be a lot different to how they act now in 2025,¡± Coles told delegates at 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s Europe Universities Summit.

This included key elements such as the structure of courses, topics taught and whether research will be ¡°fundamental¡± or more applied across sectors and disciplines.

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¡°The way in which universities operate with councils, combined authorities and governments, particularly from the UK¡¯s perspective, is really having a level of disruption,¡± Coles told the event held across the Semmelweis and Obuda universities in Budapest.

¡°So what we do and how we behave as academics is going to be a lot different in five years¡¯ time.¡±

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Nola Hewitt-Dundas, pro vice-chancellor for the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen¡¯s University Belfast, added that the UK¡¯s well-documented funding challenges meant that it was seeing ¡°disruptive innovation¡±.

¡°Fundamentally, certainly in the UK, we¡¯re very aware that the higher education sector in the UK is under considerable stress at present,¡± she said.

¡°And I think there¡¯s a point in time where we¡¯re actually stepping back and going, ¡®hold on, there¡¯s something fundamental changing here¡¯.

¡°There is disruptive innovation that is now happening in our sector, and we need to think about what we deliver, how we deliver it, who we are delivering it to, what is the access that people will have to education, and how is it valued.¡±

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The panel agreed that greater collaboration was needed between universities and there was an increased need to form ¡°alliances¡± to counteract global attacks to education.

Michalina Mr¨®z, the director of the centre for technology transfer and entrepreneurship at the University of Information Technology and Management, said: ¡°The geopolitical changes have taught us that we cannot be separate.¡±

She continued: ¡°The most important part for our universities, especially in European universities, is to create those alliances in order to actually work together. Not to just create one, but to work together towards those challenges because there is no priority. Everything is important.¡±

¡°Universities are forces for civilisation, and we are seeing that precise thing under attack right now,¡± said Paulo Nussenzveig, professor of physics at the University of S?o Paulo. He added that universities need to collaborate more greatly to protect diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), which is under particular threat, especially in the US where DEI funding is being cut.

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He said that ¡°the West is not responding to that threat as strongly as needed¡±, and DEI was important for universities to continue to be able to innovate.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com