Portsmouth Vice-Chancellor Graham Galbraith says universities in danger

British vice-chancellor Graham Galbraith says it’s important universities understand their role in engagement with the public.

Portsmouth University Vice-Chancellor Professor Graham Galbraith is scheduled to give the annual oration at Edith Cowan University on Friday.

A British university leader has warned that universities everywhere are in danger of gradually losing their greatest asset: public trust.

Professor Graham Galbraith, vice-chancellor of Portsmouth University, said universities had for a long time been seen as trusted institutions, but that trust could easily be eroded in the current climate.

“We need to be very careful that we understand our role in engagement with the public,” he said. “There is a danger that if we lose sight of that, we will degrade that trust”.

Scheduled to give the annual oration at Edith Cowan University on Friday, Professor Galbraith said he was looking forward to coming to Australia and sharing his ideas.

In his address, titled “Universities are central to societies’ future success – but only if we learn some lessons”, he will explore a range of subjects, including the challenge inherent in the rise of political populism, the polarisation of debate, and the looming fourth industrial revolution, in which machines replace humans in many fields.

One question that he said deserves exploration is the potent and potentially detrimental influence of the markets on the core business of universities.

“We need to be a bit more vocal about the limits of the market,” he said. “There are lots of aspects to the market, commercial approach, which are problematic to the quality of what you do.”

Universities, he said, needed to engage more with schools, particularly poorly-performing schools. “There has to be a recognition that if schools are not performing well in a country, it’s not good for the university system either”, he explained. “If universities shy away from supporting government and local society in solving some of the deeper problems by using our expertise and power to do so, then you cannot expect wider society and the government to support us.”