Government, Higher Education and the Industrial Ethic

The argument of this paper is that there have always been, and still remain, fundamental differences between the purposes of industry and those of higher education. Industry's concern is to make a profit, universities are concerned with open enquiry and intellectual freedom. The values of the two are incommensurable, and it is important that these conflicts of values are not obscured by ambiguity of language or by external pressures.
For more than a decade the British government has sought to increase the competitiveness of industry, and has initiated many changes in universities which it has linked to this policy. Three such developments are critically discussed: the enterprise in higher education initiative, academic audit and assessment of teaching quality and the recent White Paper on fundamental research. It is argued that the tendency of each of these is to cause the merging of business values with those of higher education. If this tendency proceeds unchecked universities will no longer be able to fulfil their vital rôle in a free society - the advancement of new and controversial ideas and the education of their students to think critically and autonomously.