What shape will universities take in the future?

Children born this year will enter university in or around 2030. The offspring of children born this year will arrive at university-age in the middle of the 21^st century. By this time, much is likely to have changed about the ways in which teaching and research take place: a greater use of technology as a tool for teaching and learning is one obvious example. Predicting what universities will look like in the coming decades requires an even greater leap of imagination: will the institutions we know today even exist in the same shape and form?

The Future University, a conference taking place at Cambridge University later this week, will tackle some of the big questions surrounding the future of higher education, not simply in response to the current pressures on funding, but also in terms of the sweeping changes affecting the ways in which we live our lives. In particular, it will look at the vital role and contribution of the arts, humanities and social sciences within an environment that is in danger of dominance by an increasing emphasis on science and technology – and ask how the humanities and related disciplines are responding to the challenges and changes of the digital age.

The three-day forum, generously funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation, is being staged by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at Cambridge University, and convened by CRASSH director, Professor Mary Jacobus. It is the second of two conferences looking at the way in which the humanities engage with the wider world on many different levels. This week’s conference also marks the 10^th anniversary of CRASSH as a thriving hub dedicated to the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and perspectives, not simply within Cambridge but also globally.

The event will bring leading figures in academia and policy-making together with graduate and post-doctoral researchers at the start of their careers. In a series of panels, discussions and debates on a range of broad themes, they will look at the ways in which the study of the humanities engages with, and enriches, people’s lives by encouraging a creative dialogue that crosses boundaries and enhances cultural understanding. The themes embrace aspects of language, literature, archaeology, history, art history, music and more - and will be discussed from perspectives that include such pressing issues such as human rights, the need for a sustainable built environment, and the preservation of endangered languages.

“The conference will provide a forum for conversations about topics that affect us all and represent aspects of our lives that reach far beyond the current crisis in humanities funding into the nature of our society,” said Professor Jacobus.

The event’s key note speakers will be the philosopher Bernard Stiegler, Director of the Institut de Recherche et d’Innovation at the Centre Pompidou in Paris,  on “The Pharmacology of Mind: Digital Technologies and the Conditional University”, and Sir Adam Roberts, President of the British Academy and a specialist in law and international relations,  on “The Impact of International History”. Leaders in their field, these speakers will offer perspectives that will prompt an exploration of lines of thought about the fundamental human questions underlying knowledge and education.

Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz will take part in a panel discussion on “The Fate of the Humanities” along with the President of the Mellon Foundation, Don Randel. Other eminent speakers include Stefan Collini and Simon Schaffer (University of Cambridge), Marina Warner (Essex University), Joseph Koerner (Harvard University), Richard Sennett (NYU and LSE) and Debjani Ganguli (ANU). “We hope that the contribution of these speakers will generate lively audience discussion,” said Professor Jacobus.

Discussions about the importance of music and art, and their role within the life of universities in for both theoretical and practice-based study, will be complemented by musical improvisation at the West Road Concert Hall at the end of the first day.  The conference will conclude with a discussion about the role of the art museum in a university setting at the Fitzwilliam Museum featuring the Director of the Tate Museums, Sir Nicholas Serota, and the Director of the Courtauld Institute, Deborah Swallow, with the conversation chaired by Timothy Potts, director of the Museum, .

The Future University takes place from 30 June to 2 July. For details of the conference programme, including registration and booking for Improvisation in the Round at the West Road Concert Hall on 30 June and the Fitzwilliam Museum Panel Discussion on 2 July, go to http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1321/.