Building the University of 2050: Leadership, Structure, and Strategy
18th September 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM BST
Universities were built for a different age. As artificial intelligence, demographic change, geopolitical uncertainty, and economic pressures reshape society, long-established assumptions about how universities are governed, funded, organised, and valued are coming under increasing strain. What kinds of institutions will be needed in 2050? Which traditions should be preserved, and which structures may need to be reinvented? Bringing together perspectives from higher education leadership and technological change, this session will ask whether the university as we know it is fit for the decades ahead – and what new models of knowledge, learning, and institutional life might emerge by 2050.
Speaker Biographies
Vivienne Stern took up the role of UUK Chief Executive in September 2022. Vivienne has over 25 years’ experience of working in higher education policy and politics at national and international level. She previously worked for the Chair of the Education Select Committee of the UK Parliament; as a policy specialist and then Head of Political Affairs for Universities UK; and most recently as the Director of Universities UK International (UUKi) which represents UK universities around the world. She is a member of the UK Government’s Soft Power Council; the Higher Educational Advisory Group; the Skills Advisory Group and the GREAT Private Sector Council. She is Deputy Chair of the Council for At Risk Academics and chairs its Nominations and Governance Committee. She was awarded an MBE for Services to International Education in the New Years’ Honours List 2022. In 2021 Vivienne received the European Association of International Educators’ “Vision and Leadership” award. Vivienne is a graduate of the University of Cambridge, where she studied English Literature.
Jamie Bartlett is one of the UK’s leading technology writers and thinkers. His previous books include The People Vs Tech, winner of the Transmission Prize and longlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, and The Dark Net. In 2010 Jamie founded a research centre at leading ThinkTank Demos that specialised in designing and applying AI to understand social trends.He has written and presented several hit BBC podcast series, including The Missing Cryptoqueen, which reached number 1 in the podcast charts around the world, and his Ted Talk about the dark net has been watched nearly six million times. He has previously written on the intersection of tech and politics for the Telegraph, the Spectator, and the Guardian.
