It’s now 30 years since I started my first academic role, and many of the most useful conversations I’ve ever had have been ones where people have disagreed with me.
Quite often, I discover that I’m wrong and they’re right, and I get to adapt my thinking, learn, and improve. Occasionally, I’m right and they’re wrong, and I’m reminded of the need to communicate better and to empathise with different viewpoints. Very often, though, we decide that we’re both wrong, and we walk away with a much better understanding of the complexity of the problem we both thought we had solved. In contrast, many of my biggest mistakes have come when I’ve been overconfident because I’ve been bolstered by agreement.
So, in my first six months as vice chancellor at Keele University, I’m taking what is perhaps a slightly unusual step of actively trying to get people to disagree with me as much as possible. If you read the higher education press, including Wonkhe, you might think that most vice chancellors find it very easy to get people to disagree with them. But what I’ve noticed is that in your first year, people are often extremely welcoming and supportive – and sometimes that means they don’t tell you that you’re wrong as often as they should.
Constructive non-alignment
As we set out to develop a new strategy for our University, I’m introducing the Keele Debates to try to raise the level of disagreement to something that is genuinely productive. These debates are designed to bring together people from across education, business, public policy and civic life to discuss the societal issues affecting higher education and the role universities can play in addressing them.
The intention with the Keele Debates series is to create a space where disagreement is constructive and where different perspectives can be explored in a way that generates practical insight rather than simply reinforcing existing positions.
The series focuses on some of the biggest challenges facing universities today, including internationalisation, artificial intelligence, graduate employability, and inclusivity. We want to encourage honest discussion across the sector about how universities need to adapt if they are to remain relevant, competitive, and sustainable.
These topics have been curated to reflect the complexity of the situation our sector is facing in 2026, and the many varied and intertwining issues which not only have an impact on higher education, but one another. We live in a world where increased globalisation coexists with more division about immigration, and the increased pressure to adopt AI and automated technologies coincides with a graduate job market that has never been more competitive, and universities are under even more pressure to prepare their students for life after their degrees.
These are the sort of challenges we want to grapple with in these debates, and hopefully by doing so we can ultimately strengthen the sector as a whole; but the journey there will demand these difficult conversations. Higher education has a profound and transformative impact on society, but precisely because of that influence, universities must be open to challenge, scrutiny and debate, and be willing to ask difficult questions about how they serve students, communities and the wider world.
Hot topic
Our first debate – The Global University: Are we exporting education or exploiting students? – brings together speakers from across the sector and beyond including a former universities minister and the chief executive of Universities UK Vivienne Stern. By bringing together such diverse and often opposing voices, ones with very different experiences and viewpoints, we hope to surface ideas that help universities respond more effectively to the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Ultimately, universities exist to help solve society’s most pressing problems and to enhance the lives of our students, staff and communities. For that to remain true, we need to be willing to challenge our own assumptions, listen to perspectives that we may not immediately agree with, and be open to changing our minds. For me, encouraging people to tell me that I’m wrong feels like a good place to start.
Find out more about the Keele Debates and sign up to attend or access the livestream here.