Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nick Bernards, Associate Professor of Global Sustainable Development, University of Warwick

A US$125 billion rainforest fund is being hailed as a flagship announcement from the 2025 UN climate summit in Belém, Brazil. The goal is noble: this is essentially a trust fund that will pay countries to keep their tropical forests standing. But its core idea was tried 30 years ago, and the results weren’t great.

Brazilian president Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva suggests the so-called Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) is innovative because it is “an investment fund, not a donation mechanism”. This, in theory, means investors can benefit too, providing a long-term stability that isn’t affected by political cycles.

Turning to private markets is not in itself all that innovative. But years of efforts to mobilise private finance for climate action have routinely failed to attract sufficient investment.

The reasons for this are pretty simple. Many necessary activities simply aren’t “good” investments. Even commercial renewable energy projects often struggle to offer returns high enough to compete with other assets.

All of these problems are particularly pronounced for forest conservation. There aren’t many ways to generate income by leaving forests alone, and clearing them for timber or agriculture is generally more profitable. Indeed, this is one of the key drivers of deforestation in the first place.

Back to the future?

The TFFF is designed to work around these constraints. Rather than investing directly in conservation projects, it functions like a large endowment or trust fund. It aims to raise US$25 billion in “sponsor capital” from government and philanthropic donors.

Brazil has pledged US$1 billion. Norway followed suit, promising about US$3 billion. The fund also plans to sell US$100 billion in bonds to private investors.

Eventually, the full US$125 billion will be invested in financial markets. After paying interest to investors and sponsors, the remaining returns will be used to pay participating countries around US$4 per hectare of standing tropical forest, minus penalties for forest loss.

By separating investors’ returns from conservation success, the TFFF does potentially create a more appealing offer for private investors than previous climate finance schemes.

However, this model has been tried before.

Trust funds for conservation

In the early 1990s, around the time of the first global negotiations on climate change, the World Bank’s Global Environment Facility financed a trust fund for biodiversity conservation in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. It was followed by similar projects in Uganda, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.

These funds were justified in terms very similar to Lula’s pitch for the TFFF. Private finance was needed, wrote one World Bank official in 1993, “because it is impossible to predict whether the current ‘boom’ in international [government] financing for conservation will last”.

Yet evaluations of these conservation trust funds highlighted recurring problems.

Returns on investment were often lower than anticipated, delaying projects sometimes by years, including the very first one in Bhutan. (And quite how much revenue the TFFF’s investments will actually generate is uncertain.)

The money was tied up in investments and only a small amount was available for conservation. And, while a trust fund can generate a steady trickle of revenue to pay operating costs, it’s much harder to use this model to start new projects.

In Bhutan, the managers of the trust fund struggled with how to finance start-up costs for establishing new conservation areas without eating into the fund itself. Eventually they received a separate grant from the World Wildlife Fund. The TFFF would likely face similar difficulties funding initiatives such as returning farmed land to indigenous communities.

The TFFF inherits these issues, and adds a new one. To attract private investors, interest payments will be prioritised over conservation spending. The TFFF’s concept note is explicit that payments to participating countries will fall if investment income can’t cover payments to bondholders. In other words, there is a real risk that reassuring investors may come at the expense of the fund’s ability to actually protect forests.

There are bigger questions to ask, too. For instance, a coalition of civil society organizations from across the Amazon, as well as Africa and Asia, have already rejected the initiative. They argue it risks turning forests into commodities with a price tag, and that despite claims of centring Indigenous communities, it actually allocates them a paltry amount of money in top-down fashion.

The revival of a mechanism first tried in the early 1990s should give us pause. If private capital can only be mobilised on terms that weaken climate action, then perhaps there’s no longer any alternative to greatly increased public funding and much stronger redistributive measures. Rich countries, corporations, and individuals will need to shoulder more of the cost of mitigating a crisis they’ve played a disproportionate role in creating.

In recent years activists and researchers have proposed a long list of alternative options. These include diverting some of the trillions currently spent on the world’s largest militaries, reforms to reduce corporate tax avoidance, and debt relief for climate vulnerable countries.

We can debate whether any all of these specific options is effective or appropriate. The TFFF and its limits are a sign that it’s well past time to take such measures seriously.

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Nick Bernards has previously received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and British International Studies Association.

– ref. The world’s new US$125 billion rainforest trust fund revives a 1990s idea – and shows its limits – https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-new-us-125-billion-rainforest-trust-fund-revives-a-1990s-idea-and-shows-its-limits-270238

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sam Phelps, Commissioning Editor, International Affairs, The Conversation

This newsletter was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

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News broke this week that US and Russian officials have been working in secret on a new plan to end the war in Ukraine. The terms make grim reading for Kyiv. Reports suggest the plan requires Ukraine to cede the territory it currently controls in the east of the country and halve the size of its military.

Such a deal would be a major setback for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. He has declared repeatedly that conditions identical to those outlined in the plan are non-starters for Ukraine. Yet it’s possible he may soon have little choice but to accept them.

Stefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko, who are two regular contributors to our coverage of the war in Ukraine from the University of Birmingham and the Odesa Law Academy respectively, explain: “Ukraine is having a very difficult time at the moment on various fronts.”

Russian forces seem set to capture the eastern city of Pokrovsk, and they are simultaneously ramping up pressure on several other frontline areas. “For now,” write Wolff and Malyarenko, “the war of attrition clearly favours Russia.” But they do not see Ukraine’s imminent collapse as a foregone conclusion.

In their view, the Ukrainian war effort is threatened more by the continuing fallout from a sweeping domestic corruption scandal, as well as stalling efforts in Brussels to provide additional financial aid to Kyiv. Wolff and Malyarenko worry that talk of Ukraine’s political and military collapse could turn into a “self-fulfilling prophecy”.

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Read more:
Ukraine and Europe’s weakness exposed as US and Russia again negotiate behind Kyiv’s back

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The outlook is much more positive over the border in Russia, according to Matthew Alford, a lecturer in politics at the University of Bath. This was the impression he took away from his visit to Moscow earlier this year.

In this account of his trip, Alford recalls seeing no indication that western sanctions were having any impact on the Russian economy. “Moscow felt safe, orderly and technologically advanced,” he writes, describing how his hotel had a room service robot and people pay for the metro through facial recognition.

More obvious was the deep separation between Russia and the west. Alford recalls a conversation he had with an academic there, who said her students were already starting to learn Chinese instead of English.

This rift was a source of sadness for many of the people Alford met in Moscow. But there was a sense of resolve, too. “It seems all sides have become accustomed to the deathly chill of a new cold war.”

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Read more:
An east-west divide deeper than the cold war: what I saw on my summer trip to Russia

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Plans for Gaza

Elsewhere in the world, it has been a busy week for Donald Trump. Following a UN security council vote on Monday, the US president now has a legal mandate to implement his plan for a post-war Gaza.

This paves the way for a Trump-chaired transitional authority to oversee the management of Gaza for the next two years. It also authorises the deployment of peacekeepers there, who will form an international stabilisation force to secure the territory.

The plan provides for the “full resumption” of aid into Gaza, while offering Palestinians at least some hope of their own sovereignty in the future. The UN resolution references a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”, reportedly following pressure from Arab states.

We asked Leonie Fleischmann, a senior lecturer in international politics at City St George’s, University of London, whether Trump’s plan does in fact raise the prospects of Palestinian statehood. She was guarded in her optimism, telling us there is plenty of room for this path to be knocked off course.

In Fleischmann’s view, there are four main barriers to establishing a Palestinian state. The first is that all of the main sticking points to a two-state solution, including the status of Jerusalem and the “right of return” for millions of Palestinian refugees living abroad, have yet to be ironed out.

Second is that meeting the conditions required for a political process towards Palestinian statehood to begin – namely, reforming the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank – will be no easy feat. The PA is plagued by rampant corruption and is deeply unpopular among the Palestinian people.

Third is Hamas’s rejection of the UN resolution and subsequent refusal to disarm, which Fleischmann says threatens to derail the peace process entirely. And fourth is that the Israeli government remains staunchly opposed to a Palestinian state.

“We are a long way off from concrete discussions of Palestinian statehood,” Fleischmann concludes. But Trump’s plan does provide some hope “that at least the Palestinians in Gaza will be able to begin to rebuild their lives”.

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Read more:
UN backs Trump’s plan for Gaza but Palestinian statehood remains a distant prospect

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Epstein files

Trump also signed a bill this week ordering the release of investigative files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Their release, which the US president has spent weeks trying to stall, will be welcome news for the many people in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (Maga) base who have long wanted to see the documents.

In this piece, Alex Hinton of Rutgers University in the US explains why the Maga movement is so concerned with Epstein. Hinton, who has been writing about Maga for The Conversation in the US for years, points to the importance of conspiracy theories to Maga thinking.

“If you look at Epstein, he’s where many of the conspiracy theories converge: Stop the Steal, The Big Lie, lawfare, deep state, replacement theory,” Hinton says. “Epstein kind of hits all of these – that there’s this elite cabal orchestrating things that ultimately are against the interests of ‘we the people,’ with a sort of antisemitic strain.”

Trump had a personal friendship with Epstein, which has fuelled speculation that the files may contain information that compromises him. But, crucially, Hinton says the files are unlikely to dent loyalty to Trump – regardless of what they say.

“The bottom line is there’s a realisation among many people in Maga that you’ve got to stay with Trump,” he says, adding that the movement will “fade away” without him. “I don’t think there’s going to be a break over this, but it certainly adds strain.”

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Read more:
Why MAGA is so concerned with Epstein − and why the files are unlikely to dent loyalty to Trump

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– ref. Are things falling apart for Ukraine? – https://theconversation.com/are-things-falling-apart-for-ukraine-270207

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

Delhi: 442. Lahore: 334. Beijing: 16. These are the levels of PM 2.5, one of the principle measures for air pollution, on November 19.

As Pakistanis and Indians struggle with hazardous air quality, in Beijing – a city once notorious for its smog – the air quality is currently rated as good.

Ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government was so concerned about pollution that it introduced temporary restrictions on cars, shut down factories and stopped work on some construction sites. The measures worked and one study later found that levels of air pollution were down 30% during the period when the temporary Olympic restrictions were in place.

It would take a few more years before the Chinese government implemented a clean air action plan in 2013. Since then, China has achieved a dramatic improvement in its air quality.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to Laura Wilcox, a professor at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading in the UK, to understand how China managed to clean up its air pollution. But Wilcox’s recent research uncovered some unintended consequences from this cleaner air for the global climate: the pollution was actually helping to cool the atmosphere and by taking it away, it may have accelerated global warming. Wilcox explains:

 What we’re seeing is a removing of cooling that’s revealing warming that’s already there. So the air pollution isn’t the cause of the warming. It’s just letting us see stuff that we’ve already done.

Listen to the interview on The Conversation Weekly podcast. You can also read an article by Laura Wilcox and her colleague Bjørn H. Samset about their recent research on The Conversation.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany, Gemma Ware and Katie Flood. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from Voice of America, CBC, AP Archive, ABC (News) Australia, WFLA NBC Channel 8 and
PBS.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Laura Wilcox receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Research Council of Norway, the Clean Air Fund, and Horizon Europe.

– ref. How China cleaned up its air pollution – and what that meant for the climate – https://theconversation.com/how-china-cleaned-up-its-air-pollution-and-what-that-meant-for-the-climate-270170

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Miguel Valdez, Lecturer in Technology and Innovation Management, The Open University

Autonomous self-driving cars and taxis are already on the roads of San Francisco and Beijing. There are also autonomous tram-style services around Oxfordshire and Dubai.

Now researchers in the Italian city of Trento are planning to pilot a scheme of autonomous 17-seater shuttle buses which can divert to the homes of travellers. The first stage of the “robot buses” pilot is expected to cover the historic city centre, where approximately ten vehicles powered by clean hydro-electric energy will operate for up to 18 hours per day.

The pilot is expected to be initially funded by government grants to demonstrate the reliability of this type of vehicle, improving user acceptance so the service could then use private funding to grow to move beyond the city. The starting date is not yet confirmed.

The plan is that members of the public would use an app to call for an autonomous, AI-driven bus to pick them up. A similar transport system already exists using human drivers (for example, there is an app-based Bus on Demand operating in Coventry, UK). Some on-demand bus services, such as Mi-link in Oxfordshire, even use autonomous vehicles, but not to the level of digital integration being explored in Trento.

The Trento pilot plans to use smart roads around the city, part of a national project, where the roads communicate with the autonomous vehicles so that they can have the data it needs to make split-second decisions. This provides driverless vehicles with information about unforeseen events and allows complex coordination and collaborative manoeuvres where driverless vehicles communicate with the roads and with each other.

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Read more:
Self-driving buses that go wherever you want? How the UK is trying to revolutionise public transport

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The idea behind the project is that one-to-one replacement of cars or taxis with autonomous vehicles would add a bit of convenience but would not do much for congestion or emissions. It could even be counterproductive if the increased convenience encourages people to travel more.

A more positive scenario is possible when AI enables new transport models such as the driverless shuttle. The Trento team estimate that replacing 100,000 private petrol cars with 5,882 shared electric shuttles could potentially yield around a 92% annual CO2 reduction – an impressive figure, but one that can only be achieved if riding a shuttle becomes more attractive and convenient than driving a car.

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Read more:
Driverless cars: what we’ve learned from experiments in San Francisco and Phoenix

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Conventional bus services simply are not a sufficiently attractive alternative to car use outside the dense centres of major cities. as they are often infrequent and don’t come close to people’s homes in many cases.

If a new type of public transport could offer a better alternative, then more environmental benefits could emerge. Think of a system where you don’t need to conform to bus timetables and operating times – or even bus routes. The bus comes to you when you call it and takes you where you want to go. Driverless taxis can offer that, but at a higher cost not only financially, but also in terms of congestion and energy consumption.

The planned Trento design is where you have small shared autonomous vehicles offering travel at bus level fares – or lower. The use of driverless vehicles offers potentially radical improvements to the cost and quality of the service that could result in people preferring this type of shuttle to driving their cars.

Small driverless shuttles could operate more frequently and flexibly and even operate a 24/7 service. As the plan is to combine bookings to pool the journeys of passengers going in the same direction, the cost of the ride (which was already low on account of not paying for the driver) becomes even lower for a shared ride.

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Read more:
AI can boost economic growth, but it needs to be managed incredibly carefully

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Vehicle automation is perceived as having potential risks and benefits. On the one hand, there is a clear risk that jobs in the transport industry will disappear. On the other, autonomous transport will help ensure that people without cars or those unable to drive can maintain access to work.

This kind of public transport system that offers a convenient alternative to personal car use would substantially reduce environmental impact, reduce congestion for all and make for more socially inclusive towns and cities. As the service provides a level of convenience close to that of a taxi, but a cost similar or lower than that of a bus, the possibility of moving society away from car dependence could become more realistic.

Environmentally, it has been estimated that adoption of driverless vehicles in major cities could result in a reduction of up to 34% of the total carbon emissions from transportation by 2050.

What’s happening elsewhere?

Globally other systems are being explored and are likely to emerge in the next few years. Milton Keynes in the UK already operates a small vehicle service booked by app.

The service creates “virtual bus stops” that pick up and drop passengers in locations that are close to their homes and are also convenient to other passengers sharing the same vehicle.

Unlike the Trento service, the service in Milton Keynes is operated by human drivers. Potentially, this limits the flexibility of the service as humans cannot, and should not, operate 18 hours a day without breaks and the number of drivers available limits the size of the fleet.

There are plans to expand this with small autonomous buses on fixed routes, but trials so far have always had a human driver on board for safety purposes.

Projects, such as the one in Trento, plus other emerging autonomous vehicle service systems, start to move cities towards a reinvention of public transport using high-tech advances. This means public transport could appeal to more people if it becomes more convenient and cheaper. It, therefore, has the potential to persuade more people to leave their cars at home, with big benefits for the planet.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 47,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Robot’ buses could bring more environmental benefits than public transport with drivers – https://theconversation.com/robot-buses-could-bring-more-environmental-benefits-than-public-transport-with-drivers-268809

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jeremy Hicks, Professor of Post-Soviet Cultural History and Film, Queen Mary University of London

The famine of 1932-33, known as the Holodomor, claimed the lives of millions of people in Ukraine. It was not due to climactic failure, but caused by the confiscation of grain, punitively targeted by the Soviet government and its leader Joseph Stalin at Ukrainians.

Yet it is not universally recognised as a genocide. This lack of consensus stems both from historical debates over whether Ukrainians were deliberately targeted, and from political considerations surrounding the recognition of genocides.

It is nevertheless an important historical event, memory of which serves to unite Ukrainians as a nation. However, one factor preventing wider recognition of the Holodomor as a central moment in 20th century history is the lack of compelling treatment in film.

This is in sharp contrast to the Holocaust, where film was key in cementing its place in both Jewish and wider consciousness.

It is productive to compare depictions of the Holodomor with those of the Holocaust. Like the genocide of Jewish people, the murder by famine of Ukrainians was a crime denied and covered up by its perpetrators, in particular through bans on filming and photography.

When Nazi Germany was defeated in 1945, its foes uncovered and publicised extensive evidence of its crimes. The Soviet Union didn’t collapse until 1991, however, over 50 years after the Holodomor, making its documentation harder.

This meant the first films on the subject were made by the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada: The Unknown Holocaust: 10 Million Victims, Ukraine 1933 (1983) and Harvest of Despair (1984). Both included groundbreaking interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, but also used a number of images depicting Russian victims of the earlier famine of 1921-23. They also quoted widely circulated estimates for the number of victims that have been shown to be inflated.

This left the films open to criticism from deniers who claimed the famine didn’t happen, as was the official Soviet line. The shortcomings of the films weakened their case for the Holodomor and restricted their impact.

These films were further limited by being made outside Ukraine, where the subject was still banned. Following the Glasnost (the policy of greater freedom of expression inaugurated by Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR from 1985) Ukrainians in Ukraine were also able to make films about the subject, even before the collapse of the Soviet system.

Initially they focused on eyewitness testimony with the notable film, 33rd. Witnesses’ Testimonies (1989). The film starts by showing images from 1921, saying that that famine was filmed, unlike that of 1933, and then concentrates on interviewing eyewitnesses.

This was swiftly followed by the first acted film depicting these events, Famine 33 (1991). It was released on the eve of the Ukrainian independence referendum and is seen as contributing to the overwhelming endorsement of independence (including by Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk).

However, despite its political impact, the film is not great. Part of the problem is the difficulty of channelling cinema’s spectacular nature and orientation towards entertainment to the task of depicting mass death and suffering. It’s the same challenge confronted by films about the Holocaust.

The films that get it right

The highly influential mini-series Holocaust (1978) was condemned for using actors to portray death by famine, trivialising immense suffering by adapting these historical events to norms of TV entertainment.

Famine 33 and the more recent international production Mr Jones (2019) have not succeeded in producing memorable representations of the terrible events of the Holodomor, but that does not mean the task is impossible.

The most successful film representation of the Holodomor is the 2008 documentary film The Living, directed by Serhii Bukovs’kyi. Its great merit is that it avoids images of famine victims and any hint of a sensationalist emphasis on cannibalism, a chilling, but repeated feature of famines that is dwelt upon in most other films.

Instead it conveys the events through eyewitness testimony, both in interviews with survivors and accounts produced at the time, contrasted with Soviet propagandist films proclaiming that all was well. The interviews enable us to get to know the elderly Ukrainian peasants before they later recount the awful things that happened to them.

It also avoids the word genocide and the debate on total death figures. The resulting film invites viewers to reflect empathetically, rather than imposing conclusions.

In making this film, Bukovs’kyi built on his previous experience making Spell Your Name (2006). That film was about the Holocaust in Ukraine where more than 1.5 million Jewish people perished. He used the testimonies collected by Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation to make the film.

Bukovs’kyi’s work explores how memory of these two catastrophes that afflicted Ukraine can be reconciled. Previous films of the Holodomor implicitly competed with memory of the Holocaust.

By contrast, the Russian state is implacably opposed to memory of the Holodomor. It removes monuments to it wherever it can in occupied Ukraine, as expressions of Ukrainian identity and sovereignty separate from Russia. The fourth Sunday in November, Holodomor Remembrance Day, acquires particular significance in this context, not just for Ukrainians.

As well as official ceremonies, commemorative events and lighting a candle, film screenings across media are part of the activities and play a vital role in conveying memory of this tragic history. Engaging with it and watching these films defies Russian attempts to suppress this memory and deny Ukraine’s sovereignty.

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Jeremy Hicks receives funding from the Philip Leverhulme Trust, The British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). He is a member of the Labour Party (UK).

– ref. The Holodomor on screen: how cinema shapes memory of Ukraine’s famine – https://theconversation.com/the-holodomor-on-screen-how-cinema-shapes-memory-of-ukraines-famine-269239

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Allan, Reader in Professional Education and Learning, Edge Hill University

The government’s vision for higher education in England, set out in a recent policy paper, includes some changes that will benefit students from poorer backgrounds.

An increase in maintenance loans, for instance, will help to support disadvantaged students. So too will the introduction of a lifelong learning entitlement loan. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds often have learning trajectories that are far from linear, so access to a lifetime entitlement makes sense.

Other positive aspects include an aim to create more joined-up thinking in communities, greater links between higher education providers and employers and targeted funding initiatives. There is a general acknowledgement of the challenges disadvantaged students face. And these students are addressed throughout the document, albeit mostly through the lens of seeing their economic potential.

But the government’s broader strategy for universities will present significant challenges for students who come from poorer families and live in disadvantaged areas. It encourages universities to carve out particular specialisms. This means honing their expertise and concentrating on their unique selling point – their “core purpose”. It suggests that while competition can be healthy, “too many providers with similar offerings are chasing the same students”.

The implications for this in practice may be that universities axe some of their courses in favour of a narrower menu of study. The casualties of such a move would typically be arts and humanities courses. This is especially likely when the government plans to offer funding incentives for priority areas, which include science, technology and engineering.

Indeed, many reductions in the higher education portfolio have already taken place across the sector, such as for arts subjects. This is arguably due to pressures on each university to deliver “successful outcomes” for its students. These outcomes, such as employment after graduation, however, are narrowly measured. They run the risk of devaluing arts-based education. They also may constrain opportunities for many people seeking greater life chances.

Local limitations

Disadvantaged students in particular could be significantly affected by changes that reduce the variety of courses available at their local university. A diverse portfolio of courses creates opportunities for those who may not traditionally access higher education. Disadvantaged students are less likely to apply to prestigious institutions. They are more likely to study closer to home.

In recent years, closure of courses at universities has created what is known as cold spots. These are areas of the UK where certain university subjects are not offered. These closures, unfortunately, often affect lower tariff providers – universities that require lower grades for entry to a degree course. This means reduced opportunities for disadvantaged students to access the courses they might want to study in their local area.

For regional areas, too, a wealth of course availability can create wider opportunities. For instance, it can allow local businesses to make use of a wide range of skills from students who remain in the area.

Streamlining what universities offer may also result in further status distinctions between higher education institutions. It could pave the way for an even more ferociously competitive sector, the rationale being that “the cream will rise to the top.” But this may mean that only universities ranking highly in a particular field will be positioned to provide courses in this field.

This is neglectful of smaller and often newer providers that may be in need of developmental support. It may close down opportunities for universities to grow and establish research excellence where it may not yet exist.

It benefits everyone if England’s higher education system grows and flourishes. But for every positive choice we make, we have to consider the possible fallout on marginalised members of society. The implementation of these policy proposals, then, will need to consider the implications of perpetuating a heavily driven and economically competitive market for higher education. This could mean careful contemplation of the purpose of higher education itself.

David Allan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Streamlining what universities offer could backfire for disadvantaged students – https://theconversation.com/streamlining-what-universities-offer-could-backfire-for-disadvantaged-students-268025