The Problem of “Dirty Hands” in UK Universities

26th – 27th March 2012

University of Brighton

Following the News International phone-hacking scandal, questions have been raised about the propriety of accepting funding for Chairs such as the Rupert Murdoch Professorship in Language and Communication at Oxford University. But funding like this is ubiquitous in the universities, and it extends well beyond endowed professorships. Furthermore, private finance is going to play an increasingly prominent role in the wake of the Government White Paper on HE.

The Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics & Ethics (CAPPE) at the University of Brighton, in collaboration with the Times Higher Education, held a two-day interdisciplinary conference that sought to address some of the background issues of principle that arise from the ways in which universities are financed. In particular: what are academics’ responsibilities in relation to the financing of “our” universities?

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Deborah Cameron, Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication, Oxford University

Phil Baty, Deputy Editor, Times Higher

Programme, The Problem of “Dirty Hands” in UK Universities

Monday 26 March

11.30 Registration: Coffee

12.00 Keynote 1: Deborah Cameron (Oxford University)

1.00-2.00 Lunch

2.00 – 3.00 Cécile Hatier (University of Wolverhampton)

How dirty hands in academia and politics compare: a permanent or transient set of moral conundrums?’

3.00 – 4.00 Thomas Docherty (Warwick University)

Moneys, morals, values

4.00 – 4.30 Coffee break

4.30 – 5.30 Paul Reynolds (Edge Hill University)

The Price of Education

Tuesday 27 March

10.00 Keynote 2: Phil Baty (Editor at Large, THE) 

11.00 – 11.50 John Wakeford (Lancaster University)

Newman and Haldane are dead: creating a new code of ethics?

11.50- 12.40 John Kelly (JohnKellyConsulting)

The question of private financial support

12.40 – 1.30 Lunch

1.30 – 2.20 Vasil Gluchman (University of Presov)

On the professional ethics of academics in Slovakia

2.20 – 3.30 Stuart Macdonald (Aalto University)

Milking the myth: the legacy of science and technology parks

3.30 – 3.50 Coffee break

3.50 – 4.40 Andrew Scanlan (University of Brighton)

What place do philanthropic donations have in higher education? A case study of fundraising at the University of Brighton

4.40 – 5.30 Richard Hall (de Montfort University)

Educational technology and the war on public education

5.30 – 6.00 Summing up and close