Conversation
The university as landscape for learning, innovation and social justice: a conversation with Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli
Abstract
Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli is now, in 2025, stepping down as Vice-Chancellor of University of Glasgow after sixteen years in the post. This interview provides the opportunity to hear his views on some of the leading issues affecting higher education today from the viewpoint of Glasgow, Scotland, but with wider significance. In three parts, the interview reflects first on questions of expansion and ambitious building schedules, and their impact on the city’s political economy and beyond. In the second part, the focus is on questions arising from leading a Scottish university and being in effect answerable to two governments, and finally in the third part of the interview, attention is paid to sector crisis, including fears for key subjects such as Modern Languages. Sir Anton stresses the importance of access, social justice and the university as an institution that retains a vision for worldwide learning and research, collaboration and impact.
Keywords
higher educationGlasgowScotlandaccesssocial justiceCopyright statement
© The author(s) 2025. This is an open access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International LicenseCite this article
Muscatelli, A. with McRobbie, A. (2025), ‘The university as landscape for learning, innovation and social justice: a conversation with Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli’, Journal of the British Academy, 13(4): a41 https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/013.a41crossref
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