The New Power University argues that the latter transformation is an urgent change that is both necessary and needed. On the other, universities will each embark on a deliberate evolution of their public purpose, in the same way that such adaptations have happened over millennia. On the one hand, universities might choose to be stand back and largely be passive bystanders, remote from the world around them. The choices that universities make at this time will play a critical role in determining which path we all take together as a society.

At these moments of change – these ‘in-between times’ – the future can go one of two ways, with the potential for the world to follow a more negative and destructive path (as we saw in the 1930s), or take a more humanitarian and sustainable turn, as I personally hope will occur today. We saw this with the introduction of the steam engine preceding the industrial revolution and we are witnessing a similar revolution today with the ubiquitous application of networked technologies. History suggests that there are long-term economic cycles where a number of innovations – social and physical – come together to reset society. Failures in globalism, the rise of populism, existential pressures around climate and resources, embedded racism and inequities, the shift form the analogue world to the digital one, and most recently a devastating global pandemic, all contribute to a potentially overwhelming sense of systemic change. We are currently living through one of these times. From time to time a generation is faced with some very big choices.

Henry timms new power