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HIGHLAND UNIVERSITY DREAM SET TO COME TRUE
09:00 - 26 July 2005
After 10 turbulent years in the planning stages and at a cost of more than £100million, the dream of a University of the Highlands and Islands with full degree-awarding powers finally looks set to become a reality, as Paul Wilson discovers
It Was meant to signal a new dawn for the Highlands and Islands and create a lifeline for the most depopulated, remote parts of Scotland.
Young people would no longer feel the need to abandon the lands of their ancestors for places at urban universities hundreds of miles from home.
And new blood would be attracted to the Highlands and Islands to lead pioneering research in fields such as rural sustainable development at an institution made up of far-flung departments linked by the very latest communication technology.
The multi-campus University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI), comprising 13 partner colleges and research institutions and more than 50 outreach centres spread over 30,000 square miles, was planned to open to great fanfare in 2001.
But no sooner had the first plans been drawn up than the project became beset with controversy and accusations of malpractice.
By the time the organisation was meant to be awarding its first degrees, key partner colleges found themselves crippled by massive debts, and the man in charge of overseeing the birth of the university had quit amid allegations of bullying and mismanagement.
Former chief executive Professor Brian Duffield had been at the centre of an investigation into the handling of staff complaints.
However, his successor, Professor Bob Cormack, says the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute (UHIMI) will shed the last two letters of its acronym and become a fully fledged university in 2007 - the Highland Year of Culture.
First Minister Jack McConnell reaffirmed that commitment on a recent trip to China, a potential market of lucrative, full fee-paying overseas students.
Not before time, say critics of the project's progress so far. Earlier this month, Highland MSP Fergus Ewing pressed the Scottish Executive to release details of the timetable for the complicated process of receiving degree-awarding status from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
At present, courses have to be validated as degree level by the Open University - a service that costs the UHIMI £115,000 a year.
Prof Cormack said the journey towards full degree-awarding status had been hampered by a political backlash after a flurry of new universities was formed in the 1990s.
He said: "I think targets in the past were set with a great deal of optimism and it is understandable to set targets.
"One factor that came into play was that, in the 1990s, there was a political questionmark over how many universities were really needed and about standards at some of those institutions.
"That slowed down the speed at which a number of those institutions were moving towards university status, such as Gloucester and Northampton.
"We are now at a similar stage in the process as Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh, a project that has been on the go for a lot longer."
Communications director Martin Wright said: "It is a long process, and for good reason, too.
"An aspirant university has to demonstrate it is of good quality and substance to justify the title.
"Becoming a university would be a big boost. At the moment, most students come from the area, but with university status, we will be able to attract people from a much wider area."
Prof Cormack said the formation of the university was attracting worldwide attention as a template for other parts of the world.
"One of the biggest arguments in our favour is that we cover such a wide area, stretching from Campbeltown to Shetland," he said.
"That means we are very different from somewhere like Robert Gordon in Aberdeen, Abertay in Dundee or Queen Margaret in Edinburgh.
"These are institutions in cities competing with other institutions that are world-class major universities driving the economies of those cities.
"We will be all the region has got, so the responsibilities are huge and frightening.
"We want a knowledge-based economy for the Highlands and Islands, and a university that is performing at a pretty high level is central to that. There needs to be a huge investment in research infrastructure to deliver that."
Mr Wright added: "We are a 21st-century institution and, as a result of that, there is worldwide interest in what we are doing.
"We have an opportunity here to create something not just for the Highlands and Islands, but as an international model for 21st-century learning institutions."
A huge investment has already been made in the institute, which recently moved into its new £3.5million headquarters in the former Royal Northern Infirmary in Ness Walk, Inverness.
The project has cost upwards of £55million in buildings, with new campuses at sites including Orkney and Stornoway, and £32million in information technology.
Funding was kick-started by an award of £33.34million from the Millennium Commission in 1996, followed by hand-outs from the Scottish Executive, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the European Union.
The UHIMI's apparent wealth is in stark contrast to the poverty of some of its partner colleges.
Inverness College, saddled with £3.3million of debt, had to shed four academic staff at its Skye outreach centre in May.
Prof Cormack said: "Funding for further education comes from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council on the basis of student head counts.
"We have said to all our partners that as that is the way the money comes in, that is the way the money has to come out.
"We have a duty to all 13 of our partner colleges, not just Inverness College.
"The way we spend our money is decided by an executive board made up of all the principals of all the colleges."
But Highland Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon said a different approach would be needed if the partnership was to work.
She said: "Degree-awarding powers have to be awarded soon, otherwise I think many people will begin to lose hope for a university for the Highlands and Islands.
"It is now coming up for 10 years since this process was initiated. I don't think that, at the time, anyone expected or could have anticipated that, 10 years later, we would still be waiting in hope for degree-awarding status.
"Any problem for Inverness College or any other college in the network is a problem for UHI. Anyone can pass the buck and assume that one college's financial deficit does not have an impact on the UHI, and there has to be far better partnership and understanding of the costs incurred by further-education colleges in teaching degrees."
HIE chief executive Sandy Cumming said: "A recent statistic demonstrated the huge gap that we have got in the 18-30 age group.
"If we got that age group filled up to the same level as the rest of Scotland, it would be equivalent to something like 9,000-10,000 extra people.
"A town the size of Nairn is missing from the Highlands and Islands in that band of 18 to 30-year-old people. I am sure the university will help address that."
Whatever problems the future may hold, the cross-party political will exists to carry the project to completion.
The challenge now is for everyone involved to work together for the final push towards a 21st-century model university for the Highlands and Islands.
