In May 2018, I gave a presentation at the Co-operative Education and Research conference, which was a precursor to a book chapter that Mike Neary and I have written. The book chapter reflects on the last decade of developments in the UK towards establishing a co-operative university. We wrote the chapter as a personal narrative, but also connected recent developments to a history of the idea that extends back to the 1870s. Here’s the abstract for the chapter and the slides can be downloaded below. The chapter is part of a book to mark the centenary of the Co-operative College and will be published in 2019.
“This chapter narrates the recent efforts of a growing number of people, including ourselves, to create a co-operative university in England. In doing so, we situate these efforts within the broader political and economic climate of UK higher education and in light of recent developments in the co-operative movement, in particular the emergence of multi-stakeholder models of governance. In the process of writing this account, we have found it necessary and helpful to look at earlier attempts to create a co-operative university and the aspirations of those people involved. Recognising that the idea of creating a co-operative university in the UK is one that has been written about for over a century, we found ourselves asking, ‘why now?’ and furthermore, ‘why only now?’”