Whatever Happened to the Dearing Report?: UK Higher Education 1997-2007

The National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, chaired by Sir Ron Dearing, published its report, Higher Education in the Learning Society, on 24 July 1997. Sir David Watson, now Professor of Higher Education Management at the Institute of Education, University of London, and then Director of the University of Brighton, was a member of the Committee. In his inaugural lecture he looks back at the circumstances that gave rise to the Report, outlines the fate of its nearly 100 recommendations and identifies key lines of development within the UK higher education throughout the past decade.