Universities were conceived as places of scholarly learning and research, catering to an elite few with the ability and the inclination to pursue an academic lifestyle. In the post Dawkins era, the pressures of economic rationalism and of commercialisation of research, an apparent goal of near-universal higher education , and a need for increasingly competitive and complex team based research in the sciences have eroded the independence and the performance capacity of the traditional "teaching and research" academic. The default outcome will be that universities will become devalued as institutes of higher learning in the sciences, and will house within their walls quasi-independent research institutes staffed by researchers, who will occasionally teach to an increasingly didactic curriculum designed to maximise university income at the expense of quality learning. This will to the ultimate detriment of all. My paper will examine some alternative ways forward which retain the needed public accountability and allow satisfying, less stressful career paths for productive and enthusiastic scientists.

Keywords: Keynote Address