Publication of the week:

As part of the ongoing debate on the future of our universities, The University of Buckingham Press is delighted to announce the publication on 22 May 2007 of Can the Prizes Still Glitter?, edited by Hugo de Burgh (Editor of China in Britain, Professor of Journalism and Director of the China Media Centre at the University of Westminster), Anna Fazackerley (Director of education think-tank Agora), and Jeremy Black (Professor of History at the University of Exeter).

Can the Prizes Still Glitter? is the inaugural publication of Agora, a new independent think-tank focusing on the future of our universities. Thirty-four high profile contributors including eight vice-chancellors (one of whom is Buckingham's very own Terence Kealey), politicians, business people and academics from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and a range of institutions have written personal essays about where universities are now and where they ought to be. Between them they tackle the whole spectrum of higher education. They confront many of the big and often uncomfortable issues facing Britain, exhibit some of the solutions of which individual institutions are proud, and outline the kind of tough decisions that politicians and university leaders need to take if British institutions are to match rapid progress elsewhere in the world.

Contributors: Sir Harry Kroto, Boris Johnson, Bill Rammell, Eric Thomas, Frank Furedi, Terence Kealey, Alec Reed, Bernard Lamb, Tim Birkhead, John Stein, David Watson, Charles Pasternak, Bob Boucher, Gordon Graham, Chris Patten, Susan Bassnett, James Tooley, James Stanfield, Peter Atkins, Henry Etzkowitz, David Palfreyman, Steve Smith, Michael Harloe, Alan Gilbert, Geoffrey Copland, Frank Morgan, Michael Shattock, Gary Day, Jeremy Black, Sally Feldman, Alison Wolf, David Lathbury, Kenneth Minogue

Extracts will appear in The Independent, Guardian Education and the Times Higher Educational Supplement.

"Universities are in a period of major change - some aspects of which are exciting but others which are threatening. This book is timely and provocative, addressing some of the key challenges facing the HE sector in a series of papers by the leaders and innovators in the field."

Dame Nancy Rothwell FRS, Vice President and MRC Research Professor, University of Manchester.