Professor Patrick McGhee, Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Central Lancashire says that the proposals are misguided. "I think it is possible to have good teaching without research - but I think the notion of scholarship is very important," he says. "I am all in favour of opening the doors to new institutions. But I think the university title must involve some notion of research - if not necessarily that rewarded by the research assessment exercise or the ability to award PhDs.

"Providing excellent higher education to students should be our first priority. It is very sad that opposition to the proposed reform stems largely from a desire to keep the number of universities down."Like Green, Professor Paul Luther, Pro-Vice Chancellor at Bournemouth, would like to see university title extended. Many think that cross-subsidies from teaching to research help pay many academics to do what they love - research. "Some academics should never be let near a student - and some of those who teach have not looked inside a fume cupboard for a decade," says one former university administrator. "The new universities are against the idea of extending university title as well because they don't want to face any awkward questions about their research capacity - or face new competition."Professor David Green, principal of University College Worcester,

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believes that the true mission of universities is to teach, "The main source of income for the vast majority of British universities comes from teaching," he says. Critics believe opposition to the extension of the title is riddled with cynicism. "But they are both complex activities in their own right."Professor Crewe, and the majority of vice-chancellors, believe that active research is a necessary component of a true university, while recognising the importance of scholarship - that is, reading around the subject, attending conferences and producing some publications.

They want to see this properly funded, but not as a replacement for research.Many others - mostly in private - can be rude about the stance taken by higher education experts. "Research and teaching are crucial to how we understand universities," he says. Students are exposed to research almost immediately and then progress quickly to become experts: "The picture is of the lone scholar doing their own thing."The institutional differences between pre-, and post-1992 institutions are large, says Barnett. For example, student-staff ratios in the modern universities can be 40 or 50 to one, making a large research workload impossible. Those relationships are often positive - but they may even be negative." For example, an extremely strong research culture might skew teaching and diminish the student's experience, he says.But the picture is complex and shifts across subjects, as students progress from undergraduate to postgraduate study, and between pre-, and post-1992 universities. Barnett believes, for example, that the link is weak in the first and second years of science degrees.