Malcolm Press

So perhaps you could give us a flavour of how universities reacted to those comments.

I think it's important to explain the context in which that question was asked, because Malcolm Press, he is the president of Universities UK and the vice chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University.

asked Chris McDonald explicitly where he saw funding for the arts and humanities in terms of research.

And Chris McDonald was quite explicit in that he didn't really see this as a priority for him.

I think they're trying to signal the thing that they usually try and signal, which is, you know, look what an important part of the economy we are and, you know, how bad things would be if we didn't have graduates, which remains absolutely true.

But I also think there's the wider kind of vibe of the conference, which is beyond this kind of policy report and looking at Malcolm Press, the UK president's speech happening on Thursday morning.

It's also very much a please don't do anything to us kind of plea.

You know, please don't give us any more initiatives, don't give us any more policy, definitely don't give us a big review.