Listening to the public discourse one could be forgiven for thinking that the British higher education system is a failure. It is not. It is the envy of the world.

According to the Times Higher Education world university rankings, the UK has three of the top 10 universities in the world and seven of the top 10 universities in Europe. We have 12 of the top 100 universities in the world and 31 of the top 100 universities in Europe.

I cannot think of a single sector of the economy, or of British social or cultural life, in which we do so well. We delight in the success of our athletes at the Olympic Games and root for British films and actors at the Oscars, yet we seem to treat universities as a problem — even though every day our researchers enhance our understanding of the universe, search for cures for diseases and help us to comprehend the world around us.