The new Convener of Universities Scotland has warned that another tight spending review settlement for universities will make it extremely difficult for a key Taskforce target to be met.

Speaking exclusively to Holyrood magazine, Professor Anton Muscatelli said that another funding settlement in 2011 on the same level as that allocated in 2007 would make it highly unlikely that the target for investment in Scottish Higher Education set out in the recent Taskforce report will be achieved.

The interim report published by the Joint Future Thinking Taskforce on Universities in June included a challenge from Universities Scotland to raise the proportion of GDP invested in higher education in Scotland from the current level of 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent by 2028. This would bring Scotland up to the top 25 per cent of OECD countries in terms of the share of gross national product spent on universities. At only 1 per cent of the country’s GDP, Scotland’s higher education investment currently lags behind the OECD average of 1.2 per cent.

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