Several people have said that they found the format of last month's posts - where I produced an annotated daily diary - both interesting and informative.  But I intend this month to revert to commenting on individual items in my schedule that I think might be of interest to readers around the university.

The key event of the past month has been the general election, with an outturn that is actually rather unclear in its implications for higher education.  The formal 7 page agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats contains relatively little on universities. One of the key opt-outs for the coalition is for the Liberal Democrats not to be bound to vote in favour of any policy that results from Lord Browne's review of university funding and student fees.  Of course we knew that the Liberal Democrats were committed to the abolution of tuition fees - although their position on when this could be achieved had become very vague by the time of the election.  Although at one time I was guessing that the Browne Review would conclude in July 2010, this is now looking increasingly unlikely. That would push back any likely introduction of changes until 2012 at the earliest.

The coalition agreement has a deafening silence on funding for research, and I suspect that reflects a lack of real interest in the topic from either of the coalition partners.

And the statement on immigration provides no clues as to the attitude the new government might take to the impact of the points-based immigration system on students - a key issue for many universities.  I went with a small group of other Russell Group PVCs for Learning and Teaching to meet the Conservative spokesman on immigration a couple of months ago, and he at least was giving every appearance of listening to us then.

So we are in for an interesting period during which I hope some clear lines start to emerge to tell us how this new government is going to relate to universities.