Reading the obituaries of scholars from the generation before our universities collapsed into the bungling bureaucratic nightmare of today makes me seek out a cask-strength single malt. We have abandoned so much idiosyncratic humanity that it makes one weep into the glass. Two such obituaries appeared this week, one in The Times on a pioneering scholar of African languages, Professor Gordon Innes (whom I knew), the other in The Guardian on an equally renowned linguist, Dr Joseph Cremona, who established the study of Romance languages — those derived from Latin — at Cambridge. Both were seminal in developing their subjects.

But both would also have had singular problems with the biggest nonsense of modern university life — the dreaded RAE, or research assessment exercise. This could only have been devised by a whole gamut of government Gradgrinds. Every five years, each university is awarded money on the basis of its research “output”. Academics must submit the four “best” of their recently published articles or books. These are then awarded points in the style of a Eurovision Song Contest. Anyone who spends years working on a serious masterpiece stands no hope at all.

Yet, Cremona’s obituarist observes: “Joe was a great and dedicated teacher, but — something perhaps inconceivable in today’s universities — he published very little.” Well, he would be out on his ear then. Along with other great teachers such as Jesus Christ and the Lord Buddha, no doubt. By contrast, Innes compiled grammar after dictionary after grammar. Unfortunately, dictionaries and grammars don’t count much in the brave new world of modern “research”. Textbooks don’t rank either; or long critical reviews and syntheses, while some academic journals are acceptable, others not. It is all gamesmanship and utter bunkum — who’s in or out in the Hall of the Research King.

But with this bunkum has vanished much humanity and brilliance, largely to America. It is no wonder that, on one measure, the UK is classed as having only two top physicists and three top geneticists. Yet, far worse is the fact that we are squeezing out the bizarre characters who once brought such width to genuine scholarship and learning. When I first went up, universities were more rewarding and richer places. Today, J. R. R. Tolkien would never have found time to write The Lord of the Rings, and even Charles Darwin would have had a rough ride over his prevarications with the long gestation of On the Origin of Species. Evolve faster, or die, my lad!

And what is this dire RAE for? Last time round, in 2001, not a candle! Unsurprisingly, allowing for sensible self-interest, 55 per cent of academics were classed as 5 or 5* researchers, while 40 per cent of departments were accorded the same collective accolade. But was any further research funding forthcoming?

You must be joking. Budgetary restraints meant that the whole costly exercise was a waste of time — and, of course, staff could have been doing much better things, like research and writing. Even more, they might have been praised for trying to teach the myriad new students thrust on them by the Government, which, needless to say, would like these benighted youngsters to pay for the “approved research” through top-up fees.

We desperately need universities that can nourish broader scholarship, not underfunded “research”, that are free from the Gradgrinds, and that can proudly value teaching and learning as one of their prime tasks. Let it please be RIP for the RAE, and let our characters of old flourish again in a brighter garden of learning.

The author is a Professor Emeritus at the University of London.