British universities have reacted with disappointment after the government department that dealt with higher education was scrapped and replaced by a “super-ministry” focussed on business, skills and the economy.

Less than two years after it was set up, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills has been merged with the business department to create the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The move also brings science and business back into the same department.

The creation of BIS has been interpreted by some as a sign that universities are viewed as “an arm of business”.

Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, described the decision as “very unsettling and disappointing”. He said the old department had not been given time to prove itself.

The University and College Union said it was “very concerned” that higher education was no longer considered important enough to have its own department.

“Education has the power to change people’s lives, and if we are serious about the important role it can play in helping us out of the recession, we need experts in education at the helm, not business interests,” said Sally Hunt, UCU general secretary.

Lord Mandelson, the minister for the new department, stated that it was right to bring higher education and science under the same roof as business, “because a new world is emerging, one on the edge of a new Industrial Revolution that is driven by new technologies and the … shift to low carbon”.

From Rebecca Attwood at Times Higher Education Supplement