During the summer, Rodney Barker, who had a long and distinguished career as a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, died while travelling in Greece. Following his retirement, he had remained active as a writer and often featured as a lively commentator in the press, radio and television.

Rodney was my PhD supervisor in the 1990s and the smartest, wittiest, kindest and most supportive academic I¡¯ve met in the 37 years I¡¯ve been hanging around universities. And in recent years, both his career contributions and my experience of being his student have often led me to reflect on what good mentoring can achieve.

In the context of academia, where social class has long shaped access and career progression in all manner of subtle and not-so-subtle ways, I¡¯ve come to realise that Rodney¡¯s style of research leadership is a particular kind of cultural intervention that can contribute to social mobility.

He changed my life and the lives of many others, not only with his brilliant, inspirational teaching and imaginative, wide-ranging and beautifully written books but also with his deep empathy and sensitivity. Throughout my experience of the PhD, with all its inevitable peaks and troughs, he was unfailingly supportive and kind.

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But more importantly, without his gentle, considerate way of introducing a callow working-class lad from the north-east of England to serious academic discourse and culture, I wouldn¡¯t have completed the work. And I certainly wouldn¡¯t have had the confidence to get a lecturing job and start publishing and moving through the academy.

Rodney was not a director but an enabler. He combined amiable quirkiness and mild rebelliousness with deep curiosity, friendly charm and good humour. Never a conformist, he could, nevertheless, be infectiously earnest about the importance of knowledge and scholarship. He was never arrogant or didactic but he was tremendously serious about the power of intellectuals, big ideas, great books and great writing.

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And he always displayed a creative openness toward other disciplines. His was a profoundly imaginative, relational framework, integrating history, political science, political theory, sociology, social anthropology and even literary theory. It was far ahead of its time.

All these attributes were present in the ways he behaved, the things he said and the assumptions he quietly signalled as important to his students. The open, interdisciplinary approach to knowledge complemented his kind and enabling interpersonal manner.

I now realise that this blend of attributes is an excellent model for mentoring and research leadership in university life more generally. It helps you go your own way but you¡¯ll never feel that you¡¯re on your own.

But this is a style for which there now seems less space in universities, even in the social sciences and humanities.

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In the dash for REF metrics and completion rates, centrally directed doctoral training centres, pre-specified projects, massive grants and big teams ¨C all symptoms of the general hypercompetition for resources we now experience ¨C I fear we might be losing forever the gentler, more open, less didactic but still serious approach to research leadership that Rodney and many others of his generation contributed to UK higher education.

More fundamentally, I now also see this kind of mentoring style as an important, if often hidden, part of the revolutionary expansion of UK universities from the 1960s to the 1990s, from which I and countless others benefitted. It matters, but perhaps not in the that we tend to frame higher education¡¯s contribution to social mobility these days.

This style made a great difference to me, but it also fed into universities¡¯ broader social mission. It was a subtle but significant way of chipping away at long-established into the elite professions that stubbornly persist today. It introduced new generations to the wonder ¨C and the power ¨C of research and deep knowledge, but it also made them feel supported and not out of place.

As we continue through the next period of turmoil in universities, we should be sure to make room for this kind of approach to mentoring.

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is professor of political communication in the department of communication and media at Loughborough University.