Crucial role of UK universities
Key Government announcements this year have made clear the key role of universities in the UK economy and in the Labour administration’s plans for the future.
In particular, the Modern Industrial Strategy recognised “the crucial role of universities as engines for innovation and skills.”
It went on to state: “Universities are crucial to regional and local economic impacts and are anchor institutions in their local communities, with research showing they are in the top three exporters in 102 constituencies in the UK.”
Headline-grabbing research wins international investment, while many universities work closely with their local and regional authorities on projects to boost local economies. Most science parks are the offspring of their local university, providing a platform for spin-out businesses to grow and fostering continued research and development as they move from academia to the commercial sector.
Despite a string of challenges facing the nation’s universities sector, from funding and immigration policy to greater competition from the HE sector overseas, it remains “a huge asset”, says Greg Wade, Head of Innovation Policy at Universities UK – the collective voice of 141 universities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
“The UK university sector has been one of our most successful export industries over the last 30 years,” said Greg.
“It is a huge asset to the nation in terms of the international competitiveness of the research and development universities carry out.
“At the same time there is the local economic impact of universities – the many and varied the roles universities play in underpinning and supporting key sectors, for example life sciences, and the opportunities they bring to students.
“I think the current Government has recognised that it is one of our strongest assets in terms of international competition and international reputation.
Greg believes the Local Innovation Partnership Fund unveiled by the Government this summer is a vote of confidence for research and innovation in higher education.
As part an £86 billion boost to R&D funding in the Spending Review 2025, the Local Innovation Partnership Fund is a new UKRI-led programme that will invest up to £500 million in the development and scaling of high potential innovation clusters across the UK.
The LIPF is built on the premise that the conditions for innovation-led growth, and the ability to capitalise on opportunities in places, are dependent on strong local leadership and effective collaboration between civic institutions, business and universities – a model of collaboration described as the ‘Triple Helix’.
Collaboration at the core
Backing the new fund when it was launched this summer, Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, said: “Collaboration is at the core of this fund, which will enable local partners, businesses, key growth sectors and universities to work closely together to achieve the common goal of transformative change in their region for local people.”
But challenges remain.
This year the financial difficulties facing some universities have continued to hit the headlines, with job cuts at Keele, Bangor and Cardiff, while the principal of Dundee University and two senior members of its governing body quit in July after a damning report into a financial collapse that led to a £22m government bailout.
In May a UUK survey found the major of universities responding were making operational cutbacks to deal with growing financial pressures, including reducing investment in repairs and maintenance. Some institutions have closed courses and even departments, some have cut research investment and a quarter have made compulsory redundancies
But, as Greg Wade points out: “Universities aren't alone in facing a wide range of global economic disruption as well as economic challenges within the UK, such as affording the public sector with an ageing population.
“Universities aren't part of the public sector, but they do get a lot of public support; they're accountable for that and they can't be immune to the budgetary pressures that are affecting everyone at the moment. For example local authorities have faced considerable challenges; the NHS is facing considerable challenges.
“It’s part of a broader context, although there are specific issues for the university sector.
Greg continued: “One of the important things going forward is making sure universities and research parks are as embedded as they can be in local skills networks – providing local opportunities.
“Overall the Government’s commitment to an allocation of money to R&D is extremely positive. The Industrial Strategy was a vote of confidence in the role research, development and innovation can play in supporting both national and local growth.
“While we are still waiting to see the details of these initiatives, I think the overall context is still positive.”
A need to evolve
At the same time, said Greg, “I think the sector recognises that the world is changing and they need to change with it. We've developed a major initiative on transformation and efficiency, producing a blueprint on the higher education sector just before the end of last year. Whilst it emphasises the strength and value of the sector, there is also the recognition that the sector needs to evolve in order to respond to the challenges.
“But overall we are absolutely seeing a positive background for innovation in the UK at the moment. We've got the local Innovation Partnership fund, we've got the commitment to the Higher Education Innovation Fund in England – which underpins a huge amount of both the innovation work of universities, but also the wider business engagement, community engagement and research commercialization activities.
“We've had the Proof of Concept Fund and we know that there is a lot of government interest in the role of universities in startups and spin outs, many of whom will be tenants of research parks and they play an important part of the ecosystem.
“So I think there there are a lot of positives.
“One of the challenges, and one of our concerns, is how all those funding programmes intersect with devolution in England. There’s an awful lot of messaging about the role and value of mayoral strategic authorities, and we're pleased to see universities are heavily engaging with them and collaborating with them, developing local growth plans that have a strong emphasis on innovation.
“We’re also positive about the co-creation element and having universities more engaged with their communities, for instance helping with the capacity of mayoral strategic authorities to deliver on local economic growth.
“The universities from northeast England are a good example of that.”
Universities in Lancashire have collaborated with local leaders to develop a Lancashire Growth Plan, while in Greater Manchester, local leaders and universities have published a Civic University Agreement, which commits partners to reducing inequality, meeting local skills needs, ensuring R&D supports key sectors such as digital technology and cyber security and developing the UK’s first city-region wide innovation agency, Innovation Greater Manchester.
Supporting emerging clusters
Meanwhile, the North East Combined Authority has published an interim local growth plan which includes investment in a new North East Investment Fund to help boost university spin-outs, working with universities on key clusters such as space, technology, data and defence and meeting critical skills needs.
Greg Wade continued: “We mustn't just focus on where clusters are strong, we must also identify and support emerging clusters if the ambition of the Industrial Strategy to ensure that growth and opportunity reaches the whole of the UK is to be achieved. Universities can play an important role in relation to that.
“The Government is committed to significant economic investment in R&D, which is positive. But we need to look at how we can be more internationally competitive in terms of attracting foreign direct investment, for example, to boost that investment.
“We have a good track record but we need to look at mobilising the value of universities, not just their research but also skills and talent and their contribution and impact on the wider community, creating locations that people want to relocate to and invest in.
“It's about making sure that research has local and national economic impact and that its impact includes creating opportunities for high-skilled high-reward jobs.
“This is where you can see the benefits of local and regional collaboration, where universities of all types have particular strengths and the combination of those strengths can enhance the impact of those universities, supporting their future sustainability.
“Another big issue is the skills debate. For me, the single most important thing is the collaboration between universities and employers. And that means employers of all sizes, including SME's, because there's no point having a separate debate about what skills are needed.
“The better the conversations can be between employers and universities about what those skills needs are and how they can effectively meet them, the better for everyone.”
The skills debate inevitably leads to the difficulties universities and research organisations face in accessing global talent. “This includes increasing restrictions on overseas students,” said Greg. “But universities can't act in isolation to wider public concerns about immigration, even if our belief is that the international students are not the biggest issue in relation to that.
“Once you get down to the local level and the local economic impact, a lot of local communities recognise the benefits of having international students. And initiatives to attract talent from the United States and elsewhere are a positive sign.”
In another of the Government’s summer announcements, a new Global Talent Taskforce – backed by a £54 million fund – is intended to attract world-class researchers and their teams to the UK.
The taskforce will support researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, top tier managerial and engineering talent and high-calibre creatives to relocate was well as building a pipeline of talent who want to come to Britain.
It followed the launch of Turing AI ‘Global’ Fellowships, which will provide £25 million of funding for world-leading academics to build a team and conduct groundbreaking AI research at UK organisations.
Greg Wade said: “Despite all the troubles, all the challenges that we see in the headlines about universities and all the people involved, we mustn't forget that there's a huge level of commitment in universities to doing interesting and positive research and ensuring that the research has real world impact as well as developing the students and ensuring that they have future success enough and creating opportunities.
“As soon as you dig below the surface of some of the negative headlines you do still see an awful lot of collaboration, partnership and commitment to creating an lot of value and people in research parks are living in those relationships on a day-to-day basis.
“I see a lot of positives, but that is not to belittle any of the challenges that we face and the need to be innovative and creative in addressing them.”
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