Universities 4.0 and their role in driving place-based innovation for socio-economic transformation

This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Martin Betts, CEO of HEDx and Visiting Professor at Aston University, Professor Aleks Subic, Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive of Aston University, and Deborah L. Wince-Smith, President of the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils.

Place-based innovation is emerging as a global phenomenon, with universities playing a key role in regional and national innovation ecosystems. These regions and nations seek to leverage university R&D and assets to drive new business formation, investment, innovation, and entrepreneurship for economic and social gains. And, at the same time, universities are transitioning to new models of operation with new revenue streams in response to financial pressures arising from fixed rates of student funding in the UK, capped student numbers, declining demand elsewhere, and unpredictable international fee-paying student demand patterns.

Universities need to rethink how they do business and the products they offer to meet dramatic changes in the world of work and knowledge creation. We are in a time of evolving views on the value of traditional higher education and its relevance to what students should learn, the skills needed by employers and investments by governments. These are all occurring in an environment of declining public affinity for universities and constrained public budgets.

Universities seek new solutions to these challenges as they consider their contribution to communities and society, and their roles in improving economic productivity and competitiveness. The Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils (GFCC)—the world’s first global network of councils and other organisations devoted to sharing knowledge on competitiveness—explores and addresses these issues. Through high-level networking, think-tank events, in-depth conversations, advice, and education, the GFCC disseminates best practices to accelerate productivity, growth, and prosperity for countries, regions, and cities.

The GFCC’s University and Research Leadership Forum issued discussion papers on the concept of Universities 4.0 to mirror digital transformation in the manufacturing sector and other technology-rich businesses worldwide. Universities 4.0 envisions data-driven technological innovation to enable new models of enterprise and leadership in higher education. For example, universities need to build digital ecosystems to connect stakeholders on and off campus.

Think tanks such as HEPI in the UK and HEDx in Australia support universities making these transitions by sharing knowledge and best practices via expert events, blogs such as this, and networks. Pioneering higher education institutions such as Aston University are conceiving and pursuing novel innovation strategies and models to help drive the social and economic transformation of the cities and regions in which they are based. Under a strategy defining the university as inclusive, entrepreneurial, and transformational, Aston is pursuing:

• digital enterprise strategy to enable an omni-channel education model,
• community engagement of equity groups in place and online education,
• strategic partnerships with industry, businesses, and global stakeholders, and
• transformative innovation culture at Aston focused on placemaking and inclusive growth,

that is seeing performance and reputation of the university elevate rapidly.

One way these strategies are being implemented is through innovation precincts or districts. These geographically targeted areas are designed to stimulate economic growth by co-locating and leveraging the physical assets of universities, research institutions, high-tech companies, advanced civic infrastructure and thriving ecosystems of entrepreneurs, businesses, and investors.

A classic example was the Warwick Manufacturing Group in the 1990s which forged deep relationships between an engineering and business school with local manufacturing partners. These transformed the competitive position of Warwick University. Similarly, on a greater geographical scale, Aston University is driving the development of the Birmingham Innovation Quarter (BIQ) and the Birmingham node of the new UK Investment Zone aiming to catalyse innovation and social-economic transformation by creating a tech innovation ecosystem in the heart of the city.

In the northeast of Singapore, the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) at Punggol sees a new 6^th national university as an Institute of Applied Learning, opening a new campus co-located with a new digital innovation precinct. SIT brings novel approaches to industry-delivered, competency-based learning and applied research, a differentiated offering in a successful higher education system. Singapore has an enviable reputation for economic growth and innovation as part of national industry policy and offers compelling lessons globally.

More broadly, place-based innovation is a major driver of inclusive growth and socio-economic transformation, including the regeneration of post-industrial cities. In the UK, the new Labour government has made boosting the country’s sluggish economic growth a top priority, and the new Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Innovation, Peter Kyle, recognized in one of his early speeches that long-term, sustainable economic growth is impossible without innovation. Governments across the world are and should be looking to the potential of innovation precincts as drivers of growth. Policy and fiscal levers should enable their development and success.

Universities play a pivotal role in driving place-based innovation and socio-economic transformation. They have new roles as active catalysts of change through knowledge transfer and skills development for a global digital economy. The Universities 4.0 concept is based on digital transformation as a basis for enhanced industry innovation and envisions changes such as:

• Embedding lifelong learning across the continuum of education and training;
• Adopting personalised, flexible, and adaptive technology-enabled learning;
• Focusing on high value-adding human skills that cross conventional disciplinary boundaries and are not easily automated;
• Developing new directions in interdisciplinary research at the interface between technology, business, and humanity to address emerging issues in the digital economy and society; and
• Embracing emerging cyber-physical technologies and ways of working through new forms of public and private sector partnerships that support both education and research.

Arizona State University (ASU) is a globally recognized example, voted the most innovative US university for more than 10 years running by US News and World Report. ASU, which has no medical school, has grown into one of the largest public research universities through world-class partnerships with the healthcare and semiconductor sectors and industries. It is building on its 20 years of reimagining learning in partnership with 140 EdTech companies at EdPlus. It has launched a strategic partnership with OpenAI in a culture of experimentation and innovation in GenAI.

The authors are working together to shine a light on developments in university partnerships with communities, industry, and local and national governments. A forthcoming event – co-sponsored by our organisations and hosted at Aston University in Birmingham on November 8^th – will bring together leaders and experts from universities, government, industry, and communities to highlight leading global case studies from key innovation precincts.

In part, this event reflects the crucial role HEPI plays in offering knowledge and expertise as a think tank for UK universities. HEPI’s Director Nick Hillman will consider place-based innovation in the context of the state of the UK higher education sector. This is emerging under a new government, with acute financial challenges giving a burning need for new revenue, and a challenging social and political context in which university leaders are currently reviewing strategies and plans. We would argue that one part of that review must reconsider how universities serve communities utilising digital economic advances in the new context of a polycrisis with significant societal and environmental challenges. It is a time for big ideas, and place-based innovation by Universities 4.0 is a big idea whose time has come.