Drivers of growth: Universities’ enhanced civic role at the heart of national prosperity

This afternoon, in central Birmingham, Lloyds Banking Group and PwC will launch an important new report on the civic role of universities and the links with economic growth. The Foreword to the report has been written by HEPI Director Nick Hillman and is reproduced below.

All our higher education institutions – from the smallest and most specialist to the ancient research powerhouses – bring benefits to their areas, in jobs, income and expertise.

Yet as a sector, we have tended to emphasise their education and research roles more than their civic contributions. We have tended to talk about teaching, research and ‘third-mission’ activity, suggesting one area is of less importance. In contrast, the most successful higher education institutions around the world tend to regard all three areas as being of equal merit and as mutually reinforcing.

This report seeks to re-centre the local and regional economic role of universities at a pivotal moment for UK higher education. There is a changed political environment including more devolution, and a continuing need to respond to big challenges, like climate change. This is daunting, but it also provides a real opportunity for universities that can adapt to the new future.

In the pages that follow are a number of constructive ideas including, moving from a position where partnerships between universities and employers have often been governed by serendipity to having a single front door that is easy to access, even for small firms. As the paper’s numerous powerful case studies show, this goal is far from unattainable.

There is an old saying that, “If you want to build a great city, create a university and wait 200 years”. This paper explains how to deliver that – but on a faster timetable.