We must help future graduates excel by giving universities sustainable funding
Results day is not the end of a student’s journey, it’s the beginning (Alamy)
3 min read
Today will be an important day for hundreds of thousands of students up and down the country, as they receive the results that will shape the next stage of their lives.
I want to wish each of them the very best for the future, whether they are celebrating, considering their options, or taking a moment to reflect before deciding their next steps.
Much of today’s media coverage will rightly focus on individual stories of A-level success. But results day is not the end of a student’s journey; it’s the beginning.
What happens over the next three or four years will shape the futures of these new undergraduates. The strength of the economy they graduate into, and the policies of the government in place by then, will impact the opportunities available to them.
This is why universities and government share a fundamental interest: ensuring that those starting this autumn leave our institutions ready to excel in a strong economy.
A central part of this government’s ambitions is its industrial strategy. Seven of the eight growth sectors it identifies employ a higher proportion of graduates than the wider UK workforce.
Partnering with businesses, universities are ensuring students develop the skills needed for these industries to thrive and are even pooling their resources together, choosing cooperation over competition.
Cornwall provides a clear example of how this works in practice. In an area with historically low higher education participation, the jointly run Penryn Campus of the University of Exeter and Falmouth University offers a wide range of degree programmes and shared facilities, supporting local skills, retaining talent and boosting the regional economy.
The success of the industrial strategy will also require a collaborative effort between a range of sectors, with universities at the heart.
In Plymouth, a partnership between defence firm Babcock, the city council, and the Royal Navy has resulted in a multibillion-pound investment in the area, including the Devonport dockyard, which will employ local people and require skilled graduates. Universities in the city, together with partner FE colleges, will be crucial to training and supplying this workforce.
Alongside skills, world-class research is the other driver of future prosperity. Innovations such as large language processing, FinTech and the Covid-19 vaccine all have their roots in research by UK universities. Our universities conduct 25 per cent of the UK’s research and development (R&D), worth nearly £15bn, delivering an economic impact of £54bn.
Collaboration is at the heart of the research ecosystem, whether between institutions, businesses or the government; working together is essential if we want to see research contribute to economic growth.
Funding streams like the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) have been instrumental in supporting this collaboration, with businesses, the public sector and local communities.
Yet, HEIF budgets are frozen for the year ahead. Quality related (QR) research funding has also been steadily eroded, down 15 per cent since 2010 in England, with even deeper cuts in the devolved nations.
QR allows universities to invest in early-stage innovation and maintain the research environment that key growth sectors depend on. If we want a resilient research ecosystem that drives economic growth, we need a sustainable funding solution.
That’s why it's so important for universities to engage positively with government on a clear ‘something for something’ basis, always evidencing our worth.
This is an important moment for the sector. Universities stand ready to work with the government to deliver the skills, research and innovation our economy needs.
We are already playing our part: driving regional development, supporting industries and giving students the opportunities they deserve.
But we can, and are eager to, do more.
To meet the scale of the challenge ahead, we need a sustainable funding model that matches the ambitions of both our sector and our country.
Professor Malcolm Press is President of Universities UK and Vice-Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University.
