NESTA is launching a provocation by Professor John Goddard exploring the vital economic and social contribution of the UK’s universities.
Professor John Goddard OBE, formerly Deputy Vice Chancellor Newcastle University, will present the provocation and then join a panel discussion with Professor Kathy Sykes, Professor of Sciences and Society at University of Bristol and Professor Steve West, Vice-Chancellor the University of the West of England to debate the role of Universities in regional economic growth. Stian Westlake, NESTA’s Executive Director, Policy and Research will moderate.
Re-inventing the civic university - keeping the noise down on Twitter liveblogging to
bit.ly twitpic.comStianWestlake
Question of seeing how the universities make a contribution to society and the economy especially given the Research Excellence Framework. BIS is interested in this work. Expect this provocation to have a big impact.
Prof John Goddard
The future shape of our 'world-class' higher education system. John Denham speech in Feb 2008 [quotes from it]. Mentions economy explicitly and other 'civic duties'. These things go beyond the traditional roles of the HE sector. It's about communications of the Universities with society. Some re-engineering of the higher education system will be required.
Public investment is an important aspect and needs to be responded to (local benefit needs to be demonstrated). But this is tinkering at the edges. Look back to the previous locally focused universities. And this was about engaging locally and being close to the local people.
But now the economy is very different; and someuniversities are still closely linked to their local economies.
We need to make manifest and transparent the contribution Universities make to the local economy and society. But there are many more HEIs than there were in the 19C for example. And this sets some challenges.
"My provovation argues that all universities have a duty to engage locally, nationally and globally to demonstrate their value." Some academics do engage locally but these activities do not receive the level of support of other mechanisms such as technology transfer.
Those academics who do engage with civic responsibilities find it very difficult to get support from their institutions to do it.
It seems to be done on an individual discipline basis rather than institutionally.
Goddard argues that Universities who wish to engage in civic activities will need to 'get their house in order'. This would mean 'funding by mission' - which will have big impact on the research councils. If every project has an impact statement how does that affect the way research is done?
Issue is how the university system responds to this.
Professor Steve West
We ask "What is a University for?". We have not been very good at communicating our roles. We need to be able to make our contributions clear.
Civic engagement goes back to our civic roots. UWE is a 'mixed economy' in terms of public engagement. We agree we need to implement the civic engagement ideas in the provocation.
We think not just in terms of our students and staff but also how we reach out into the local community through sports for example, or with schools. Outreach is important. These are present opportunities for Bristol and for the wider region as well as UWE.
We are close to communities and to business and we engage in research which tackles real-world problems important to our local communities and economies.
Staff need to be recognised - at all levels - not just academics. And it needs to happen consistently and be valued by the institution.
Goddard's paper sets out a number of challenges to Universities - sometimes we get these things right and often we do get them wrong. Metrics are difficult and we need to understand how to measure.
"Now more than ever Universities need to work in partnership with their local communities to tackle some of the challenges they face"
Asks for a 'pot of gold' but seems to accept their won't be one.
Professor Kathy Sykes
[Thanks everyone for being here, NESTA and John Goddard]
Need to engage more closely with the public. Not just 'third stream'. Needs changes to the funding regime. University of Bristol is about public engagement. Beacons are active in working on engagement.
Has 4 main key points to make:
1) It's beyond our civic duty - it's good for us. Academic and support staff need to have their perspectives widened.
2) We need to engage and ALSO do excellent research (blue sky) and this will be part of the REF - which has social and economic benefits anyway
3) Fulfill our national and international roles as well to help solve global problems. The whole institution needs to be aligned to this.
4) Funding a 'pot' for civic universities misses the point - as all universities should be involved in this.
|Now moving onto questions and discussion. Questions will be taken in groups. [A technique I don't like I have to say . . ]
Q Newport links between HE providers and linkages to city planning. The city-region idea - but how do we get into public policy-making
Q Richard Gresch from New Economy - also Cityregion interactions with partners. Strong phycical aspect to planning (he used to be a planner). How do we make sure that remoteness from civic centres soesn't cause a problem.
Q Ted Farrall [ - Bristol City Council - economic devt (speaks as a practitioner). Worked well with UWE and Bristol. They do a good job. [making a speech now not a q and speaking too fast for me to keep up - lots of tributes to UWE re academies and links to schools. A fan. And he makes a plea for better collaboration - says the 'elbows come out' when funding is involved - and this does not serve the community well . . .] [Phew]
Steve West "I should quit while I'm ahead" [laughter]. You can only do this thing by being closely linked to the needs of the community and really engaging. "You need to reach out and connect in". We need to be out there in the workplace, advising on policy and making a difference. Attitude of mind is what will make the change.
Leadership development programmes are important says Goddard - and they need to be linked to real projects 'doing things together'. But local government is driven by rules devised by CLG. They set up LSPs that did not mention Universities.
Robin Hambleton - needs to be leadership across the boundaries. Place-based leadership is important. Those not in Universities might like to be a bit bolder about being engaged and things like secondments can help. Why not have seriously big funding for universities who really do public engagement.
Kathy Sykes - agrees divisions within city councils reflect those in national government and this may not be the most useful thing. Need to break down the 'silo walls' in local government as these inhibit innovation.
Goddard says that Universities can 'join up the silos' and they have the power to use - but they don't necessarily use it.
Q from University of Bristol guy [missed the name, sorry]. We all have to collectively partner to work in the best interests of society and this has to be partnering at all levels; between universities and local government and local communities. [Indicates that once funding is involved then there's a tendency to competition rather than partnership].
[At this point I got my question in and as far as I remember i said something on the lines that this had turned into a bit of a 'love-in' rather than a 'provocation' and that while the things we were hearing were really good - was it the case across the rest of the sector? And if not, which types of instutions were not being 'civic' - what does 'bad' look like and what would Goddard really want to change?]
Goddard - I want to start by addressing the "Pot of money" issue but that really the questions are interlinked. Do we do it well?
We have in the UK, he says, gone 'too far' towards a market-driven notion of the universities. Rankings on the world league tables don't reflect the needs and obligations of universities. Gives example of Berlin - German universities do it really well. We can learn from them. They are really engaged.
Overall Goddard's message is that we need to move on a little bit from the public management aspects. He raises questions of autonomy. Difficult to impose cahnge given the level of individual autonomy.
Funding by mission raises this issue. Do we need a bit more 'steerage' in the system. My 'pot' proposal will have an incentive mechanism.
I think that what's going to happen is that unless we can demonstrate that we are organised for public good - there will be funding challenges - and we need to make sure we don't get 'salami sliced'.
West says - the Universities are good at giving the messages they need to give. They can game the system to convince whoever they need to convince. How do you get Universities and Government to play a different game?
The game needs to re-invented. There will be less money. Higher education is in for a 'rough ride'.
We need to partner strategically. Some universities will go bust - or merge and there will be fewer organisations and they will find it really hard. We hope it can be a controlled change and not crisis management. If we avoid taking action then this will not be a controlled change.
We need to ask fundamental questions about how we are organised and how we organise ourselves.
Kathy Sykes says we need to have all the things we can - but we can't all be one thing we can't all be world class. We are doing better with business engagement and that's really embedded she feels. But the whole state feels really vulnerable. It might determine the future of our ability to respond.
[At least they are beginning to talk about the real issues now].
Goddard says we need a 'portfolio' approach - real strategic alliances between institutions. Needs reorganisations and these need to be done before it's forced on universities by government. But will VCs respond and re-engineer before they are forced to? That's the big question . . .
[formal session closed]
by brian_condon via Twitpic 10/1/2009 3:28:26 PM