Jacqui Smith’s in The Telegraph on 10 May that UK universities are “neglecting their central purpose” represents both a threat and a possible opportunity for institutions beleaguered by funding pressures.
Responding to the Office for Students’ recent analysis of sector finances, which found that nearly half of English universities are facing a deficit, Smith said the government would be “announcing a package of reforms this summer to put things right”. But, in exchange, universities will “also need to do your bit. If we allow you to increase the fees you can charge students, then this…must be backed with a clear commitment to break down barriers to opportunity and support our mission to drive growth.”
She added that this meant increased “focus on the core mission of higher education, which is rooted here in Britain, its young people, its economy and its society”.
But what does that mean in practice? At least part of the answer is set out in the government’s English Devolution , which was published last December. It suggests that the creation of fewer, larger local “strategic authorities” with enhanced powers will strengthen “local innovation ecosystems” by creating partnership between local leaders, businesses and universities.
Our ongoing of the Department for Education’s Opportunity Areas programme, which ran from 2017 to 2022, supports the idea that universities, as , have an important role to play in generating growth at a local level. But this is about more than just “innovation”. The White Paper’s “” highlights key areas of local policy in which universities have expertise: transport and local infrastructure; skills and employment support; housing and strategic planning; economic development and regeneration; environment and climate change; health, well-being and public service reform; and public safety. If universities were to suggest evidence-informed strategies to address such issues, this would position academic study as a public good and promoting higher education as something that is both accessible and relevant to local communities, third sector organisations and businesses.
Hence, by becoming “”, universities can both benefit their communities and boost their own case for government help to address their own financial crisis.
However, the current model of higher education in England, focused on the individual pursuit of success measured in primarily economistic ways, stands at odds with the ethos of devolution, which is about place-based collaboration.
Moreover, embracing a civic role may require greater flexibility in the way that higher education is delivered. For example, to capitalise on the rollout of England’s Lifelong Learning Entitlement (), due in September 2026, universities may need to offer evening classes to those who would otherwise be unable to consider enrolling?because of caring responsibilities and/or employment commitments – thereby helping to reverse a national in mature students’ higher education participation over the previous decade. Those classes could be tailored, in partnership with strategic authorities, to the adult skills funding discussed in the English Devolution White Paper.
Yet the role for universities in devolution is not just about skills in a vocational sense. For instance, a recent initiative has seen professors from Durham University partnering with a prison education charity to teach ancient philosophy. The ethos of this programme is “to help prison learners use ancient philosophical wisdom to inform contemporary life”, with a view to reducing recidivism.
Criminologists have long argued that – which education promotes – can deter crime and deviance. Delivering similar programmes to members of their local communities could allow universities to boost both public safety and public health.
Furthermore, engaging local people with citizen-based education will help build a sense of community and “empower [them] to bring community spaces back into community ownership”, as the Devolution White Paper proposes.
By contrast, universities that are not integrated within their local communities risk becoming increasingly as devolution progresses for perceived negative impacts on the locality. The sometimes fraught relationship between “town” and “gown” has existed since universities were established, and while it operates differently depending on the locality, the common peril is that universities come to be seen by locals as part of large, distant power structures that are perceived to have overlooked the downsides of national and international policies on many regional localities and “ordinary people” – a perception reflected in England’s recent .
The Devolution White Paper emphasises the need to “move to a meaningful partnership between central and local government”, and universities are well positioned to help mediate this relationship. Academics’ collegial working practices mean that our scholarship is often built on relationships that are rooted in different places, local, national and international.
Through the power of research, dialogue and action, then, universities have the potential to link up local and national policymaking – and, in doing so, help the government avoid a that could lead to an even worse result for it at the next general election.
is a research assistant, is a research associate and is a professor in the department of education at the University of Bath. is a professor in the School of Education at Durham University. Their project is called “”.
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