NCEE’s response to Universities UK ‘Our universities: generating growth and opportunity’ report
Our role in communities should not be taken for granted, or (even worse) denigrated to debates on student housing and the night-time economy. We support jobs, skills, innovation, and culture. Graduate start ups and university spin-outs generate nearly £5 billion every year to the UK, over four years we will have trained half a million healthcare professionals. So why are we not at the centre of the debate and the solution? There are many answers to that, and the changing political leadership hasn’t helped. So let’s stand firm with our call for how to further super-charge the value universities can bring to our society and its economy.
NCEE stands with Universities UK ‘Our universities: generating growth and opportunity’ which sets out practical actions that will boost our work in communities and proposes in partnership with Government we:
- Establish University Enterprise Zones in every university
- Create collaborative enterprise and opportunity hubs to engage communities in left-behind places
- Support sector-led university-employer partnerships
- Involve universities in policy making across the UK.
Our latest Entrepreneurial Universities Conference recognised the importance of place and the impact we can have. Bringing together entrepreneurial universities from across the UK we will in the next couple of weeks launch our Entrepreneurial Universities manifesto to further support the development of enterprise and entrepreneurial mindsets to be at the centre of universities and their role in place. Be a part of it by joining our Entrepreneurial University Community
We believe that University Enterprise Zones and Opportunity Hubs are places where we can truly foster collaboration and partnerships and importantly where we will create high value jobs and skills. They will be focal points for our ambition to involve communities and demonstrate the value we can bring. Imagine spaces where there are start-ups, community groups, researchers, apprentices and innovation.
And alongside these spaces UUK is calling for sector deals, showing how universities and businesses can work together within different sectors. Large companies alongside universities supporting clusters of excellence with smaller enterprises.
Knowing what is happening is vital. Universities UK call comes on the back of evidence of our impact, and knowledge of the strong track record. Part of that evidence base comes from our work we did for UUK ‘Getting Results’ , but importantly part also comes from our Enterprise Survey.
Our new 2022 Enterprise Survey is live and it would be great to hear your views so please do take 5 minutes to complete the survey. It’s amazing the influence you can have!