What does the public really want from civic universities? It’s complicated

The Royal Norfolk Show – an agricultural show held annually for 175 years – conjures up images of the best livestock and beer that East Anglia can offer. It promises warm summer days and fierce competition for the Horse of the Year award. It’s not something that makes you automatically think of cutting-edge digital engagement and a quiet democratic revolution.

But last year there was a dose of that when the University of East Anglia partnered with us at the thinktank Demos to use a new democratic tool called Polis to ask visitors what they think the role of a civic university should really be.

We were following up on the work of the UK’s Civic University Commission, which asked what it means to be a civic university in the 21st century. The commission, which published its final report in 2019, found many great examples of universities looking beyond their educational remit and putting the economic, social, environmental and cultural role in the community at the centre of their work. However, it failed to identify models of engagement that universities had based on the real, demonstrated needs of their local communities. Sometimes, it found, universities seek out conversations that they have already deemed worth listening to, rather than creating open listening channels.

UEA set out to do things differently, and that’s where we at Demos came in. Our focus is less on traditional partisan politics than on ensuring that ordinary people are listened to and that their ideas, lived experiences and expertise are factored into the decision-making process. With less and less money to spend on public services, our work looks at how we can utilise the relationships that we as citizens have with one another and with the state to cater for a multitude of needs.

Polis uses advanced statistics and machine learning but, at heart, it is a beguilingly simple tool. It asks users to agree or disagree with a series of statements and allows them to submit their own ideas, making it an easy and effective way to learn what people really think. And since it focuses on what people agree on, rather than what divides them, it enables us to map consensus around their contributions.

It has been used in Taiwan in various ways, including navigating the early stages of the pandemic, leading to measures that enjoyed popular support. It was used to facilitate a discussion in Bowling Green, Kentucky about improving the local area. And it has been employed by the Singapore government to canvass young people’s views on active citizenry, inclusivity and mental health.

Naturally, if a piece of technology has the potential to transform politics in Taiwan, the US and Singapore, it can also transform a university’s civic engagement in England’s rural far east – right? As well as the Royal Norfolk Show, we sent our researchers, with UEA colleagues, to in-person public engagement events held across the deprived seaside town of Great Yarmouth and on the UEA campus. A total of 534 people took part, giving us their reactions to 15,352 statements about civic universities and co-creating 275 more.

Participants were initially divided about the approach a civic university should take. However, after addressing these disagreements by seeding different statements and suggesting different solutions, we were able to find consensus on several possible solutions.

One unifier was to frame civic engagement as the means by which a university can help address a local problem. Likewise, we found that action is important. Even when people disagreed about the state of the actual relationship between the UEA and the region, we found that consensus could be built around what can be done to improve it.

Ultimately, what Polis helped demonstrate was both the appetite for and value in the idea of civic universities. Participants agreed that whether it was improving aspiration among young people, broadening opportunities for lifelong adult learning or improving local services and regional prosperity, there is and should be a role for universities to play.

So, in answer to the Civic University Commission’s question about what it means to be a civic university in the 21st century, our response is that the role goes further than simply servicing local needs. Civic universities can empower citizens and strengthen democracy by building the societal foundations that enable people to thrive. And, in Polis, we hope to have found one way to truly help institutions to do that – by closely listening to the breadth of opinion in the communities they serve.

Polly Curtis is chief executive of the thinktank Demos.