UK higher education must ‘stop playing defence’

I like September. It’s a month for fresh starts and optimism.

But as I begin my tenure as chief executive of Universities UK, optimism is in short supply. It is normal for someone taking up a role such as this to survey the challenges ahead. This autumn, for universities, the list is alarmingly long.

The effects of the cost-of-living crisis on staff and students, coupled with rising cost pressures on universities themselves, dominate the early conversations I have had with colleagues in universities across the country. These unwelcome developments exacerbate existing concerns about the financial sustainability of teaching and research – which are felt in all four nations of the UK. Underneath all this, there is a growing unease about public and political perceptions of universities – a sense that we’re losing the argument about the value of universities and the education they offer.

Meanwhile, the new prime minister, Liz Truss, will face extraordinary pressure to shield households and businesses from the effects of the energy war being waged by Vladimir Putin. Not only does it seem unlikely that the financial pressure on universities will be high on her list of priorities, it also seems possible that the government’s commitment to investment in research could be vulnerable. The budget for alternatives to the UK’s association to Horizon Europe is especially exposed.

These new troubles join an already crowded list of existing challenges – from pensions to the sector’s relationship with China. At UUK, we’re certainly not going to be short of things to work on.

Over the past few months, as I prepared to take on this role, I have been seeking advice from a wide range of people who work in universities, or who care about them for one reason or another. It is obvious that in such a climate, unless you have a clear idea of what is important, you will find yourself buffeted by circumstances, unable to set any sort of direction.

Almost everyone I have spoken to has said some version of the same thing: you need to get ahead of the agenda, rather than simply responding to it. A Canadian friend of mine put it more bluntly: “Stop playing defence.”

I understand this to mean two things. First, we’ve got to do a better job of countering the steady drip-drip of negative commentary on our universities. Second, we have to set our own positive agenda, which addresses what we need to do ourselves and what we need from our politicians, in order to safeguard and improve upon the outstanding university system the UK possesses.

I can’t pretend I have all of the answers, but my instinct is that we need to choose our priorities with great care; invest more time in a smaller number of longer-term objectives and look to make common cause where we can – both with politicians and with a much wider range of people with a stake in how our universities perform.

We won’t be able to disprove every criticism, and neither should we try, but we can choose one or two central themes of disquiet and work gradually and patiently, over the long term, to address them. Quality and value would be top of my list for that treatment. After all, we care just as much about the quality and value of higher education as those who doubt us.

I also believe that setting long-term ambitions for the sector can be part of the answer. Our university system matters, and so we have a responsibility to describe what we need to do to ensure that it remains world-class in a competitive age. We should work alongside ministers towards that common goal. We can make more of our collective insight.

As an organisation, Universities UK could do more to offer a window into the wealth of expertise in our university communities. Our sector ought to be able to put forward bright ideas setting out how universities could be harnessed to contribute more to economic growth; to spreading opportunity and wealth from Plymouth to Paisley; and to accelerating the energy transition we will need to tackle climate change and to reduce reliance on Russian gas.

We also have a responsibility to identify potential solutions to the challenges we face in our own backyard. These include options to address the financial sustainability of teaching and research for the long term, in a way that both feels fair to government and graduates and gives universities the resources they need to maintain the quality of UK higher education.

This difficult autumn brings its own opportunities. The febrile political climate means there could be space for good ideas, not least because we’ll be into an election period before we know it.

Universities are crucibles of new and good ideas. They are the places where answers are sought and solutions are found, and they have a fundamental responsibility for equipping graduates with the abilities they will need to change the world around them. If we spend more of our time working out how they can do that better, more effectively, I think we’ll win more public and political support.

Vivienne Stern is chief executive of Universities UK.