A strong university sector is fundamental to a strong economy

As the government begins its Comprehensive Spending Review there has never been a more important time to talk about the importance to the UK’s future prosperity of sustained investment in our country’s excellent university teaching and world-leading research base.

Given the scale of the savings unprotected departments have been asked to find(somewhere between 25% and 40% in real terms by 2019–20), this will be no easy task. But the rationale for doing so is compelling. As the government itself recognised in its Productivity Planin July, the ‘dynamic, open enterprising economy’ it wants to see is underpinned by ‘long-term public and private investment in infrastructure, skills and science’.

This places universities at the nexus of any vision for future growth, improved productivity, and a high-skill knowledge economy.

On higher-level skills, university education is essential to meeting current and future demand – which is projected to rise significantly in the next five years, with almost half of all jobs requiring some form of higher education by 2022.

On R&D and science, universities are at the heart of the UK’s world-leading research base, which brings great economic and social benefits to the UK.

On innovation, universities up and down the country work successfully with businesses big and small to commercialise research, incubate new ideas, and upskill their employees.

And at the local and regional level, universities encourage entrepreneurship, attract investment and talent to their area, and provide and create jobs.

UUK’s recommendations to the spending revieware designed to ensure that universities can continue to deliver all this. In particular, we are calling for:

• funding for high-cost subjects in England (such as engineering and medicine) to not fall below current levels per student in real terms, one way in which  universities can drive up teaching standards in the way universities minister Jo Johnson wants to see
• sustained government investment in grants that support students from disadvantaged backgrounds in England
• a long-term strategy to increase investment in R&D, to bring it closer to that of competitor countries
• renewal of the science budget ring-fence, which offered vital protection to UK research in the last parliament
• sustained support for funding streams that allow universities to drive innovation and invest in new and emerging areas

In recent years universities have worked hard to become more cost-effective, delivering over £1 billion in efficiencies in the last three years alone. But the government should be in no doubt that misplaced or mistimed cuts will put at risk the excellence and global reputation of our universities. This, in turn, will limit the vital contribution universities can make to improving productivity, boosting growth and meeting the country’s skills needs.

A strong university sector is fundamental to a strong economy, and ultimately a prosperous society. The outcome of this Spending Review will show us the extent to which the government not only recognises this but can back it up with some tough, but positive and far-sighted, decisions.