The university in its place
By Professor John Brennan, Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information, Open University Business School
I have been researching universities in Britain and around the world for over 30 years. Projects have focused on topics such as the links between universities and the labour market, how quality and standards are maintained, how effective governance is achieved, and on the impacts of universities on other parts of society – the economy, social equity, social cohesion, political and social change.
In this short piece, I want to draw particularly on one current and one recent research project. The current one is an international project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) on ‘Change in Networks, Higher Education and Knowledge Societies’ which is part of a larger research programme of the European Science Foundation on ‘Higher Education and Social Change’. The recently completed project was also funded by the ESRC as part of a programme of research on the impact of higher education on regional economies. It was entitled ‘Higher Education and Regional Transformation: social and cultural perspectives (HEART)’.
A forthcoming book based on the project shares the title of this piece: ‘The University in its Place’.
In the case study approach adopted by the HEART project, we found considerable differences in the universities we investigated; in population, social context and local and regional settings. This is not to say that some generalisations are not possible, but considerable care needs to be taken in making them. In my experience, such care can often be absent in policy debates.
The regional economic impact of universities can be both direct and indirect. On the former, universities clearly play a part in up-skilling and re¬skilling local workforces, but it is dangerous to see them as only doing so for their immediate region. Universities play an important role in enhancing the mobility of labour, across regions and, increasingly internationally. The regional impact in terms of the local labour force is often more apparent in the public sector than in the private sector, with particularly ‘high tech’ parts of the latter increasingly recruiting internationally. Some universities see their major role in lifelong learning and re¬skilling existing workers rather than in initial preparation for the labour market.
One of the key regional functions that universities play lies in ‘opening up’ relatively isolated communities to wider influences, and to making visible the riches and attractions located in and around the region.
A second important area of university impact is regional ‘image’ and ability to attract inward investment. For both universities and their regions, ‘image’ is potentially both enhancing and constraining. A poor image of place limits a university’s ability to attract students from outside the region. And a poor image of its university limits the benefits which can accrue to the region from that university. Image in this context should not be confused with crude league tables which almost completely neglect the rich diversity of universities across the sector.
Image is multi-faceted, and includes the physical impact on the immediate environment, involvement in cultural ventures (both high and popular culture) and through the presence and activities of students themselves. Universities also have a strategic impact on their regions through partnership/ development opportunities with agencies concerned with regional regeneration. Many university leaders play an important regional role through their membership of local boards and committees, frequently acting as a ‘neutral and objective’ voice among competing local interest groups.
Universities differ in the nature and level of their regional engagement. Some are more internationally-focussed and some more regionally focussed, but research suggests that most universities combine a mixture of global and local agendas with considerable differences in the balance between the two. In many universities, a rhetoric of engagement is not dissociated from the discourse on employability. Their discourses and activities around community support, civic engagement and active citizenship also seem more explicit and very diverse, reflecting the constraints and opportunities of particular regional contexts. These universities also tend to have a self-assigned mission of cultural regeneration (raising aspirations, entrepreneurial culture), potentially bringing a ‘transformational’ potential to the region.
That said, the local and the global functions of universities should not be regarded as being in conflict. One of the key regional functions that universities play lies in ‘opening up’ relatively isolated communities to wider influences, and to making visible the riches and attractions located in and around the region. As commented to me by one university Vice-Chancellor, “what any developing region needs is at least one successful football team and one successful university!”
Finally, a touch of realism is also needed about the impact of universities. As with all developmental interventions, there can be winners and losers. Thus, university widening participation activities tend to provide social mobility opportunities for the few without necessarily altering patterns of inequality that affect the many. In sub-regions with several higher education providers, a social stratification of institutions may map onto and reinforce wider patterns of inequality.
However, by its contribution to regional economic development and by increasing local employment and consumption levels, a university may bring advantages to all within its sub-region. By their impact on the local economy and labour market, universities may be changing who the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ are without necessarily impacting on overall levels of inequality and relative disadvantage. But we have found universities that see their role in tackling long-term, intergenerational inequalities. They seek to be ‘open’ to all by broadening notions of ‘access’ beyond course enrolments bringing knowledge, expertise and facilities to all members of the community.
John Brennan is Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information and Professor of Higher Education Research at the Open University. A sociologist by training, he has been researching universities, in Britain and around the world, for over 30 years.
