Valuing and supporting regional engagement activities

1. Valuing and supporting regional engagement activities David Charles, EPRC, University of Strathclyde

2. Three main elements • Making engagement visible • Measuring activity • Encouraging or rewarding engagement • Mainly drawing on UK experience

3. Making engagement visible • What do we include in engagement? • Not just about business – regional development is more complex than that • Includes regional sensitivity in core mission • Voluntaristic activities • Staff engagement – scholarship of engagement • University strategic orientation - stewardship of place

4. Cycle of engagement Building and strengthening requisite relationships with local partners Increasing awareness of local partners regarding opportunities and resources available through the institution Working proactively with those partners to identify needs and opportunities for engagement Encouraging students and faculty to engage with community needs and rewarding such engagement

5. A hidden activity • Unless universities audit these things then they usually don’t know how much is going on • Much engagement falls into the individual category • Central university policies can have perverse impacts on place and hence on the university • Regional studies of engagement activity – UK examples, OECD reviews

6. HEFCE/UUK Regional Mission project • Capacity building project working with 9 regional HE associations – series of reports to make engagement visible • Dynamic impacts on the competitiveness of the regional economy • Impact on urban and rural regeneration • Lifelong learning and employability • The cultural agenda • Social wellbeing and health • Sustainability • Contribution to regional institutional capacity

7. Measurement and assessment issues • Qualitatively different to assess than teaching and research • Not same consensus over idea of quality • Not simply in control of university • Does not indicate institutional excellence • Partly dependent on external demand and environment • Subjective assessment depending on perspective

8. Different forms of KT and RE • Different paths to KT – research exploitation or informal exchange • KT as codified vs tacit knowledge – who benefits? • Other forms of engagement – cultural, social, governance relationships etc • Are we assessing university or regional environment? • Varied possible forms of excellence, some easier to measure than others

9. Simple exploitation measures • Patents, licences, spin offs, contract income • Discipline-specific opportunities and partly demand driven • Example of HEBCIS survey in UK, AUTM in US and Canada • Different rankings of universities for different indicators

10. Universities with the highest number of spin offs where the university has some ownership in 2007/8 and in 2010/11 Source HEBCIS

11. Most active universities for graduate start ups Source HEBCIS

12. Benchmarking instead of ranking • Comprehensive set of indicators • Identify areas of strength and weakness • University and partners to decide on prioritisation • Benchmarking with other universities to learn how to improve those areas seen as important • Differentiation as an objective to better meet needs of stakeholders

13. Engagement embedded in university vision and mission

14. Rewarding and valuing engagement

17. Encouragement of engagement • Government support and funding for engagement • University strategies, policies and incentives • Development of a culture or scholarship of engagement

18. UK Government initiatives in 2000s • DTI white paper in 1998, ‘Building the Knowledge Driven Economy’ • 12 Science Enterprise Centres through the Science Enterprise Challenge • Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) • University Challenge Fund with funding from the Treasury, Wellcome Trust and Gatsby Charitable Foundation • Higher Education Reach Out to Business and the Community • launched 1999 - first tranche of £60 million for three-year projects in 87 institutions or consortia: second round £22 millionin 2000 with 50 awards (11 collaborative projects) • University innovation Centres, large, regionally-based, research and innovation centres often focused on collaboration between HEIs e.g. nanotechnology in Newcastle • Higher Education Innovation Fund • RDA initiatives through ‘single pot’ • Different schemes in Scotland, Wales and NI

19. And more…. • Lambert review strengthens understanding of the regional role • RDAs with Science Councils and new centres of excellence • HEFCE support for further regional collaboration • Active Community Fund • Science Cities • Beacons of public engagement – then Catalyst programme • Catapult centres

20. University internal changes • Boundary spanning units • Promotion criteria and parallel career tracks • Senior management roles • Specialist strategic engagement units • KE and engagement strategies • New campus concepts

21. Creating a culture of engagement • It already exists to some degree among academic staff • Needs formal recognition and support • Capacity building is a key element • Careful with assessment as will skew activity • Use measurement to achieve wider goals, not to create rankings for the sake of rankings