Unpicking the role of universities in economic growth

It appears that higher education will need to develop new arguments if it is to avoid deep cuts in the forthcoming spending review.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, is due to address delegates at the sixth Global University Summit in London. The conference takes place in the same country that is due to host the G8 meeting of world leaders, which is scheduled to take place in Northern Ireland on 17 and 18 June, and is intended to lobby influential people about the importance of universities.

Because the event is being held in the growth-bereft UK, the summit will address the role of universities in promoting wealth creation. Mr Cable’s colleague, David Willetts, the universities and science minister, has previously persuaded the Chancellor, George Osborne, that universities are the engines of economic growth, thereby saving the higher education budget from earlier cuts. Whether his argument will be accepted in the run up to the spending review on 26 June seems shaky: impressed by Mr Willetts’s previous success, other sectors have adopted the same arguments. Moreover the evidence supporting his claim appears thin, as we argue here.