Will arrows hit their target?

Note: This post was written by a senior researcher at a centre for local and regional development studies at a Russell Group university, who asked not to be named. – John Whitfield, comment and analysis editor, Research Fortnight.

It’s interesting to note how the word ‘local’ was quietly dropped from the title of Andrew Witty’s review of ‘Universities and Growth’ released on 15 October.  When the review’s terms of reference (pdf) were published in May, they spoke of investigating ‘Universities in their Local Communities: Enabling Economic Growth’ and exploring “the range of ways that universities contribute to their local economies including as agents of research and innovation, as providers of skills, employers, purchasers of goods and services, and as facilitators bringing people together” and “how to create an integrated strategy between the local and national players”. 

Some time in the past six months any hint of a ‘place’ agenda in describing the role universities might play in driving growth seems to have fallen by the wayside. The final document has executed a volte-face, and is instead urging that funding should be structured “by technology/industry opportunity – not by postcode.”  It also tells us to “embrace the country’s density of population and institutions”—music to the ears of institutions that happen to be in areas ‘thick’ with potential collaborators in the public and private sectors.