How to spot a civic university

Institutions have a new way to understand their contribution to their places, says Julian Dobson

A host of universities now claim to be ‘civic’. But what does that actually mean, and how can we tell if they really are? 

Over the past year, I have been part of a team at Sheffield Hallam University exploring the idea of a ‘civic index’, following on from the Civic University Commission’s 2019 report and working with the Civic University Network set up in its wake. What we’ve come up with is more than an index. Indeed, we’ve stopped calling it one.