Support not trade-offs needed to power an innovation nation

Prospective Labour Party leader and would be UK Prime Minister – Andy Burham MP – made an impassioned pitch that UK’s scientists and entrepreneurs will be critical to position the UK as an innovation nation.

The National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) welcomes the ambition set out in his speech today. Clearer industrial priorities and targeted ‘good growth’ funding are welcome interventions. 

But it is important that any new government understands how interconnected science, innovation and entrepreneurship are with interventions focussed on higher education. Burnham placed significant emphasis on the findings of the Milburn Review, and committed to reorientating school education away from a focus on getting students into higher education. However, he also highlighted the important central role that universities play as anchor institutions for regional growth, and it is vital his devolution reforms do not lose sight of this. 

NCUB CEO, Dr Joe Marshall comments: 

“Universities’ contribution to local growth includes supplying skills and talent, but is broader and deeper – extending to the research and innovation activities needed to seed and grow the next generation of business activity.” 

Achieving parity between academic routes should therefore not be pursued by decreasing support to universities, whose finances are heavily interlinked with this broader activity.  

Dr Marshall continues: 

“Supporting technical education at the expense of higher education, is not a ‘good growth’-orientated approach. While it may yield short-term benefits for reducing NEET figures, in the longer term it could further fragment the research and innovation systems and hinder the vital contribution made by universities to their local regions. The impact of a university going bust would in many cases be devastating for local economies and this risk needs to be factored into any new approach to post-16 education funding.” 

Despite these concerns, NCUB remains positive about the ambition communicated in today’s speech and welcomes Burnham’s indication he would support more cross-UK partnerships between places with complementary industrial clusters. This, along with his plan to further consolidate public-private partnerships would strongly support progress made against the UK Industrial Strategy.