Higher Education

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate such an important topic and congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate. I want to talk in the main about how important universities are becoming in developing innovation and in creating and supporting businesses, and how they are using their research capacity to do that. We have seen this accelerate enormously over the past few years, and universities have become an integral and important part of our economic growth.

As a topical example, only yesterday the Mayor of London launched Med City, a scheme aimed at strengthening links between hospitals, universities and businesses in the south-east’s golden triangle. Promising though this sounds—I would say that, wouldn’t I—I suggest we must focus attention on the truly innovative work being done right across the country, including Scotland. I want to highlight some of the work being done in the north-west of England. I need only look to my own city of Liverpool for an example of best practice. In 2006, a not-for-profit company, Liverpool Science Park, was established by Liverpool John Moores University—the original red-brick institution—and the city council. It is a flourishing science and innovation park which is currently home to more than 75 companies, including graduate start-ups, key commercial-facing facilities and a handful of business support companies. Liverpool Science Park has been leading the way in uniting the sector, the graduate talent pool and the local economies. Only last Thursday the local paper, the Liverpool Echo, reported on the increasingly large number of Liverpool city region students starting their own businesses as a result of the Liverpool Science Park.

I would also like to praise the work being done by John Moores’ Centre for Entrepreneurship and UnLtd. Their success story and their ethos must surely be shared as widely as possible across the sector. Indeed, students who cannot find traditional jobs upon graduation are increasingly being encouraged to start up their own businesses. Fortunately, this message is beginning to resonate. A report published last month by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the Higher Education —Business and Community Interaction Survey, highlighted how more than 3,500 businesses were started by recent graduates last year, up from 2,357 five years ago. It is a result that we should all be proud of.

It is painfully clear how crucial graduate enterprise is to the success of the UK’s core cities and the wider economy. I hope that the Minister bears this in mind in his response. Let us not forget how daunting a prospect it is to set up and run a new business venture. We should also remember how some of the world’s best innovations and opportunities came from literally throwing ideas around with colleagues and collaborators —think Facebook, think Apple. This is where universities come in, bringing businesses together with other like-minded entrepreneurs, providing support and assistance, and helping to broker new relationships. Many universities host local economic growth hubs or business incubators to help small organisations and start-ups get off the ground. The result of this can be more jobs, more innovation and, crucially, more growth.

Another example outside the north-west is the Brighton Fuse project, which brings together academics and entrepreneurs in the arts, humanities, design and digital sectors. They map and measure how they may best support one another. Similar schemes are starting to take shape right across the UK, and I hope the Minister will throw his support behind such projects.

However, the benefits that university research can offer the commercial sector have not always been as strong as they should be. The most recent comparative data on the performance of research institutions in Australia, Canada, the USA and the UK show that from a relatively weak position, the UK now leads on many indicators of commercialisation activity. In November 2012, Her Majesty’s Government announced a £60 million investment in UK universities to assist our most pioneering scientists and engineers to create successful businesses via research, helping to foster entrepreneurship and developing industrial collaboration.

The University of Bristol offers various schemes, such as the Proof of Principle awards, to encourage students and researchers to develop the commercial potential of research, explore markets, develop prototypes and take the first steps in generating impact businesses. Another of Bristol’s schemes is the Engagement Award, where researchers can receive up to £10,000 for developing and piloting new activities and approaches, establishing partnerships outside academia and providing training, skills and development.

This demonstrates that researchers and businesses can establish mutually beneficial relationships. The unique aspect of higher education is that the level of innovation can be constantly maintained as young people pursuing research vocations also fuel further research. I suggest that we should capitalise on this and create new links between university researchers and businesses. This would construct a sustainable method of creating more jobs, new opportunities and increased growth—a “win-win-win”, as they say.

I turn to another matter in our universities. While there is rightly an emphasis on increasing the proportion of women sitting on FTSE 100 company boards, there is sadly little being done by way of increasing the number of women involved in university leadership. Shamefully, only 14% of university vice-chancellors are women, whereas in business the proportion has climbed to 21% due to increased political pressure as well as pressure from businesses themselves; for example, via the work of the 30% Club. We are fortunate to have so many excellent women role models in this House, where we have a more equal balance of women on boards, positively influencing the culture of companies’ decision-making. Surely the same should apply to our universities and higher education institutions. Women need to feel confident, in that they have earned their position, that their views will be considered as equal to those of a man. They are not around to “make up the numbers”. An environment needs to be fostered where a macho style of leadership is eliminated and men and women are equally represented and valued. On how we go about this in the academic sector, in our universities, in the higher education sector, I would be interested to hear from the Minister or other noble Lords.

I recently found out via a Written Answer from my noble friend the Minister that the numbers in higher education have increased dramatically in the past 10 years. Since 2003, for example, the number of doctorates has increased by nearly 50%, demonstrating a desire among young people to pursue research. The supply is there—we have an increasingly large pool of highly talented and enthusiastic graduates ready to work and ready to innovate. It is blindingly obvious that universities and colleges offering higher education courses are making an increasingly significant contribution to our recovering economy, both in terms of GDP contribution and jobs. The sector attracts significant investment from overseas —we must always remember that.

While it is right that we should think again about the target of 50% of young people attending university, focusing perhaps on a balance of college education, vocational training and apprenticeships, we cannot ignore the enormous benefits that a successful higher education sector provides, as we heard from my noble friend the Minister in his own personal experiences.

Our higher education sector also produces significant, non-economic benefits. They literally change lives by the opportunities and chances that they provide, especially for students from the lowest achieving schools and less well off backgrounds. I pay tribute to all those who work in this sector for their innovative work and for being a tremendous force for good right across the country, including Scotland.