The Government and the higher education sector must jointly take
action to ensure universities across all four nations of the UK
are able to play a central role in the recovery of the economy
and communities following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Universities are central to developing skills, knowledge and
research, and driving regeneration, social mobility and
innovation. Today a package of measures has been proposed by
Universities UK to government outlining the actions needed to be
ensure universities can weather the serious financial challenges
posed by COVID-19.
A paper from Universities UK sent to the Chancellor, Secretaries
of State for Education and Business, and to the Ministers for
Universities and Science, Research & Innovation, highlights
the significant risk that the impact and capacity of higher
education could be severely damaged without mitigations and
support.
There are both short and long-term impacts currently facing
universities:
· In the current financial year (2019-20) the sector is facing
losses in the region of £790m from accommodation, catering and
conference income as well as additional spend to support students
learning online.
· In the next financial year (2020-21) the potential impact is
extreme, with universities projecting a significant fall in
international students and a potential rise in undergraduate home
student deferrals
· UUK modelling shows the risks to fee income from international
(Non-EU and EU) students totally £6.9 billion across the UK
higher education sector.
Without proactive action from both institutions and support from
government, Universities UK warns that some universities would
likely face financial failure, with severe impacts on their
students, staff, local community and regional economy. Others
would come close and be forced to reduce provision for students
or to significant scale back research activities and capacity.
The Chief Executive of Universities UK, Alistair Jarvis, said:
“The package of measures we have proposed today will support
universities across all four nations of the UK to ensure that
they remain able to weather the very serious financial challenges
posed by COVID-19. It will help to protect the student interest,
to maintain research capacity, to prevent institutions failing
and maintain the capacity to play a central role in the recovery
of the economy and communities following the crisis.
“Universities have already made a huge contribution to the
national effort to fight Covid-19 and moving forward will act
collectively and responsibly to promote sector-wide financial
stability in these challenging times and help the country to get
back on its feet and people to rebuild their lives.”
The specific measures proposed in the UUK paper will:
· Ensure that universities can maintain the UK’s research
excellence, capacity and training of PhD students
· Provide protection from cuts for courses which help meet the
national need for public sector workers (health professions,
teaching etc) and provide targeted support for
retraining/reskilling for people whose jobs are affected by
coronavirus
· Deliver transformation funds to support some universities over
the next two to three years to significantly reshape to achieve
longer-term sustainability and ensure high quality provision of
skills to meet economic needs.
· Ensure applicants for 2020-21 have as much choice as usual
about what and where they study. This would include the
introduction of a one-year stability measure in the admissions
process where institutions in England and Wales would this year
be able to recruit UK and EU-domiciled full-time undergraduate
students up to the sum of their 2020-2021 total forecast (plus 5%
of the intake),
· Encourage and enable international and EU students to choose to
study in the UK as planned
· Mitigate immediate losses in income and cashflow and allow
universities to keep operating
UUK’s paper also provides a commitment to universities doing
everything they can to reduce costs and further increase
efficiency through strong actions such as recruitment freezes and
new tighter controls on spending. When paired with this package
of government support it will mean the higher education sector
can maintain capacity to play its vital part in the difficult
period ahead for the nation.
ENDS
Notes to editors
-
The package of measures – endorsed by the Universities UK
Board on 8 April 2020 – in the paper
“Achieving stability in the higher education sector following
COVID-19” is attached to this email .
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Universities UK is the collective voice of 137
universities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Its mission is to create the conditions for UK universities to
be the best in the world; maximising their positive impact
locally, nationally and globally. Universities UK acts on
behalf of universities, represented by their heads of
institution. Visit: www.universitiesuk.ac.uk
