Universities across the UK are taking part in a week of
campaigning activity to highlight their role in local
communities, boosting economic growth and creating opportunities
for everyone to live longer, more fulfilling lives.
As part of Universities UK’s Getting Results
campaign, which promotes the role of universities in the economic
and social recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic, a
co-ordinated programme of political, media and digital activity
will focus on the important difference universities can make to
the UK Government’s levelling up agenda through their teaching,
research, innovation, and community and business partnerships.
This follows new Higher Education
Statistics Agency data showing that graduate start-ups
created more than 10,000 new jobs in 2020/21 alone despite the
onset of the pandemic. In total, 15,793 active graduate
businesses are estimated to have created 46,723 jobs – up from
35,637 jobs in twelve months – as well as new products and
services across the country.
The data also reveals that
UK universities have given consultancy advice to businesses of
all sizes worth more than £500 million and been part of
regeneration programmes valued at almost £300 million.
The week of #Getting Results activity, between 4 – 11 July, will
include the launch in parliament of the Levelling Up Universities
Coalition’s University Best Practice
White Paper which outlines examples of levelling up in action
and an All-Party Parliamentary
University Group meeting will discuss how universities can
make levelling up go faster and further.
A series of films will be launched to bring to life that it is
not just students whose lives are changed for the better by
universities. They feature the university social enterprise
bakery getting local people into work, graduates mentoring local
schoolchildren, the university maths school teaching
sixth-formers, and a mother who retrained at university to be
able to help others as a mental health nurse.
Professor Steve West CBE, President of Universities UK
and Vice-Chancellor of UWE
Bristol,said:
“We fully support the UK Government’s levelling up aspirations to
spread opportunity and prosperity wider. The speed of change on
levelling up will be quicker with universities at the heart of
communities and at the centre of local collaboration. The number
of new jobs created by graduate businesses since the start of the
pandemic shows just how important universities and their students
are to economic growth. Given the challenges of Covid and the
difficult financial and global situation, it is more important
than ever that government provides the right conditions for
universities to fully support business growth and skills
development for all learners to create a healthier, wealthier,
and fairer Britain.”
Former Education Secretary, The Rt Hon , is chair of the
Levelling Up
Coalition:
“Entrepreneurship is a key element of levelling up that often
gets overlooked - in our Levelling Up Universities Coalition
we've seen some great examples of institutions encouraging
entrepreneurship and growing the local economy as a result.
Universities play a crucial role in spreading opportunity to
students that need it most but they have a much wider social
impact through job creation, research, procurement and much more.
"Moving forward there is a huge opportunity to develop the role
that universities play as anchor institutions in communities
across the UK. There is no doubt in my mind that our universities
should be at the centre of the UK’s levelling up plans.”
, chair of the All-Party
Parliamentary University Group, said:
“Universities continue to be a great UK success story, boosting
local economies, transforming lives and fostering understanding
between local communities and students and researchers from
across the globe. Celebrating that success, highlighting the
positive work that goes on everyday across every university is
the best way to ensure continued progress and to make sure that
opportunities are offered to more and more people regardless of
age or background.”
Notes to editors
- On 2 February 2022, the UK Government published its
Levelling Up White
Paper.
- Universities UK is the collective voice of 140 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. www.universitiesuk.ac.uk
