The Commission on Research for Better Economic Growth has identified three fatal flaws undermining national prosperity: a punitive reliance on blunt funding that privileges inputs over purpose-driven outcomes; a national policy that ignores regional distinctions; and a definition of success that is narrowly and restrictively constrained to “pounds and pence”.
The most urgent task is to prove the demonstrable, real-world benefit of research to both society and individuals. It is the uncompromising price of admission for universities to retain their social licence to operate and an absolute economic imperative.
Achieving this demands rebuilding the entire research investment landscape. Our new reality requires creative, constructive and strategic incorporation of crucial local funding, long-term patient capital, philanthropy, and industrial and commercial research. The concentration of 85.2 per cent of all spinout venture capital in the Golden Triangle – despite it producing only 31 per cent of the UK’s research – is a staggering indictment of a policy that has historically failed to fund strategically and intentionally in specific places.
Agency
Universities have the inherent agency to force change, and we have to explicitly lean into this role. This agency is paramount as research funding shifts its emphasis, as clearly defined in Patrick Vallance’s bucket list of priorities, requiring institutions to intentionally align their research and partnerships with purpose-driven outcomes. We have the convening power to find partners, work politically, and stretch beyond our immediate orbit – in short, we need to just get on with it because no one else will.
The University of York has made a conscious decision to address these trade-offs, providing a practical blueprint grounded in the operational reality of regional economic development in York and North Yorkshire (YNY). Our economy presents a nationally significant investment opportunity but our devolution geography faces specific commercialisation constraints due to its poly-centric nature – a mid-sized city combined with a large rural hinterland. We are stepping up to address this failure through a critical convening and leadership role, including leading our Local Innovation Partnership Fund (LIPF) bid. And it is worth saying that the design of the LIPF has compelled very different approaches to identifying partners and shaping key decisions about what to prioritise for’ investment asks’ that are truly place specific and distinctive.
A crucial element of the Commission’s challenge is how to fundamentally redefine success. To do that we should move beyond the narrow, limiting measure of ‘pounds and pence’ to measure the full breadth of socio-economic benefits.
Recent research by the University of York, QS and Public First highlights the £490 billion economic growth opportunity at risk if we fail to align economic growth with a system-scale plan for graduate, postgraduate, and reskilling labour market supply chains necessary to meet the Industrial Strategy’s labour market requirements.
Scale
This analysis forces a critical question: how do we replicate system scale innovation models to deliver a similar system scale skills model to deliver the future skills pipeline necessary for achieving these economic growth outcomes? Success should be measured by the socio-economic return on investment, including human capital development, high-value job creation, and future-proofing the workforce against economic disruption and in all areas of the UK.
Fundamentally, translating world-class research into this kind of real-world impact demands one critical enabler: long-term patient capital. The lack of this capital is the deal-breaker trade-off preventing university commercialisation from realising its full potential across all regions of the UK. Government pension reforms, like the Mansion House Accord, are a primary, immediate opportunity to provide this capital and finally dismantle these systemic constraints. Adopting policies – as Canada and Australia have done to great success – that mandate pension funds to invest even a tiny proportion of their funds in critical UK infrastructure to drive inclusive growth is essential. Investors are inherently only going to fund what is easy unless policies mandate them to be braver.
Universities can use their convening and leadership role to place higher education squarely at the heart of the solution. We are not passive recipients of funding; we are working models demonstrating how we can act as a bridge, stimulate demand, and translate national strategy into tangible, diverse regional outcomes. Our approach, applicable to many others, is to believe that by offering practical, on-the-ground policy insights and quantitative data on regional disparity, we can help shape a new generation of research policy that funds strategically, measures success by purpose-driven outcomes, and delivers resilient economic growth for our region.
This article is published as part of a project between Policy.Partners and UCL. To share your ideas get in touch with James.
