Universities collaborating for the good of our regions is fast becoming a policy imperative

Keir Starmer’s new Labour government is committed to delivering five key missions: growth; NHS reform; clean energy; safer streets; and opportunity for all. Underpinning this approach is a shift towards a more active, smarter state that works in partnership with business, trade unions, local leaders, and devolved governments, guided by a new industrial strategy that seeks equitable economic growth across the country.

A sub-national architecture of devolution is taking root in England as a model of civic leadership, led by mayors and mayoral combined authorities. An English Devolution Bill is also set to drive further effective regional development by giving mayoral combined authorities and local authorities greater capacity and resources to set out ambitious growth agendas for the regions and to pull the necessary levers to achieve those ambitions.

In London, the capital’s devolved infrastructure goes back 25 years, while in Yorkshire, by June 2025, there will be four mayoral combined authorities with elected mayors covering Hull and East Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, and York and North Yorkshire. Devolution is always an unfinished story; as devolved administrations mature, they build capacity to take on more responsibility and accomplish more.

There are significant opportunities for higher education institutions in Labour’s adoption of a place-based, partnership-led approach, bringing in skills, research and innovation, educational opportunity, public sector productivity, and effective policymaking at the regional level. But it will also test the capability of universities to forge and sustain meaningful regional collaborations with each other and with regional policymakers and industry.

Our combined experience of working in regional university networks shows the power and impact that networked collaboration among higher education institutions can have, but as a sector we need to collectively buy into the idea that collaboration for the good of our regions is not an optional nice-to-have, but a core part of the higher education mission.

Strength in diversity

Policymakers and their teams have lots of stakeholders and priorities, and limited bandwidth. Regional groupings of universities offer the golden opportunity for efficiency in connecting up policymaking to expert insight and research, without the need to go from institution to institution.

One of the real strengths a regional network can offer is access to diversity of institutional knowledge; with research-intensive, modern and specialist universities involved in both our networks, our collective views are nuanced and our access to insight very broad indeed, meaning we can broker expertise across a wide range of local priorities.

This capability is seen at its most powerful through strategic engagement with regional policymakers. London, for example, has a plethora of boards and policy initiatives such as the London Partnership Board, which brings together representatives of key institutions across the capital including business, health, local government, and further education to build London’s capability to tackle future challenges.

In Yorkshire, a ground-breaking memorandum of understanding between Yorkshire Universities and Yorkshire and Humber Councils provides a framework for a long-term strategic partnership between local government and higher education in the region. The Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement & Research Network (Y-PERN) facilitates inclusive and place-based academic policy engagement, while the Yorkshire and Humber Policy Innovation Partnership (Y-PIP) is expanding the range of research activity co-designed and co-delivered between the region’s universities, policymakers, local communities and businesses to help drive positive, practical change within and across Yorkshire.

It’s worth adding that the London Higher and Yorkshire Universities staff are accustomed to working with policymakers, skilled in generating ideas and connections, and knowledgeable about the policy landscape – that doesn’t mean that individual institutions don’t need those capabilities to some degree, but having a shared hub of expertise has a helpful amplification effect and can be a space for capacity building on the development, monitoring and evaluation of policy and its impacts.

Regional growth

The dual role of universities in educating a highly skilled workforce and driving innovation and knowledge exchange through research means that they are critical delivery partners in regional economic growth agendas. Regional networks can play a role not only in forging collaborations between universities, but in connecting the sector to business and local communities.

Each of our organisations has a clear – though slightly different – theory of how our member higher education institutions collectively contribute to economic growth, including through tackling specific productivity challenges, investment in infrastructure, improving business leadership and management, educating future entrepreneurs, and through cultural and civic engagement – and we’re always ready with the examples to back up those arguments. Our analysis is rooted in a whole-region context for innovation activity, giving us a view of the larger ecosystem in which our universities are operating and the various assets that are available across our networks.

On a practical level, regional university groups can use their convening power to deliver major changes. In Yorkshire and the Humber a legacy of high-carbon emitting industry, threats from flooding, and a series of energy transitions that have affected communities inequitably across the region have generated a consensus on a need not only for decarbonisation, but a green energy agenda infused with social justice. The Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission, the largest place-based climate commission in the UK acts as a vehicle to mobilise Yorkshire’s universities’ combined research and policy expertise to tackle climate, sustainability and environmental challenges.

Expanding opportunity

Individual institutions have their own widening participation missions and priorities for access, but through collaboration we can expand our collective reach to prospective students and create a much more navigable higher education opportunity landscape for learners. London Higher’s Access HE division is long-established, and is able to create opportunities for targeted programmes of outreach activity to priority groups such as care leavers, and engage in collective advocacy on widening participation funding.

London Higher’s recent acquisition, redesign and relaunch of the Study London campaign is equally helping to drive international education exports to both the capital and nation by bringing together London’s higher education sector under one powerful brand to drive growth and opportunities, and maintain London’s competitive advantage on the global stage.

As in other parts of the country, universities in London and Yorkshire have much to contribute to interventions and investments that match needs of their localities. While London’s universities have deep local roots, a large number of the capital’s institutions are inherently global, with the ability to leverage international connections to attract and retain major foreign direct investment. However, the funding and talent that arrives in London does not only benefit the London region but generates wider impacts right across the country.

Similarly, Yorkshire’s universities have global connections that transcend regional boundaries. In the case of Sheffield Hallam and York St John, some institutions are also forging a physical presence in the capital, making them key players in creating, nurturing and retaining talent and driving international trade and investment. The powerful reputations of London’s and Yorkshire’s universities are therefore vital to delivering on national and sub-national growth agendas.

Wherever the region, and whatever its strengths, regional university groups are going to be key under this government in delivering the devolution deals each part of the country needs.