Shownotes
Universities are anchors in their communities. Through their research and teaching, they help address local challenges and create meaningful impact.
Many universities form partnerships to help define and reach their strategic goals, both on campus and in their communities. Engaging with different civic and community stakeholders to address local challenges helps add value to students’ learning experiences and drive meaningful change.
In this episode of The future of higher education today, our panel of experts share insights on how their institutions work with partners and offer advice for creating meaningful change within UK higher education.
This is the third episode of a four-episode series in collaboration with Advance HE. The series focuses on governing and leading change and transformation in the higher education sector.
Transcripts
00:04
Thank you for joining us for
00:05
The Future of Higher Education Today,
00:07
the podcast bringing together people
00:09
to discuss the biggest issues
00:10
facing universities and higher education.
00:13
This is a series
00:13
produced by Universities UK and Advance HE.
00:17
I’m Aaron Porter, Associate Director
(Governance) at Advance HE
00:20
and I'm your host across this four-episode series
00:23
focusing on governing and leading
00:26
change and transformation in the higher education sector.
00:29
Our third episode looks at the importance of partnerships
00:32
in helping institutions
00:34
define and reach their strategic goals and create
00:37
meaningful impact on their campuses
00:39
and with their communities.
00:41
Today's guests will be talking
00:42
about how their institutions engage
00:44
with different stakeholders to address local challenges
00:48
and add value to students’ learning experiences.
00:51
Joining us for today's episode,
00:53
we have Sophie Cloutterbuck,
00:54
Director of London Engagement
00:56
at London Metropolitan University.
00:58
Try to co-produce all your work with your partners as well.
01:01
Rather than coming in as the people that know better,
01:04
actually the people in the community know a lot.
01:06
Let's co-produce with them. Let's hear their voices.
01:09
Gillian Docherty, Chief Commercial Officer
01:11
at Strathclyde University.
01:13
You must look at this as a whole systems approach.
01:16
So having buoyant businesses or
01:19
social enterprises or charities or public sector
01:23
in the area that you're operating
01:25
will offer job opportunities for our graduates, will offer
01:29
investment opportunities for our spin-outs.
01:33
And Doctor Nia Jones, Dean of Medicine at the North
01:37
Wales Medical School at Bangor University.
01:40
When I graduated over 20 years ago, the NHS that
01:43
I started working in, it's very different
01:45
to the one that they're facing now.
01:47
So it's only right
01:48
that we're training them differently, collaboratively.
01:51
We want to be creative
01:52
and we want a leadership and an organisation,
01:55
I think, culture that values that.
01:57
I'm going to kick-off
01:58
with a very general question for the three of you in-turn.
02:02
I wonder if you could just say
02:03
a little bit
02:04
about the initiative that you're working on.
02:07
What its priorities are and how you've gone
02:10
about delivering on what you are looking to achieve.
02:14
And perhaps I'll start with Sophie first.
02:16
Thanks very much, Aaron.
02:18
So today I’m talking about
02:19
our civic and community strategy at the university
02:23
and the London Met Lab,
02:24
which is what we use to drive that strategy.
02:27
So we work on six challenges that London faces:
02:31
health improvement, crime,
02:33
discrimination, poverty
02:34
and deprivation, the environment and social wealth.
02:37
And we work with local partners
02:39
in the community to address those challenges,
02:41
whether it be through research, student placements,
02:45
events, activities, the list goes on and on.
02:49
Gillian,
02:50
what's the sort of focus of the partnership working that
02:54
goes on at Strathclyde?
02:55
Strathclyde, since its inception, has been
02:58
a place of useful learning
02:59
and for many, many decades
03:00
we've worked extensively with industrial partners
03:03
on innovation projects, research and development,
03:06
and clearly taking some of the fantastic things we do here
03:09
at the university, out to the world to create impact.
03:12
And the innovation districts of which we are
03:15
the lead anchor academic partner in,
03:17
which there are two,
03:18
the Glasgow City Innovation District
03:21
and the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District,
03:23
are partnerships between the University,
03:26
Scottish Enterprise,
03:28
which is our enterprise agency here in central Scotland,
03:31
and the city and regional councils.
03:34
And together with other partners,
03:36
industrial partners and others,
03:37
really looking at how we drive economic
03:40
and social opportunity
03:41
within those innovation districts and beyond.
03:44
How we bring capability and expertise from the university
03:48
out in a porous way into those innovation districts.
03:52
And how we attract inward investment and company
03:55
and other investments
03:57
into those innovation districts to drive high value jobs
04:00
and social inclusion and social impact projects.
04:04
Fantastic. Again, really, really interesting.
04:06
And a third introduction from Nia
04:09
and the project that you've–or initiative–that
04:11
you've been working on.
04:12
Thank you.
04:13
Well, in:04:15
Welsh Government pledged that there would be
04:16
a third medical school in Wales.
04:19
And the job to be done for us was to increase the number
04:22
of local medical graduates,
04:24
widen access into a career in medicine,
04:27
and to improve care for Welsh speakers and more Welsh
04:30
speaking doctors here in Wales.
04:32
And so we
04:33
welcomed our first students in August of this year.
04:37
And so we've got two points of entry.
04:39
So in year one and year two,
04:41
which has been a great opportunity.
04:44
And as you all know, we're setting up a medical school,
04:46
you know, with a huge collaboration.
04:48
So with other university partners,
04:50
with Cardif University, we're working collaboratively with them.
04:53
They’re are contingency partners
04:55
and we've historically had their students
04:58
with us from:04:59
And we've still got them with us here
05:01
which is great
05:02
because that sense of community for our students as well,
05:04
that they're able to learn from students
05:06
in other years–in years three, four and five.
05:09
So that's very much collaborative there
05:11
within the institutions.
05:12
But we're working with Welsh Government,
05:14
we're working with our local health board
05:15
partners, with Betsi Cadwaladr
05:17
University Health Board,
05:18
and with all the primary care teams,
05:21
which has been
05:22
hugely exciting and great to welcome them here.
05:26
But one of the most sort of hugely diverse
05:28
and rich feedback that we've had
05:30
is our patient and public involvement,
05:33
which we have engaged enormously with to be able to inform
05:37
not just our curriculum, our education,
05:39
but also our research.
05:41
And so very much that social accountability of our school,
05:44
you know, that we’re very much
05:45
a school for the whole of North Wales,
05:47
even though we're based in Bangor.
05:48
Our students are across North Wales.
05:51
It's a hugely diverse, geographical area and demographic
05:54
as a result of that.
05:55
And so the engagement with our community–because
05:58
the outcome is hopefully to be able
06:00
to best serve them and their health need outcomes.
06:03
Well these are three fantastic approaches.
06:06
And they're more than initiatives.
06:08
But, I'll use that word simply
06:10
to try and capture them with.
06:11
I wondered if you might each say
06:14
a little about the impact that each of these
06:17
approaches have had so far
06:21
and how you go about trying to report on the impact
06:25
and the difference that you each make.
06:28
So the Glasgow City Innovation District
06:30
first innovation district in:06:33
and anchored, as I said, in that partnership between Strathclyde,
06:37
Glasgow City Council and Scottish Enterprise.
06:39
Jointly investing in some of the core assets
06:43
and resources that we needed to bring
06:45
that innovation district to life.
06:47
It's leveraged over £900 million
06:49
now of investment and expanding
06:51
Glasgow's innovation economy, including property
06:54
investments, equity and debt
06:55
funding into companies both start-ups, scale-ups
06:59
and fantastic are are our spinouts from the university.
07:03
And it's attracted
07:05
several tens of millions of foreign direct investment.
07:09
There are now:07:12
There are also many other things
07:13
that we track in terms of job growth, value of those jobs
07:18
and the inclusion
07:19
available now in those jobs across a variety of sector.
07:22
And really it’s at the heart of energising Scotland's
07:25
manufacturing base,
07:26
bringing new technologies and capabilities.
07:29
We're seeing financial impact.
07:31
We're seeing
07:32
growth and productivity and growth and new investments
07:37
both from local or indigenous companies
07:40
and also foreign direct investment.
07:42
And hopefully the creation
07:43
of real centres of excellence and clusters of fantastic
07:47
research and innovation
07:49
that's going right through to impact
07:50
into products and services.
07:52
And that's fantastic to hear.
07:54
As you say, you know, there are some numerical, tangible,
07:57
measureable outputs in terms of kind of growth and probably,
08:01
you know, jobs and so on.
08:03
Sophie from London Mets' approach.
08:05
How have you sought to capture the–
08:08
sort of–the impact of the strategy that you've developed
08:10
and how you're going about trying to measure and capture
08:13
some of that impact?
08:15
Yeah, so I think to begin with
08:16
we need to understand that the labs isn't one thing.
08:19
It's not just
08:19
a lab, it’s conglomerate of different things.
08:22
So the lab is what we have Challenge Champions,
08:25
which are academics for specialists
08:27
that work in the community,
08:28
specifically on those challenges.
08:30
All of our pro bono and low-cost clinics
08:34
from the university are run directly through the lab.
08:37
We also have a Centre
08:38
for Applied Research in Empowering Society.
08:41
And we also have a module
08:43
that is run through the lab as well.
08:46
So there's lots–it's very hard
08:47
to have one way of reporting
08:48
because there's so many things to do.
08:50
So we have KPIs for each of those areas.
08:53
And then for an overall area, we report on policy change
08:57
that we've actually made in the local community.
08:59
Actual policy
09:00
we can see that residents are changing
09:02
the way they're being dealt with
09:03
by councils or charities or NHS,
09:06
whatever it might be.
09:07
We also look at internal measures as well,
09:09
because it's great
09:11
doing this work for the community
09:12
and it's something really, really important
09:14
to do this for the community.
09:15
But in the current climate,
09:17
why are universities doing this?
09:18
Well, it brings value to the universities.
09:20
And I think it's really important
09:22
to show the impact of the value
09:24
as well as the amazing impact outside of the uni,
09:27
what it's bringing back.
09:28
So we've had hundreds and hundreds of students
09:30
engaged in lots of projects related to this work.
09:33
I say hundreds, actually it’s over thousands.
09:35
It's a couple of thousand are involved.
09:37
We have over 200 staff
09:40
academically who are involved
09:42
who are learning new ways of co-production, new ways
09:45
of working that they then bring into their research
09:48
and bring into their classroom.
09:50
And we get to extensive engagement with
09:56
the local community.
09:57
We saw over:10:00
and they're not one-offs.
10:02
So they're people that the university
10:04
starts to get to know, that turns into more projects.
10:06
As I say, we have different ways of looking at the impact.
10:09
Is it student impacts?
10:10
Is it financial impact to the university?
10:12
Or is it impact to the community?
10:13
I'm working on a wider
10:15
national project
10:16
on how we actually measure all of this
10:17
nationally as well at the moment.
10:19
Nia, obviously
10:21
what you're establishing through
10:23
the medical school,
10:24
you’ve got your first cohorts of students
10:26
coming in in this academic year.
10:29
So in that sense,
10:30
you're at the sort of an earlier stage of the journey.
10:31
But I wondered
10:32
if there were some nascent or emerging impacts
10:36
that you felt were being had by the creation
10:38
of this North Wales Medical School?
10:40
Yeah, just picking up on that conversation that, you know,
10:43
we value what we can measure, don't we?
10:46
Rather than measure what we value, you know.
10:49
And it is, it is getting that right.
10:51
So I suppose in terms of us,
10:52
we have been here with C21 north.
10:55
So we've had graduates.
10:56
And sort of half of those have stayed in Wales.
11:00
Because they've been small groups,
11:01
we've had this great relationship with them.
11:04
And I, I do I value that enormously
11:07
because part of what I want is that from undergraduate
11:11
to postgraduate, we continue, we're not siloed anymore.
11:16
And that's not just within medicine,
11:17
but interprofessionally as well,
11:19
that we create these collaborations.
11:21
And if we learn together, we'll work together
11:23
and provide better care.
11:25
So, they've really been helpful in sending back,
11:28
informing our curriculum, helping us to prepare
11:33
the new doctors
11:34
for the challenges that they will face tomorrow.
11:37
So, that's been hugely rewarding.
11:39
You're absolutely right.
11:40
It's a bit early to say what our impact will be.
11:44
Although there is great excitement here.
11:46
And I don't think that's an easy thing
11:49
to say at the moment.
11:50
You know, in terms of we’re a new school,
11:52
where we're asking our NHS colleagues to do more,
11:56
without a lot more being given
11:58
to them in terms of resource.
12:00
And yet they're enthusiastic to do that
12:02
because they see this as an opportunity for growth
12:05
and for change.
12:07
Much has been made of the kind of challenging
12:10
financial circumstances
12:11
facing a lot of higher education institutions.
12:14
And there's a sort of
12:15
a regular conundrum of trying to do,
12:17
you know, more with the same.
12:19
Or be more impactful with a similar resource envelope
12:23
as we've had previously.
12:24
And I wondered with your respective sort of approaches,
12:28
whether there's been thoughts
12:29
about what you might do to try and sort of deepen
12:31
the impact or widen the net,
12:33
or think in a more efficient way
12:36
about how you're going to continue
12:37
to develop your initiative.
12:40
You'll be aware we're not the only new medical programme.
12:44
So there's lots of other
12:47
medical schools sort of opening because of the need
12:51
for more doctors
12:52
and healthcare professionals across the sector.
12:55
You know, when I graduated over 20 years ago,
12:58
the NHS that I started working
13:00
in, it's very different
13:01
to the one that they're facing now.
13:02
So it's only right
13:04
that we're training them differently, collaboratively.
13:07
We want to be creative
13:08
and we want a leadership and an organisation,
13:10
I think, culture that values that and allows that growth.
13:14
We want them to be competent, they value teamwork.
13:17
And these are the ethos and the culture
13:19
that we should be training them with.
13:21
So as much as it's challenging,
13:23
we do have to look at our resourcing.
13:25
We have to look at what we have
13:27
and then we have to be able to make sure
13:29
that we're using that to the best possible.
13:30
And then I think as educators,
13:32
it goes back to first principles, you know,
13:35
what are we trying to teach them?
13:36
What's the most creative and best way to do it?
13:38
How do we value their time?
13:40
And let's bring our stakeholders along with us.
13:42
The most important one are our students themselves
13:44
and our patients.
13:45
So, as much as it is challenging times,
13:48
I think it's an opportunity for us to be creative now
13:50
and to think differently.
13:52
And for you, Sophie, actually I didn't ask.
13:55
Sort of, how long has the approach of the lab
13:59
and the strategy been in place?
14:01
And sort of where are you in that journey?
14:03
And what's the sort of future plans for sort of
widening the net
14:06
or deepening the impact that you're looking to pursue?
14:10
So we're in year five.
14:12
When we first originally started,
14:13
it was just the Challenge Champions.
14:15
We've added the clinics, the research centre
14:19
and the module in those years.
14:21
So we've moved pretty quickly, actually.
14:24
Especially in HE terms, to get that much done,
14:27
I think it's been really good.
14:29
But what we'd like to do–we don't actually
14:31
want to make more partners.
14:32
What we decided two years ago,
14:34
we had over 650 partners
14:36
and we couldn't work with them closely.
14:38
We could only give everyone a little bit of our time.
14:41
So we've now defined our areas.
14:43
We've actually decided to only work with six boroughs.
14:45
That then can help us with so many different things,
14:48
if we have that really close relationship,
14:50
we're getting a lot more value
14:51
out of our partnerships.
14:53
And the partnerships are getting a lot more value
14:55
out of being partners with us as well,
14:57
which I think a lot of unis forget that part is why
15:00
we have those partners and, you know,
15:01
so we're getting the joint value.
15:03
We made the decision at the very start of this project,
15:06
there isn't a team
15:07
because it should be business as usual for the university.
15:10
So rather than having a team that’s dedicated to
15:13
this work, this is put into academic workload allocations.
15:16
It's put into professional staff job descriptions, etc. etc.
15:20
So, it is actually just business as usual for the university.
15:25
We're just about to do the same with clinics.
15:27
So the schools will take the clinic’s hours,
15:30
because it's so advantageous to their students.
15:33
And I think that's the way
15:35
with the current environment–
15:36
we don't have–universities in general
15:38
don't have the space or the money
15:40
to be making big teams for this kind of work.
15:42
So if we can turn it into business as usual.
15:45
We all heard Bridget Phillipson’s speech and in it
15:49
she said we have to be doing the civic work.
15:51
Well, let's make a way it's advantageous to both us
15:55
and the community.
15:56
Yeah,
15:56
I think that's a really well-made point about,
15:58
you know,
15:59
how it's embedded across the rest of the university.
16:03
Ultimately, that's how it will make both a bigger impact
16:06
and also sort of, more sustainable institutional approach as well.
16:09
So I think that's worth bearing in mind as well.
16:12
And finally, same question to you, Gillian, in terms of,
16:15
you know, thinking about what the sort of the future
16:18
kind of breadth of what you do might be.
16:21
Whether there's plans for expansion or consolidation
16:24
or how the–what the future might look like.
16:26
There's certainly no plans for consolidation.
16:28
I think there's definitely an ambition to scale
16:31
and grow our impact.
16:33
And very much like Sophie,
16:34
we embed it across the organisation.
16:37
We’re very small, light touch teams that spearhead
16:40
the activity.
16:41
But actually, it's colleagues from right across the institution
16:45
who support the activity across the innovation districts.
16:48
I think one of the key things is
16:50
the partnerships are critically important.
16:53
They're actually–your partnerships
16:54
with your local authorities,
16:57
your enterprise actors, your industrial or social
17:00
or public sector partners are critical
17:04
because you are trying to make the best of a place.
17:09
We are very fortunate.
17:10
We’re a city centre university and we believe we've got
17:14
a big endowment in our place.
17:17
And we have a responsibility
17:20
to ensure that that place is as good as it can be.
17:23
And our role in that is to help develop opportunities.
17:27
So I think, yes, there's undoubtedly pressure
17:30
and therefore the priority, the organisation
17:33
and the strategic importance of activities
17:36
like the innovation district are critical.
17:40
And you must look–I think we certainly look
17:42
and I think–you must look at this
17:43
as a whole systems approach.
17:45
So having buoyant businesses or
17:48
social enterprises or charities or public sector
17:52
in the area that you're operating
17:55
will offer job opportunities for our graduates,
17:58
will offer investment opportunities for our spin-outs.
18:03
And will offer research and collaboration
18:06
projects and knowledge exchange projects
18:08
with our academics.
18:09
And that actually neatly leads me to my
18:12
the final question,
18:13
which is really if you have any advice or guidance
18:18
that you would give to
18:19
other universities or higher education institutions
18:22
thinking about establishing new successful partnerships.
18:26
I think the first thing is to realise that this engagement
18:29
is should be a core strategic priority.
18:32
It shouldn’t just be an after-thought of something
18:34
we have to do because someone said so.
18:37
So I think until the first
18:40
strategy is to get it in your strategy.
18:42
I think building the partnerships,
18:44
they need to be beneficial.
18:46
So it’s to build the strong partnerships
18:48
You really need to see value for all partners in the room.
18:50
But also value all partners in the room the same.
18:53
And I think that's a big thing
18:56
you need to do to get the strong partnership.
18:58
Try to co-produce
18:59
all your work with your partners as well.
19:01
Rather than coming in as the people that know better,
19:05
actually the people in the community know a lot.
19:07
Let's co-produce with them. Let's hear their voices.
19:09
And focus on generating tangible, real-world impact.
19:13
Making the community see how we can make a difference
19:18
to the community as well. I think that's really important.
19:21
so I think long-term, over
19:22
numerous years with the partners as well and not one-offs.
19:27
And actually, I think the
19:29
people working in these areas need to actively understand
19:31
the areas they're working in.
19:32
We're very much working in place.
19:35
We need people who understand that place.
19:37
It doesn't mean you have to be from that place,
19:39
but you need to understand.
19:41
Because as we all know,
19:42
every local place is very different.
19:44
Nia was saying this earlier.
19:45
I think the more innovative in a space we can be,
19:48
the more we actually get out of it.
19:50
And I think don't expect overnight successes.
19:55
So if I talk about
19:57
the–Gillian earlier was talking about local government.
20:00
Some of my local government, it's taken me four years
20:04
to get to a good place with them.
20:06
And it's really difficult.
20:07
Once you get there–but
20:09
don't give up–when you get there, it will,
20:12
the reward will be worth it.
20:13
Fantastic.
20:14
There's some really great advice there,
20:16
both from the sort of strategic level
20:17
in terms of the initial thinking that's required,
20:19
but also some more practical things.
20:22
How about for you, Gillian,
20:23
any sort of principles or advice
20:25
that you would want to share
20:25
from experience at Strathclyde?
20:27
Of course.
20:27
I think Sophie's done a great job there
20:29
and I certainly would start with strategy as well.
20:31
Our innovation districts are mentioned
20:33
in Strathclyde:20:35
They're a key part of what we do.
20:37
I think the other thing is that long-term investment.
20:40
So, we've been working in this area
20:44
for more than a decade.
20:45
Our principal has been co-chair of the Glasgow
Economic Leadership Board
20:48
with the leader of the council for more than 12 years.
20:51
They are not overnight success.
20:53
And that persistence and resilience–and that only comes
20:57
when you go into those partnerships, opportunities
21:00
with a view of how can we help?
21:02
Not what can we get, how can we help?
21:05
And I think if that mantra will help you persevere
21:09
over the well–is that income for the university?
21:14
It's back to Nia’s point. We do what we measure.
21:18
Those are the thing that will be
21:20
lasting in terms of that persistence.
21:23
And I think demonstrating value
21:26
at every point of engagement with those partners
21:30
and in a way that is authentically
21:33
you as an institution is really important.
21:36
That's great.
21:37
And again, some nice synergy there.
21:39
But also, you know, that points around distinctiveness
21:41
and it being authentic to your circumstance
21:45
is very helpful as well.
21:46
And finally, same question for you, Nia.
21:49
Any advice you'd want to share?
21:51
Well, I think I think both Gillian
21:53
and Sophie have done a great job there.
21:54
And I would absolutely agree
21:56
and I think we're all in it for the long game aren’t we?
21:59
And, and I think it is, it's having that shared value,
22:03
that core team that you start with
22:06
to be able to share that value
22:08
with your stakeholders.
22:08
And I absolutely agree that it’s
22:10
it has to be intentional for all and meaningful for all
22:13
so that we get that value.
22:15
We're going to get the naysayers.
22:18
And that's not a bad thing,
22:19
because it makes us reflect on what we're doing again
22:22
and think, okay, is there something in that?
22:24
Is this something I need to change?
22:25
But I do think you need your easy wins and your coalitions
22:28
that keep you going.
22:30
And I think building
22:31
those relationships are really integral.
22:34
And I think not to be scared
22:36
that those relationships change.
22:38
And I think because all of us are in this,
22:40
because we want to make meaningful change,
22:43
we've got to celebrate the wins
22:45
that we get along the way.
22:46
And share that with everybody.
22:49
Thanks very much for sharing those thoughts
22:52
so openly and so interestingly.
22:55
And I hope our listeners, too,
22:57
will have found that both practically useful
22:59
but also stimulating.
23:00
This question of collaboration is going to remain
23:03
a really important dimension of higher education
23:06
as we continue to navigate the next few years.
23:09
So, my thanks to, Sophie, to Gillian and to Nia.
23:13
Thanks to you for listening to today’s episode
23:17
of The Future of Higher Education Today.
23:19
On the next episode,
23:20
we'll be discussing the challenges and opportunities
23:23
arising out of a coordinated tertiary system.
23:26
But until then, thanks very much and goodbye.
