Rosalind Gill is Head of Policy and Engagement at the National Centre for Universities and Businesses (NCUB).

Sarah and Rosalind talk about

1. bringing people together to respond to big sector challenges
2. the realities of working in the sometimes-volatile political realm
3. the huge contribution universities make to the UK economy
4. why changing how people think often has more impact than any individual policy

Find out more

1. Read the show notes and transcript on the podcast website
2. Connect to Rosalind on LinkedIn or X
3. Find out more about NCUB their website or LinkedIn or X

About Research Adjacent

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4. Email a comment, question or suggestion
5. Leave Sarah a voice message

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You can have the best evidence base to support

your policy recommendation in the world, but if it doesn't

have the support and the backing of those who are actually going

to be delivering it, it's very unlikely to get traction, and

it's very unlikely to be successful. I think some of my

proudest achievements are actually more about where we've

achieved a change in perspective, because that has a

very enduring impact.

Hello there. I'm Sarah McLusky, and this is

Research Adjacent. Each episode, I talk to amazing research

adjacent professionals about what they do and why it makes a

difference. Keep listening to find out why we think the

research adjacent space is where the real magic happens.

Hello and a warm welcome to Research Adjacent from me, your

host, Sarah McLusky. Although I really hope you enjoyed the last

four topic based episodes, today, we return to the classic

career stories podcast format, and my guest Rosalind Gill has a

job role that has been on my wish list for quite a while.

That's because Rosalind works in policy. She is currently head of

policy and engagement at the National Centre for Universities

and Businesses, also known as NCUB. As the name suggests NCUB

is all about connecting universities and businesses with

government. Rosalind's role brings people together to create

evidence based recommendations which align with government

priorities. Rosalind is unusual among my guests in that her

career has been quite straightforward. Since her

school days in the Netherlands she has wanted to do work which

gave her opportunities to influence public policy, and she

has done exactly that various roles working both in and on

behalf of universities. In our conversation, we talk about

bringing people together to respond to big sector

challenges, the realities of working in the sometimes

volatile political realm, the huge contribution that

universities make to the UK economy, and why changing how

people think often has more impact than any individual

policy. Listen on to hear Rosalind story.

Welcome along to the podcast Rosalind, lovely to have you

here. I wonder if we could begin our conversation by hearing a

bit about what it is that you do.

Of course. And thank you very much for the

invite. Sarah, so I work for the National Centre for Universities

and Business, which is an organization that is focused on

improving the conditions for universities and businesses to

work together to drive positive change through research which

was relevant to this podcast, but also through more broadly,

kind of skills and talent and other forms of collaboration

around sort of local regeneration and those sorts of

areas too. So my role, in particular, is responsible for

all areas of policy, research and evidence, but also I work on

engagement which is really important for actually driving

impact through some of the research that we do. So the

engagement might be with universities and businesses to

understand what sorts of barriers they were experiencing

to their collaboration, what their biggest challenges might

be, or the biggest opportunities that they see on the horizon.

But importantly, engagement can also mean engagement with

politicians to ensure that the proposals that we make are

brought into reality, or engagement that's around telling

the story of how important research innovation and all the

wider activities that universities and businesses do

together, how they really matter. So that's a bit about

NCUB, and a bit about my role within it.

Yeah that's really interesting. Thank you.

And I mean, that's quite a big role you say there, but NCUB is

quite a small organization, isn't it?

Yeah we're about 20 people, but we that's our

core. That's the that's the center and but the way that

we're able to work across quite a strong breadth is because we

work in partnership with a lot of others. So in the research

and the policy work that we do, we actually often work in

partnership with academics, with sometimes with consultancies as

well. So that's quite an important part of our model. But

also, we would view the universities and businesses that

we work with as part of our extended network. They provide

the insights and the knowledge that are essential for us to

develop recommendations to government that are practical

and will actually make a positive difference. So we are

quite small in terms of our core, but I'd say that we're

bigger in terms of the wider network that we operate in.

Yeah, and it's interesting, when you talk about

that network that that you use that term engagement. And I

think a lot of people listening to this podcast will probably

think of the term engagement as meaning around like public

engagement, and, you know, public involvement with research

and things like that. But as you say, engagement means a whole

host of different things, doesn't it?

Yeah, I definitely couldn't agree more

Yeah, Well, definitely I can see that with

with that. And for us, it's, it's definitely a very

multifaceted thing. And it's, it's not that unusual for a

getting I mean, even just those of us who are very much on the

policy organization to have a sort of policy and research team

over there and a communications and public affairs team on the

outside, like I am in terms of government policy and things

other side of the of the desks. And I think for us, what's

always been very important is to take that more integrated

like that, it does seem to take, you know, they need so much buy

approach, because ultimately, you can have the best evidence

base to support your policy recommendation in the world, but

in. It can take such a long time, you know, all these

if it doesn't have the support and the backing of those who are

partners and people that have to come together to actually make

actually going to be delivering it and moving it forward, it's

very unlikely to get traction, and it's very unlikely to be

things happen in the policy world. And so I can see why

successful. So we, we do view engagement as very essential to

what we do, but we also recognize it has a lot of

having that network is so important, and having all those

different functions, a lot of different manifestations, and we

treat it accordingly.

people connected and engaged and having those conversations.

Yeah, so maybe you could tell us a bit about some of the things

you worked on. I mean, certainly one example is that we were

meant to record this conversation a week ago, but we

had to delay it because of an urgent contribution to the UK,

what was it, the industrial strategy. So, I mean, that

sounds pretty high level stuff.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, this is a

really interesting time for anyone who's working in and

around policy, because there's a time when the government are

making quite a lot of you know, they've set out their stall.

They have five clear missions, and now they're developing the

delivery plans and the changes that they feel need to be made

in order to move forward on those five missions. And of

course, the principal one is economic growth. And

universities and businesses, working together, have an

absolutely fundamental role to play in achieving that mission.

And I think the government have been quite clear that they the

industrial strategy is quite an important mechanism in order to

get us there, but the industrial strategy team have only got, I

think, until April, to develop some clear recommendations to

really shift the dial on the UK's industrial policy and how

it's going to drive us towards greater economic growth, which

is a very short turnaround time. So as an organization, we have

been doing, obviously, work over a much longer period of time to

develop recommendations that we think can make a big difference.

And some of the areas that we've focused on, for example, are

around private R&D investment in the UK. So the particular cause

of our delay last week was, was that so we have been recognizing

that, obviously, over a number of years, we've seen record

levels of public investment in research going into the system.

I know that for a raft of reasons, it might always feel

like that on the ground, because of the research funding deficits

that we have also we also face in the UK. But unfortunately, as

public investments have grown, private investment hasn't grown.

Actually, it's declined a little over the last two years, which

is quite a puzzling picture when we know that generally public

investment leverages private investment, and that doesn't

seem to have immediately happened in this case. So we've

been working for the last eight months or so on a piece of work

which is led by Sir John Manzoni, but it's also involves

Nancy Rothwell, who's the Deputy Chair of the Industrial Strategy

Council, and she's, of course, also the former Vice Chancellor

of Manchester University. So really trying to understand what

cause of this is, but also importantly, what we can do

about it, and recognizing, of course, that universities and

their strength in research is a really critical part of that. So

for us, you know, there's a not really linear process, working

quite closely with universities, with businesses, to try and

understand a problem like this and to try and work out what

some practical solutions might be. But then also working quite

closely with with the Industrial Strategy Council, with

government and government departments, to also ensure that

what we recommend goes with some of the grain. Because if we just

throw something out there that that is that doesn't sort of

align with the priorities, the shared priorities of all of

those stakeholders, all that triangle of government, business

and universities, it's not going to be successful. So that's

where the engagement question you asked earlier really comes

in, because getting that engagement right is fundamental

to success.

Yeah well, that's really interesting, and I think

it's a really nice example of of how important it is to get all

these things aligned. And as you say, making a recommendation

that sort of fits with priorities and things like that

as well. Because I know that for a lot of people, a lot of

research projects have this vague sort of intention of, oh,

we want to talk to policy makers, or we want to do

something that influences policy. And it sounds like a

really good thing to do in terms of impact, but actually, in

reality, that can be a very challenging process, almost, I

mean, certainly from the things I've been involved with,

challenging in terms of, as you say, finding that alignment of

what you do with the current priorities, but also challenging

sometimes as well with finding the right people to talk to,

and, you know, getting into the right kind of conversations that

that can be challenging as well. So yeah, all of the work that

you're doing, I can see, is really important to help to pull

all of that together.

And I think sometimes there is a

misconception that universities quite slow to change, but I

think then in many ways, they're not, and they've shown in the

last few years that they're very adaptable and developing very

quickly. And I'd say that one of the areas that I've really

noticed changing is that there's a lot more investment into sort

of centralized support to universities that are or

academic activity that's about influencing public policy.

There's quite a lot of coordinated efforts between

universities to create support mechanisms to help academics to

see that route to impact. And actually, the government's

helped itself with it in this space as well, because number of

government departments have started to publish their own

research priorities, which is is helpful. It means that we're not

all collectively guessing what they might want. They're

actually telling us what research they would like to see

to help guide their decisions. So I say that those are two

quite positive, positive bits of progress. But then the the other

side to that, of course, is that there are also challenges within

university sector that make make it more difficult in some ways,

to take a strategic, considered, longer term view of the

collective impact that the university and all of the people

who work within the university, what they're all kind of pulling

towards, because things are quite, quite tight and

challenging for the sector at the moment.

Yeah, oh, that's really useful to know that the

government is, is publishing some kind of direction on

research and things they would like to be done. Because, yeah,

that that's, that's new information to me. So maybe if

there's any links or anything to that, we can get them and put

them in the show notes. But yeah, as you say that, well,

that long term piece just always seems to be a challenge, whether

it's government, whether it's universities, you know,

governments work on these four year cycles, don't they? You

know where they've got to, or even less than that, like you

say you've got a new government comes in, they've got to show

they're making a difference very quickly to keep the public

support and and universities as well, having that sense of a

long term vision can can be challenging, particularly under

the current financial situation. Yeah,

And actually, you know, I just mentioned the work

that we've done on private R&D investment, and that's such a

strong message that we get back from industries is that they,

they want to see greater consistency, so that they they

know what the priorities are that their investments are being

being sought for, but also the UK has had a bit of a tendency

of spreading itself quite thinly across lots of different areas

of economic priority. And I think being the industrial

strategy is a very good vehicle, perhaps for us all to get more

collective sense of what the what the plan is for reversing

some of the economic stagnation that we've seen in the UK, and

how we can really drive that forward collectively and get

behind it collectively as well. So I think it's a really

important point

Yeah. Oh, fantastic. Oh, well, you've

certainly very clearly explained to us why where the work you do

sits, and why it's important, and how did you get into doing

this sort of thing? What's been your career journey?

So I think I'm probably quite a rare example of

someone who always sort of knew what I wanted to do. I grew up

in a very academic household. My dad was a computational

physicist. We actually moved to Holland when I was six weeks old

because my dad wanted to work with the top computational

The clue is in the name, yeah,

physicist at the time who happened to be Dutch. So kind of

growing up like I grew up in that environment, and I think

being in another country also opens your eyes to how decisions

that are made by governments actually do really matter to the

experience that you have and the opportunities that you have, and

I experienced in Holland a very different education system than

we have here. I think in Holland at the time, I assume this might

still be the case now, around one in five people went to

university, which is obviously quite different to the system

Exactly. So I worked on a whole range of different issues while

that we have, where that kind of expansion has been so important.

So I think from my perspective when I was choosing my career

like education pathways and choosing what I would want to do

next, I always had in my mind that I wanted to influence

public policy because I felt that was the best immediate

impact I could make, and that driving positive and good

government decisions was a was a really good thing to dedicate

your career to. So I first worked at Universities UK, which

is the representative body for universities for, for the UK, of

course,

I was there and got a lot of exposure. Was actually given

huge amount of freedom to really consider what the key issues

were for universities. Work with universities to identify those

and work across a whole kind of breadth of different areas,

which really exposed my understanding of different

things that the university sector was grappling with. And I

then worked at the University of Bedfordshire as their Director

of Policy, which was a sort of two sided role. One side, of

course, was influencing the external landscape from the

perspective of a teaching intensive institution, but the

other side was also understanding how changes were

affecting the institution and how strategically we should

respond. And it was the kind of post Brexit, Augar review, sort

of period of policy. So there was a lot of change the

institution was grappling with, including things like the USS

registration. There was, there was a lot happening. And of

course, now I'm at NCUB, but I think what's been the sort of

golden thread that's ran through those those roles has always

been for me, what I've always been interested in is the impact

that universities can have externally on economic growth,

on society, and how you design an effective policy framework

that helps maximize that impact.

Yeah, definitely. And I think, as you say, not

only are universities really important to the UK, but also to

the local communities and things that they're based in. And you

know, as you say, the economic impact and the you know, the the

influence that as a as like an anchor institution, the the

influence that they can have just the decisions they make,

what it matters to the local community, where they are. So,

yes, well, so a fairly straightforward career journey,

then definitely compared to some people that I've had on the

podcast. So yeah, so along that career journey, I'm sure you've

done a couple of things that you're really proud of. Do you

want to tell us about some examples?

Yeah, of course. I mean, I'm doing quite a lot of

work at the moment, also with other organizations on sort of

how you really grasp policy impacts and assess policy

impacts. And I think one of the challenges a lot of

organizations have is that they often use sort of, have we

influenced a policy decision as their final assessment of their

impact, when actually what you really care about is, if I

impacted that decision, what ultimately did that decision

lead to? And has it been positive? So I think, from my

perspective, you know, there are lots of things that that we've

influenced and done that I'm really proud of, but I think a

couple that I'd really highlight. I think one for me

was that during the Augar review, which feels like it was

a long time ago, but of course, it's still very much echoing in

the shadows of current policy thinking. So that was a big

review of post 16 education funding. I think at the start of

that review, there was quite a strong view of the the diversity

of the university sector was was potentially holding aspects of

the sector back or might not be sustainable as a kind of funding

funding model going forward. And when I was at the University of

Bedfordshire, I did a lot of work, actually with the Student

Union to understand what they needed and wanted from, from the

from, from the review, and I think that really helped to

emphasize just how important the diversity and social mobility in

the sector has been to the way the sector has effectiveness.

And by working in partnership with the Student Union, even

though we had different views on certain things like tuition

fees, I think we were able to put together a really

influential response to that review and work really closely

with the those on the panel to really influence their views on

what a diverse higher education system looks like in practice

and all the positive things that it drives and contributes to so

that's something I'm very proud of. And I think has, you know,

we still see today in the scene as well. But there are other

things, I think, in particular in relation to research, ncub,

alongside lots of other organizations, has been really

at the forefront of calling for that growth in research funding,

and I think that has been a very significant part of the funding

and policy landscape over the last few years, is I think

governments across different political parties have

recognized that research and innovation is critical to the

UK's competitiveness and to its growth. And I think, you know, I

definitely attribute a lot of the work that my team and NCUB

has done to some of that narrative, and also the

recognition that within that picture, private R&D really

matters too. So I think for me, the there are definitely some

examples of particular policy changes that the work that I've

done has contributed to, but I think where I've really I think

some of my proudest achievements are actually more about where

we've achieved a change in perspective, because that has a

very enduring impact.

Yeah, and as you say, it's this is the thing that

you know. You always knew you wanted to do something that that

made a difference. So being able to look and think those are the

things that have made a difference, even if maybe to the

outside world, they're not the things that you know, it's not

like you've changed a law or something, but like, see, even

just changing perspective on something can actually, in

reality, make a really big difference. Yeah.

I think it creates the space for others to

think with you, because when you've got a more favorable

policy environment where there's recognition that actually, you

know, we need to take seriously this issue of private R&D

investment. We need to be developing solutions to the

decline that we're seeing. We need to be making ourselves more

competitive destination. I think what you're doing by changing

the perspective and making policy makers think in that way

is you create a forum for your own ideas to be heard, but also

for others to be thinking about what contributions and thoughts

and reflections and solutions that they might and sometimes

those solutions come from the most unexpected places, which is

why I'm more than happy to add a link to the research interests

from government to the podcast, because it might be that some of

your listeners will have reflections and thoughts in some

of those areas that could be really impactful and make a real

difference.

Yeah, that's it. And sometimes bringing those

ideas from a really diverse range of different places can

make a massive difference. But I love your turn of phrase there,

when you said, it gives those opportunities to think with

people. And I think that's a really nice way of framing it.

Yeah, I'm sure, though, that this hasn't, at times, been

without its challenges. So what are some of the hurdles you've

had to overcome throughout your career?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, certainly there have been

plenty. I think many people will recognize that over the last few

years, we've had a lot of turbulence in political

leadership, so that has, at times, meant that things that we

have been working on and gaining good traction on has very

suddenly stopped, because there's been a change in in

leadership, and therefore either a change in priority or need to

rebadge something as as as as the new new administrations, so

that that's that can be quite challenging to navigate. And

sometimes you actually look back at something you maybe worked on

five years ago and think, oh, that's become that's gone with

the grain again. We can use that again. But the grain has changed

a lot in the last few years, and that's been difficult. I think

the the other aspect of it that's that's often difficult,

is that it hasn't been the easiest environment in terms of

recognition of just how important that role of

universities in the UK is. When we talk to businesses, they

almost always tell us that the university sector is probably

the UK's strongest strategic asset, that when you're a UK

country director and you're pitching for investment in the

UK to your heads in another country there, it doesn't take

long for you to get to the university system as one of the

main reasons for that investment. And yet, I don't

think that has properly and fully been heard by a general

public and by policy makers. And I think one of the issues, and

I've reflected on this quite a lot, I think one of the problems

is because universities are so embedded, and there are so many

multifaceted impacts that they make, that when we tell the

story of our impact, there are a lot of ands, if we do this and

we do that, you know, we have we produce the graduates, and we do

research applications, and we do consultancy, and we do just the

local regeneration. We provide that anchor role as an

institution. So there is just so many ands that I think get a

little bit lost in the detail. So I think we need to sharpen

that story and so that we can continue to play the impactful

when we recognized for it.

Yeah, I think that that really makes a lot of

sense to me, actually, yeah, because it is universities just

touch so many parts of life that it isn't always a very kind of

coherent story about what difference they make, and

increasingly in this very kind of brand, messaging driven world

that we're in, and people are so influenced by that sort of

stuff. But it if it is, if you can't get to the point quickly,

then sometimes that message gets completely lost, doesn't it?

Yeah, oh, but I also completely resonate with you saying that

things come in and out of fashion. I've been doing the

kind of work I do for long enough to see it's like, things

come around about every five years, and then yeah, it's like,

oh, we're doing that again. Are we okay?

Yeah, I thought I've assessed that the I think

the light, the shelf life, tends to be around three years big

sector initiative, so we had something like the efficiency

exchange, that's about 10 years ago now, but that had about

three years. Yeah, there was the big civic universities focus.

That had about three years. Yeah, yeah. There's definitely

things that come and go, but that doesn't mean that when they

go, they've

gone forever. Yes, I think that's worth

knowing. Anybody who's quite new to this world, things will come

round Yes, things will come back round again. Fantastic. Well, my

last question for you is one that I ask all my guests, which

is, if you had a magic wand, what would you change about the

little corner of the research-adjacent world that you

work in?

I find this one so difficult to answer, Sarah,

because magic wand sort of implies that it requires, you

know, it's not something that we can drive, and I've struggled to

think of anything that we can't drive. I think, you know,

everything is within our gift. So I guess the thing that I

would most like to see changed is that I think sometimes we

view something like knowledge exchange as quite an abstract

kind of concept when actually it's something that's people

moving between different careers, people sharing their

ideas, expanding their ideas through networking and co

creation. And I'd like to see, I'd like to see much more sort

of investment and support for people to be able to move freely

between different sectors, think freely between different ideas.

And I know that sounds a bit abstract, but, but I think we,

we somehow seem to kind of self impose some some boundaries. And

some of that, I think, is self imposed, and some of it's kind

of around institutional policy or framing or and it's a wicked

problem. So if we can, if we can see the human side of this more

and engage with the human side more, I think we'd succeed

better.

Yeah, I think you're not the first person to

have said they want to use their magic wand to break down some of

these silos. And as you say, so, many of these problems we're

facing at the moment need lots of different disciplines to work

together. They need, like universities and researchers and

policy makers and people like us to work together and and find

those solutions. And at the moment, it is, we're almost,

yeah, we forget that it's about people rather than we think

it's, it's like some sort of abstract thing, when really it's

about people talking to people and sharing ideas and getting

things done. So yeah, that is lovely. And yes, I always think

of the magic wand as being it's not so much that it's it's

magical, but it's more that it takes down the the barriers of

money and time, and, you know, things like that, get things

happening a bit quicker. So, yes, fantastic. Oh, well, to

wrap up our conversation, then if anybody would like to get in

touch with you or find out more about the work that you do,

whereabouts would you send them?

Yeah, well, we have a fabulous website. So

Yeah we'll get the links and put them in the show notes. And do

that's ncub.co.uk, and really, there's a lot of material on

there that includes all of the policy and evidence reports that

we do, a lot of overviews of the types of projects that we have

running. But importantly, it also includes a lot of

showcasing of university business collaborations and what

they're achieving and doing in practice. So that's a great

place to start. We also have a newsletter, have a monthly

newsletter that anybody can access, as well as a weekly

newsletter for our members. And you know, other than that, I

think we're a very accessible team, so if anyone would want to

reach out to us, there's different ways of doing that,

and there are contact details for that are on our on our web

page. So we're always welcoming reflections

you do LinkedIn or BlueSky or anything like that

Oh, it's bit fluid at the moment, so I know, so I

definitely do LinkedIn, yeah. So, and the organization does

LinkedIn as well, so you can definitely follow us on there.

We have, at the moment, only got an X account, and we are on the

verge of converting to BlueSky as well so do follow us on that

too.

Yes, it's all a bit kind of in the in the

middle, messy middle at the moment, in that respect, isn't

it? Yes. Oh well. Thank you so much, Rosalind for coming along

and telling us about your story. It's been really interesting.

Thank you.

Brilliant. Thank you, Sarah.

Thanks for listening to Research Adjacent.

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