At a recent “fireside chat” at a sector event, after I had outlined to those present some details of the transformational journey the University of East London (UEL) has been on in the past six years, one of those attending said to me: “Until UEL has produced Nobel Prize winners, you can’t say it has transformed.”
While I chose not to address the comment immediately – the sharp intake of breath and rebuttals that followed from other colleagues present seemed enough at the time – it has played on my mind since.
It wasn’t so much the comment’s narrow mindedness that shocked, but the confidence with which it was delivered. Yet, looking at the ways in which we often celebrate and highlight sector success – through league tables, mission groups, or otherwise – it is little wonder my interlocutor felt so assured in his worldview.
Value judgement
This experience leads me to offer this provocation: as a sector, many of our metrics are failing us, and we must embrace the task of redefining value in 21st century higher education with increased seriousness.
If you disagree, and feel that traditional proxies such as the number of Nobel Prizes awarded to an institution should continue to count as the bellwethers for quality, you may wish to pause and consider a few uncomfortable truths.
Yes, the UK is a global leader in scientific excellence. But we are also among the worst in the OECD for translating that science into commercial or productivity gains. The UK is a leading global research hub, producing 57 per cent more academic publications than the US in per capita terms. Yet compared to the US, the UK lags significantly behind in development and scale-up metrics like business-funded R&D, patents, venture capital and unicorns.
Universities have been strongly incentivised to increase research volume in recent years, but as the outgoing chief executive of UKRI Ottoline Leyser recently posited to the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology committee do we need to address this relatively unstrategic expansion of research activity across a range of topics, detached from economic growth and national priorities? Our global rankings – built on proxies like Nobel Prizes – are celebrated, while our real-world economic outcomes stagnate. We excel in research, yet struggle in relevance. That disconnect comes at a cost.
I recently contributed to a collection of essays on entrepreneurial university leadership, edited by Ceri Nursaw and published by HEPI – a collection that received a somewhat critical response in the pages of Research Professional, with the reviewer dismissing the notion of bold transformation on the basis that: “The avoidance of risk-taking is why universities have endured since the Middle Ages.”
Yes. And the same mindset that preserved medieval institutions also kept them closed to women, divorced from industry, and indifferent to poverty for centuries. Longevity is not the same as leadership – and it’s time we stopped confusing the two. While we should all be rightfully proud of the great heritage of our sector, we’re at real risk of that pride choking progress at a critical inflection point.
Lead or be led
Universities UK chief executive Vivienne Stern’s recent keynote at the HEPI Annual Conference reminded us that higher education has evolved through tectonic shifts such as the industrial revolution’s technical institutes, the social revolution that admitted women, the 1960s “white heat” of technological change, and the rise of mass higher education.
Now we are on the edge of the next seismic evolution. The question is: will the sector lead it, or be shaped by it? At the University of East London, we’ve chosen to lead by pressing ahead with a bold transformation built on a central premise that a careers-first approach can drive success in every part of the university – not on precedents that leave us scrambling for relevance in a changing world.
Under this steam, we’ve achieved the UK’s fastest, most diversified, debt-free revenue growth. We’ve become an engine of inclusive enterprise, moving from 90th to 2nd in the UK for annual student start-ups in six years, with a more than 1,000 per cent increase in the survival of student-backed businesses. We’ve overseen a 25-point increase in positive graduate outcomes – the largest, fastest rise in graduate success – as well as ranking first in England for graduating students’ overall positivity. We use money like we use ideas: to close gaps, not widen them. To combat inequality, not entrench it.
So, let me return to the Nobel Prize comment. The metrics that matter most to our economy and society, the achievements that tangibly improve lives, are not displayed in glass cabinets – rather those that matter most are felt every day by every member of our society. Recent polling shows what the public wants from growth: improved health and wellbeing, better education and skills, reduced trade barriers. Our government’s policy frameworks – from the industrial strategy to the AI strategy – depend on us as a sector to deliver those outcomes.
Yet how well do our reputational rankings align with these national imperatives? How well does our regulatory framework reward the institutions that deliver on them? Are we optimising for prestige – or for purpose? We are living at a pivot point in history. The institutions that thrive through it will not be those that retreat into tradition. They will be those that rethink leadership, rewire purpose, and reinvent practice.
Too much of higher education innovation is incremental; transformational innovation is rare. But it is happening – if we choose to see it, support it, and scale it. I urge others to join me in making the case for such a choice, because the next chapter of higher education will be written by those who act boldly now – or rewritten for those who don’t.
