Creating Prosperity: the role of higher education in ... - Universities UK

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Creating Prosperity: the role of higher educationin driving the UK’s creative economyviThere is also evidence of growing engagement between higher education and industry at allstages of the education process, from course design and development to delivery. This is havinga beneficial impact on students, industry and universities.In addition to higher education’s role in developing next-generation talent, a number of other trendsare also evident:• There is an increasing focus on multidisciplinary education, particularly at postgraduate level,a trend that is consistent with the rise of multidisciplinary research initiatives (the two arefrequently combined).• Universities are increasingly embedding opportunities for practical learning in industry settingswithin their courses as a way of enhancing the employability of graduates and creating value forparticipating organisations.• The educational process in many creative disciplines – problem solving, project-based,collaborative and experiential learning – helps to develop many of the skills and attributes requiredfor successful innovators and entrepreneurs, skills that are in demand across the economy.• There is growing focus on entrepreneurship education, and universities are actively engaged inincubation and enterprise support activities to encourage and enable more graduate start‐ups.• The growing engagement with industry has brought with it a rise in CPD provision.Again, while of obvious value to the creative economy, there are issues in seeking to deliver thesekinds of impacts:• There is a need to invest to maintain the high quality of creative education. In particular, manycreative subjects are expensive due to the need for space and facilities.• There is a persistent issue with the different expectations and language used by industry andacademia around skills provision and a need to build a better understanding on both sides.• Although there has been substantial progress around employability, demand-side issues remaina barrier, and there are challenges in ensuring a consistent quality of student experience.• Similar issues are evident in relation to CPD – the challenges of engaging with the diverse companybase of the creative industries, many of which lack resources to engage in CPD, are considerable.• More work is needed to fully understand the extent and quality of entrepreneurship educationand support in areas relating to the creative economy, and there is currently a lack of consistentstandards in this area.• Much of higher education’s valuable work in these areas is dependent on external funding.Following the Spending Review, and the previous announcements on the closure of the RegionalDevelopment Agencies (RDAs), many of these sources of funding will come under increasingpressure, with consequent threats to both higher education and the creative economy.Executive summary
Creating Prosperity: the role of higher educationin driving the UK’s creative economyviiThe wider role of universitiesThe research also highlighted a range of other ways that universities across the UK are contributingto the growth of the creative economy as a result of the scale, credibility and international standingboth of individual institutions and of the UK’s higher education system as a whole. These include:• anchoring regional clusters through the attraction and retention of academic, graduate andbusiness talent• engaging significant industry players and facilitating connections with creative SMEs, creatingnew routes to major market opportunities• building international reputation and credibility in ways that both enhance the UK’s reputationand also deliver direct benefit to regional creative businesses• supporting active networks and bringing together business, academic and public sector partners –the triple helix of innovationp The BaleHaus at Bath is a house made of prefabricated straw and hemppanels built at the University of Bath to test how these renewable buildingmaterials can be used for homes of the future. Straw and hemp are theultimate environmentally-friendly building materials – they are totallyrenewable and because they absorb CO2 as they grow, buildings madefrom these materials can have a tiny or even negative carbon footprint.Executive summary
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Creating Prosperity: the role of higher education in ... - Universities UK

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