Through a glass darkly Measuring the social value of universities

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12.2.8 While this may initially appear to be a resource intensive data collection exercise, it may not needto be as difficult as it first appears. Universities already generate and collect significant quantitiesof data for many different purposes and some of the relevant output data needed are alreadycollected by HESA (e.g. through the HE-BCIS) or by other agencies for other purposes. A numberof universities have also begun collecting data on their staff ‘knowledge exchange’ activitiesfor internal purposes or to use for institutional publicity. Ideally the SMEV should use, as far aspossible, the data that are already collected for other purposes. This aim would be consistent withthe ongoing moves within the sector and by sectoral agencies such as HESA to rationalise datacollection and to minimise the burden on institutions.12.3 Pricing of higher education outputs:12.3.1 The third step in a SMEV is to undertake the pricing of the identified outputs. A ‘set ‘of economicprices 67 for all of the outputs is required. This has to be an exercise undertaken by independentanalysis (i.e. cannot be done by the institutions themselves) as the prices to be used are notnecessarily related to the money an institution receives for a particular service and need to be aset of consistent, economically robust, ‘UK-wide’ or ‘society wide’ prices so that they are valid forall institutions.12.3.2 We have previously highlighted the difference between financial value, and economic value. Insummary, financial value is related to the financial amount involved in a transaction (moneychanging hands, tuition fees or contract research fees, for example) but economic value(particularly for non-market goods and services ) does not have to be related to money per se butrather to the use of resources of one kind or another.12.3.3 So when pricing university outputs it is the ‘economic’ value we are seeking, rather than thefinancial value. This means that all outputs including ‘non-market outputs (for example an openpublic lecture for which there is no entry fee and hence no financial value attached) must bepriced. It is entirely feasible to place a value on all of the outputs, including non-market or noncommercialwork.12.3.4 In some cases the financial value might be the same as the economic value. This is always thecase where the financial price is one that has been set through the operation of an open or ‘free’market. An example would be a piece of contract research where the commissioning client andthe university have freely entered into a contract and mutually agreed what both regard as a ‘fairprice.’12.3.5 However where there is no financial price attached (such as an open public lecture) there are arange of recognised economic techniques that can be used to deduce a price. This is through aprocess known as ‘shadow-pricing’ and includes a battery of methods such as (to mention a few):• ‘revealed preference’ (observing what people are willing to pay elsewhere for a similar service),• ‘stated preference’ or ‘willingness to pay’ (which involves asking people what they would bewilling to pay for the service if they had to pay) or• ‘Time Cost’ (related to the amount of time people are willing to spend.) Time-cost is a methodmost commonly used by government in economic appraisals of transport projects (the amountof time spent or saved in travelling is an important element of the value of a transport project.)Detailed guidance is available on the standard ‘rates’ to use for valuing time – with a differentvalue for 1 hour of leisure time and 1 hour of business time. 6828
12.4 The pricing and valuation process is shown in Figure 9 and examples of output identification andpricing shown in Figure 10.Figure 9: Pricing of university outputs29
Page 1: Through a glass,darkly: Measuringth
Page 5 and 6: Introduction and rationale - backgr
Page 8: “Higher education makes a contrib
Page 12 and 13: 4.4.3 ’Inside-Out’ - this refer
Page 14 and 15: 5. Current thinking about how highe
Page 16 and 17: 6.5 The limitations of financial va
Page 18 and 19: Part 27. Measuring social value in
Page 20: 7.13 A similar message emerges from
Page 23 and 24: Figure 6: Evaluative and predictive
Page 25 and 26: Figure 7: The strategic triangle of
Page 27 and 28: 11.9 For example, a University may
Page 29: 12.2 Identification and quantificat
Page 33 and 34: 12.5 By following through steps 1 a
Page 35 and 36: 13.10 In this example there is no d
Page 37 and 38: ConclusionsAs we have seen, the cur
Page 39 and 40: Appendix 1: Evidence matrixFigure 1
Page 41 and 42: What role do universities play in s
Page 43 and 44: Key economic reason for valuationTh
Page 45 and 46: to individuals (thorough increased
Page 47 and 48: Can we move beyond ‘narrative’
Page 49 and 50: Outcomes attempt to describe the di
Page 51 and 52: Appendix 3: BBC and public value -
Page 53 and 54: Appendix 4: Definitions of impact i
Page 55 and 56: Higher Education Statistics Agency,
Page 57 and 58: Notes1http://www.universitiesuk.ac.
Page 59 and 60: 75The Beacons for Public Engagement

Through a glass darkly Measuring the social value of universities

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