Through a glass darkly Measuring the social value of universities

What role do universities play in society? How is their activity capturedthrough formal funding and reporting mechanisms?Universities engage with a range of stakeholders, including the general public, civil society, public sector,business and policy sectors. Their interactions are widely understood to occur in three broad arenas:• Research and knowledge exchange:Generating benefits to society and the economy through the processes of research, knowledgeexchange and public engagement• Teaching and learning:Contributing to economic growth and enriching society by developing knowledgeable, skilled, wellroundedgraduates• Wider societal engagement:Generating wider social impacts through the various engagements – voluntary, legislated for andaccidental – which universities create simply by being important societal institutions in their own rightAlthough the new Research Excellence framework and the Research Councils ‘Pathways to Impact’recognise the wider social benefits generated through research, there is no sector wide mechanism toquantify the non-market value of universities’ wider engagements with society. In particular, the widerbenefits generated through the education of graduates is difficult to capture, and though many of thewider societal engagements conducted by universities are evaluated the full impact of these activities isnot captured in any systematic way. The best we can offer is a patchwork of case study and narrativeaccounts.Can we move beyond ‘narrative’ to develop a holistic measurementframework for the wider benefits of Higher Education?Attempts are underway, supported by UUK and the NCCPE, to put a market value on the outputs andoutcomes of the sector, and these will be discussed at the roundtable. Attempts to do just this in theUSA have led to the estimation that the non-market benefits of universities are greater than the financialones. Such evidence could provide compelling evidence to inform future policy in the UK:‘the estimate that social benefit externalities constitute about 52% of the total benefits of HE is anapproximate guide to how far the privatization of HE should proceed before public investment fallsbelow the level conducive to optimum efficiency’ McMahon 2009Discussion pointsIn your view, is the current balance between universities’ ‘market’ and ‘non-market’ activities aboutright? How well do you think the sector currently ‘makes the case’ for the social value it helps to create?How do you assess the likely impact of new funding arrangements for research (the ‘impact’ agenda) andfor teaching (the raising of student fees). How might these affect the balance struck between ‘private’and ‘public’ good?How important do you think it is that the sector seeks to develop a means of quantifying in a holistic waythe value of non-market benefits? Are their dangers in quantifying social value in monetary terms?Who should be involved in ongoing negotiations over the future ‘balance’ of university activities? How canthe views of these different stakeholders best be heard?In discussing ‘value’, how far do we also need to debate and take account of ‘values’?How can we ensure that spending time and energy better articulating the social value of universitiesactually leads to tangible benefits to wider society – and doesn’t become an exercise in navel gazing?Measuring the social value and wider benefits of higher education – whynow?UK Universities are facing challenging times. The UK Higher Education Sector has grown substantiallyover the last 15 -20 years, largely through public funding support. Since the time of the Dearing Inquiryinto Higher Education there has been a 39% increase in university student numbers, from 1.79 millionstudents in 1997 to 2.49 million students in 2010. 7339