Reshuffle
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will be pronounced to rhyme with ‘days’ (apparently) and led by Greg Clark as BEIS Secretary of State. Jesse Norman, Under Secretary, has experience in cultural industries and Nick Hurd, Minister of State, is experienced with social enterprise from his work with Big Society Capital. Overall the BEIS team is widely regarded as strong. Justine Greening MP Secretary of State for Education, Minister for Women and Equalities is one of the few Cabinet ministers not to have gone to a selective school and she has made positive noises about reversing – or at least halting – antipathy towards local authority involvement in schools. Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, is not averse to state intervention in the economy although has hardly endeared himself to the education sector. Baroness Neville-Rolfe has the Intellectual Property remit and has been a good advocate for design and creative industries whilst Jo Johnson retains Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joint Minister with DfE) – again, this is widely regarded as a strong team. DfE will take on responsibility for further education and higher education policy as part of a new, wider remit. Skills are with the DfE, charities go to DCMS and Sajid Javid goes to DCLG. There are early hopes that spanning BEIS and DfE with a joint minister will succeed in bringing together a more ‘joined up’ approach to education, research, innovation and skills which is much needed.
The DfE Single departmental plan: 2015 to 2020 was last updated Aug 2016 — but no mention of HE in its core objectives so presumably there will be another update?
Brexit:
CHEAD has made positive contact with DfE, BEIS and Policy Connect and will be hosting a reception at Westminster in partnership with APDIG later in the Autumn to begin the process of lobbying for ADM HE interests in relation to Brexit — more soon! What follows is a broad overview of the issues, please do email Paula Graham-Gazzard with any additional issues or suggestions which you would like CHEAD to integrate into our developing lobbying strategy Obviously, at this stage, very little is known and projections are difficult to model.
With regard to immdiate concerns, as I’m sure everyone is aware, the Treasury will underwrite funding for approved Horizon 2020 projects applied for before the UK leaves the European Union and student loans are guaranteed for existing EU students.This reassurance is also rather short term and, as yet, we have no solid information on the research funding landscape going forward.
‘Brexit’ is too limited a term to encompass the expected upheavals to university finance, however. The incoming May government is redrawing UK economic policy and, beyond an extended period of uncertainty there is, well, more uncertainty. Enders|Analysis predicts “a post-Brexit recession will cause a hyper-cyclical decline in the advertising revenues of broadcasters and publishers”. ADM HE recruitment, both from the EU and globally, will also be hit by expected impacts on the Creative sector as a whole. These might include:
- Perception that the UK design industry will be more difficult to work with and less globally integrated
- Reduced access to markets for UK’s exports of services from the Creative Industries worth £17.9bn and accounting for 8.7% of total exports of services for the UK in 2013 [Creative Industries: Focus on Exports, June 2015]
- Falling off EU and public-sector tenders
- Negative impact on incoming corporate investment
- Negative impact on ‘Brand UK’ which relies heavily on Britain’s diverse, global cultural identity
- Negative impact on the flow of talent into the creative industries – both technical and creative – as UK secondary cultural education is squeezed out by EBacc and EU recruitment becomes more difficult.
- Uncertainty regarding issues such as freedom of movement, tax arrangements, regulatory frameworks such as IP, etc
- Fall in number of visa applications [THES: Number of Visa Applications for UK Study falls; THES, Brexit Hits Student Recruitment]
Alistair Jarvis, deputy chief executive of Universities UK, is coordinating its work on Brexit: see their excellent Brexit FAQ for HE, Universities UK
Brexit and The UK research sector:
In terms of research: “The UK was the second largest recipient in absolute terms in EU FP7. UK universities take 71% of the total FP7 funds awarded to the UK compared to 18% allocated to business. Where research and development is conducted in the UK; 64% conducted by businesses and 26% in universities. Horizon 2020 alone has a budget of €74.8 billion – the UK contributes €5.4bn annually to EU research budgets and is awarded €8.8bn in research funding. Norway and Switzerland have limited access to EU research framework funds which are contingent on accession to EU freedom of movement. [Royal Society, 2016]
Evidence is emerging that European universities are already chary of including UK HEI’s in multi-partner bids as EU is explicitly prioritising bids which do not include UK partners given equal quality of competing bids.
Loss of funding streams such as Creative Europe will impact not only the creative sector as a whole but may also have specific effects on collaborative Practice As Research (PAR). Though becoming well-established in REF, PAR is still an emerging area of research practice in terms of funding and instability in this area will be particularly unwelcome to HEIs currently building a research profile. Positive options being considered include broadening focus to global development research funds [THES: Brexit-Alternative Options]; opening subsidiary institutions within the EU; and ‘designing our way out’ of the crisis. It may be that the creative sector’s innovative flair is needed more than ever if the sector is to continue to thrive. In this regard, it’s very good news that KTN is now placing design at the heart of its bidding process. Also see Guardian HE – universities heal brexit rifts?; Universities play a vital role in community prosperity”
Higher Education – Business and Community Interaction survey 2014-15, HEFCE August 2016: shows a continuing increase in the exchange of knowledge between UK HEIs and the public, private, and third sectors. “At a time of growth in the economy following a prolonged period of economic difficulty, growth in knowledge exchange income and activity provides an excellent case for continued public investment in higher education and specifically in knowledge exchange funding streams.”
Brexit and Staff/Student recruitment:
The government has given reassurances that existing student loans for EU undergraduates will be underwritten, but this will probably do little to reassure potential new EU undergraduate applicants. Status of EU national staff, again, has no long-term protection. However, until more is known about the UK’s future status with regard to ‘services passporting’ it’s difficult to model practical strategies and outcomes.
Again, Brexit might not be the only concern. At the Extremes: Student Debt and Entrepreneurship, Laura Checovich & Tom Allison, August 2016, Young Invincibles, USA: Report demonstrates link between rising student debt and falling entrepreneurialism. In Silicon Valley “over the past two decades, people between the ages of 20 and 34 fell from being the largest cohort of new entrepreneurs, at nearly 35 percent, to the smallest, making up just 22.7 percent of new entrepreneurs and 40% of respondents cited debt as the principle barrier to their entrepreneurial activities or plans.
What’s next for the Creative Economy?
There’s a general feeling that the grieving period is over and we need to pick up the pieces and make it work somehow. WonkHE: Contemplating a Brexit for UK HE plays ‘devil’s advocate’ in an overview of arguments for and against Brexit for HE pointing up some of the positive outcomes we should be considering.
There are signs that industrial strategy (such as it was under Javid) will shift substantially. BEIS has launched an inquiry into the UK industrial strategy: response submissions by 27 September. There are a couple of questions of interest to our sector:
- Should the government try to pick sector ‘winners’ and, if so, what would be the criteria
- Should the industrial strategy have a regional emphasis
Given our sector’s contribution to GDP, a sectoral focus seems in our interests and it’s also important that the strategy should have a regional emphasis. CHEAD will not respond directly to this consultation but we have briefed APDIG on behalf of our members as they will submit a detailed response on behalf of the sector.
The CHEAD Conference 2017 will be themed around the global higher education sector, exploring the issues and foregrounding new opportunities and partnerships. More soon!