Our policy priorities

A thriving university sector is vital for driving the UK’s economic growth and prosperity through providing jobs, skills, ideas, and innovation. Universities improve the lives of students and the communities around them and strengthen the UK’s global influence through links and networks across the world.

To deliver the greatest value to society, we need alignment within government to deliver a single, strategic approach to research, innovation, and higher education.  Alongside this, we need a system of regulation that is proportionate and trusted by both students and providers.

We want a system which is fairer to all and supports the long-term ambitions of our universities to educate the next generation. This means:

• We want to reinstate maintenance grants for those who need them most.  
• Enough places to meet increased demand resulting from demographic growth. 

Teaching investment, per student, to return to the equivalent of 2015/16 levels to ensure that all those with the aspiration and ability to go to university have a high-quality educational and all-round experience.

We want to harness universities’ capacity to drive economic growth, innovation, creativity, and productivity. We need a knowledge-intensive economy, developing high-skilled jobs across the UK by: 

• Government committing to increasing the target of GDP invested in R&D by 2030 from the current 2.4% to closer to international innovation superpowers such as Israel, Korea, the United States and Germany.
• Treat R&D as long-term capital investment through 10-year funding cycles to maximise the ability to secure private investment through increased certainty. 

To ensure the UK economy remains globally competitive we need to prioritise:

• Attracting the best talent – both students and staff – through an internationally competitive visa regime.
• A commitment to stable and managed growth in international students, supported by a pledge to maintain the Graduate visa.
• Migration figures separating out temporary from permanent migration. 

We want every corner of the UK to benefit and thrive with the support of universities, so we want to:

• Incentivise stronger place-based networks that promote access to tertiary education whether HE, FE or apprenticeships and encourage efficiency in delivering on access and local skills need.
• Increase support for universities to work with businesses to deliver local economic growth through place-based innovation funding and support start-ups and spinouts that create local opportunities.
• Give everyone access to the very best education and health services wherever they live by removing the barriers to universities providing teacher training for the next generation of school leaders and increasing the number of medical school places and other allied professions.