New data shows universities open their doors to local communities

An increase in attendance at events could suggest that the public are increasingly acknowledging the importance of universities as third spaces – places outside of the home or work where they can come together to develop a sense of community. 

The fact that events and downloadable media are offered for free is incredibly valuable. As local councils have struggled to invest in arts and culture in recent years, the contributions of universities in this space have become more vital. However, the extent to which universities can offer public events for free is at risk as the sector goes through financial difficulty.

An increase in engagement with university-produced television, radio and websites also signals how universities are changing the ways they reach out to the public. While this may reflect the way society accesses culture after the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re keen to understand more in this space and are working with members to add more context.

Case study: Startup Enterprise Support Programme for Women

Universities aren't just opening their doors to local communities by holding free events. They're also reaching out and supporting those around them. We spoke to Angela Kanwar from the University of West London about how the university is helping women from marginalised communities make their business ideas a reality.

The wider dataset that contains these attendance figures is rich with detail. It shows how many times universities have shared facilities or specialist equipment with businesses and how many spin outs and start-ups have come out of each university. It also measures the monetary value of these relationships.

The dataset is closely monitored by policymakers to understand the financial and wider impact of universities. It’s used to show how the relationships between business and universities contribute to economic growth, which is a key concern for both main Westminster political parties.

However, a focus on financial impact alone can mean that policymakers ignore whether the data can also be used to highlight the civic value of universities. We’re working with our membership to highlight their public engagement activity through this dataset.

While this data is a good starting point for exploring the scale of civic impact that universities have in their local regions (the impact on their local town, city or community), some argue that measuring how many people attend an event doesn't meaningfully capture how engaged the public are.

This limitation is one of the reasons why HESA have suggested pausing collection of the data in a recent consultation. Another is that data collection is burdensome.

We’ve participated in the consultation to stress that, despite limitations, there’s value to this data as a longitudinal measure of how public engagement changes over time. We’re working with our membership and HESA to maximise value and minimise burden as we know that the data can encourage civic activities at universities. For example, some universities use the data to monitor and reward academics on public engagement academic pathways. 

Ultimately, universities across the UK are opening their doors to their local communities and we want a clear way to measure the impact of this so that we can champion this activity.