Speech by Professor Malcolm Press CBE, President of Universities UK

I’d like to start by recognising the outstanding leadership that my predecessor, Professor Dame Sally Mapstone, has shown during her tenure as President. Under her inspiring leadership, Sally brought to the fore the impact that our universities have on people’s lives and the economy, while at the same time evidencing the many significant pressures that we face. She was resolutely clear about both the opportunities and the challenges.

Sally led and delivered the Blueprint for Change, which is a forward thinking vision that underpins much of Universities UK’s advocacy work. She has given generously of her time. She has shown calm and thoughtful leadership throughout some of the most complex challenges that we have faced. And she has provided support and wise counsel to colleagues. Throughout, Sally has led with a perfect balance of wisdom, authority, humility, and a great sense of humour. Sally, you have been a model president - principled, effective, and widely admired – and on behalf of the entire membership, a massive thank you.

During my presidency, I will endeavour to build on Sally’s legacy and represent you with the same integrity, commitment, and passion. I stood to be President because of my strong belief in the importance of our universities and all that we stand for. I believe that education is a critical factor that improves life chances and that it’s one of the most important levers that we can pull to create a brighter future for individuals and communities.

I know this from my own personal experiences, and also from seeing so many students go on to enjoy rewarding, fulfilling, and successful careers. The research and innovation that we undertake are fundamental to addressing the grand challenges of our time, contributing to economic growth, and enhancing our standing in the world. These are the reasons why I’ve dedicated my adult life to higher education and why I feel so proud and privileged to serve you in this role.

I now want to go on a say a few words about our institutions and our adaptability. Universities rank amongst the world’s oldest and most stable organisations. Our institutions have constantly evolved to meet the needs of society in an ever-changing world. This spirit of evolution hasn’t gone away. It’s what has, and will continue, to allow us to keep pace with rapid change. Change takes many shapes and forms, not least the digital and AI revolution, global warming, growing inequality, and geopolitical headwinds. Universities are impacted just as much as everyone else, but uniquely, we have the ability to play a crucial role in addressing these challenges, taking advantage of opportunity whilst managing uncertainty and minimising risks. 

Our quest for discovery and new knowledge through research, the dissemination of ideas and skills through our teaching, and our determination to ensure that our mission impacts positively on society is the essence of what we’re about. 

And of course, this focus is reflected in the theme of this year’s conference: ‘From Strength to Strength’. Our strength lies not only in tradition, but in our willingness to embrace the future, working with government, businesses and communities to address today’s and tomorrow’s challenges. So, as we gather here for this conference, we should not only celebrate what we have achieved together but also commit to the next chapter of renewal and ambition. The story of our universities has always been one of resilience and reinvention. And together, we will ensure that this continues, with impact and strength.

So what will this next chapter of renewal look like? The last few years have been characterised by our costs rising more steeply than our income. We are by no means alone in suffering the impacts of high inflation, but our ability to grow revenue has been constrained. We’ve seen the undergraduate fee cap frozen for almost a decade, a real-term decline in quality-related research funding, and pressure on international student numbers. It is important that as leaders we do our utmost to address these challenges.

I know that each and every one of us will be making spending decisions that drive efficiency and productivity without compromising the quality of our research and teaching - day in and day out. The innovations that we’re delivering include: wider use of technology to enhance and enrich teaching, learning and research; and greater agility in developing new programmes and modules to address changing demands from students and employers.

Innovation and efficiency are necessary but are unlikely to be sufficient by themselves in the long term to achieve financial sustainability for everyone in the sector. I say this because we are already witnessing changes in recruitment patterns for domestic students and this is even before we experience the demographic dip that will come in the 2030s.

On recruitment, I believe that it’s important that we fully respect the right of students to choose where they study, but in admitting students, we must ensure that we can provide the teaching and pastoral support to enable them to succeed. We should encourage students to look at the breadth of universities and their courses and work out what’s best for them. After all, TEF gold awards and outstanding NSS scores are distributed throughout the sector. Further, we need to recognise the important role that universities play in their locale, providing skills and innovation to public and private sector employers. It’s vital to ensure that this continues. Beyond what we can do individually, UUK established a transformation and efficiency task force to explore ways in which collaboration and partnership can deliver real value for the sector and the people we serve. There won’t be a one size fits all solution, but the work aims to identify ways in which cooperation rather than competition can drive beneficial outcomes.

Now as an ecologist, I know that in the natural world, we see cooperation, as well as competition, playing out in harsh environments. Cooperation delivers benefits when there are high levels of stress, scarce resources, and major disturbances - it’s a key determinant of survival. I’m sure that the parallels here will seem as clear to you as they do to me.

But moving back to the task force - the work continues and examples of what could be achieved are emerging. These include improving our purchasing power through smarter procurement, collaborative teaching of subjects at risk such as modern foreign languages, and better sharing of research facilities. The work also opens up the way for institutions to explore much more radical solutions to sustainability through partnership, if there is a desire to do so - where new forms of interaction will drive success. These could range from shared systems to new types of organisational structures.

This work is important because it demonstrates that we are taking control of change and shaping ourselves before others try to shape us. We also need to pay attention to the important role that our universities play globally. The Higher Education ecosystem in the UK is the envy of many across the world. We are often research partners of choice and international students vote with their feet to come and study here. Both the soft and hard power that we generate should not be ignored yet sometimes this is difficult to evidence, and the returns are long-term or indirect. A government minister told me recently that they found it so much easier to have productive conversations overseas about investing in the UK, if people had direct experience of our universities as either students or researchers.

International students are a hot topic and important to our sector. At the same time, we need to recognise that measures to control net migration are a major priority for the government. If we want a durable settlement for international students, we have to be serious about compliance and our behaviour - we should never seek to circumvent policies or the spirit of those policies. Further, the actions of recruitment agents, English language competency, and international students claiming asylum are important issues that we must all take seriously. One thing that would help us all would be the provision of real-time data from UKVI. This is something that UUK are pushing hard for and that we believe could be transformational in our ability to mitigate risk and reduce abuse.

So while there’s a lot that we can do ourselves, individually and collectively, there is also a need for the government to act. But at times of fiscal constraint, we cannot expect the government to wave a magic wand. It’s incumbent on us to evidence our worth and this is best achieved, to my mind, by demonstrating that we are key delivery partners for government, ensuring that the country thrives. This is core business for Universities UK.

Looking at the missions that the government sets out, it’s clear that we have a vital role to play: economic growth; clean energy; educational opportunities; and the NHS. Every university in the country will have powerful examples of the contributions that our research and teaching make to these objectives. We are already doing a great deal, but the government will expect us to step up and go further. Judging by the ambition that I witnessed when visiting universities and speaking to colleagues, I know that this is something that we want for ourselves too.

By 2035, it is estimated that 88% of new jobs will require graduate level skills. The critical role that we play here should not be underestimated: it’s simple – there’s no growth without graduates. In delivering these higher-level skills, we need to draw talent from across the UK and ensure that all those who have the potential to benefit from university can do so, not only for their sake, but for the sake of the country.

It cannot be right that a student’s postcode determines their prospects. Yet today, this is often sadly the case. Research by UCAS and HEPI shows that young people from the most advantaged areas are more than twice as likely to apply to university as those from the least advantaged backgrounds. This is a gap that we just cannot accept. Talent is everywhere; opportunity must be too. Of course, it’s important that we recognise that university is not right for everyone. It’s counterproductive though to pit one part of the education ecosystem against another. Rather, it is incumbent on us all to be mutually supportive and interconnected.

We also have a crucial role to play in delivering each of the eight priority sectors of the government’s industrial strategy: advanced manufacturing, clean energy, creative industries, defence, digital, financial services, life sciences, and professional services. This strategy is underpinned by a focus on five foundations for growth: ideas, a skilled workforce, modern infrastructure, business growth, and strong local economies. These foundations for growth are the bread and butter of universities.

Looking across our sector, there are some fantastic examples of what we deliver. The University of Exeter leads the Defence Data Research Centre for the Ministry of Defence and the CIA, and advises on geopolitics through its Strategy and Security Institute. In the North East, the Centre for Space Skills and Technology is nearing completion at Northumbria University. This will catalyse innovation, deliver next generation skills, and support UK export growth. In Scotland, just last week the University of Strathclyde opened the Net Zero Innovation Centre supported by Innovate UK. And the strength of the creative industries is underpinned by university-led initiatives like Media Cymru in Cardiff and Studio Ulster in Belfast, as well as by our specialist creative institutions. And whilst these targeted and focused interventions are important, we should not lose sight of blue skies research, driven by curiosity and a quest for knowledge. This has led to many breakthroughs, often in unexpected ways. The list is endless – penicillin, the internet, and graphene – to name but a few.

But to do all this and more we need to get our funding on a sustainable footing. We must identify and boldly set out how the costs can be better shared between those who benefit. Because if we don’t step forward with ideas, ambition, and a willingness to lead, decisions will be made for us – by others. We now have a much clearer sense of what this government wants and expects from us. The challenge ahead is to make the case for sustainable support – by demonstrating how the government’s success is inextricably linked to our agenda.

I’m delighted that today we’ll be joined by Jacqui Smith, Minister for Skills; Patrick Vallance, Minister for Science; and Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. Their presence is a clear sign of the importance of our sector and willingness to work with us. Put simply: there’s no national renewal without universities. And this is a moment to renew our partnership with government.

During my tenure as UUK President, I will continue to argue for a sustainable funding settlement for teaching and research. But together we must strengthen political and public pride in our institutions using the key building blocks of improving life chances, driving innovation, and fostering civic pride. When universities deliver, the whole country succeeds. That’s our power and selling point. If we’re serious about working in partnership with government to help meet its ambitions, we have to be more than a collection of individuals.

We are made up of institutions that differ in size, scale and focus. And we often talk up the diversity of the sector. However, I would argue that by taking a step back, it’s evident that we have far more in common than divides us.

After all, almost every university in this room will be delivering teaching to domestic and international students; undertaking high quality research; and creating benefits to stakeholders - private and public sector, large or small, here in the UK or overseas. Yes, of course, size, scale, subject mix, research intensity, setting, and focus vary … but our fundamental DNA remains the same. I sometimes worry that constrained resources, fire fighting at our own institutions, and a regulatory environment designed for competition will create a more fractious sector. We must not allow ourselves to be divided and we must not forget our long history of collaboration. UUK gives us a shared voice, a shared platform, and a shared purpose. I would also argue that we should be more robust in challenging our critics. But we need listen to what they have to say, and acknowledge and address genuine concerns. After all, there may be grains of truth that we would be wise to act upon.

We should constantly challenge ourselves: are we equipping our students with the toolkit of skills they need to succeed in our rapidly changing world? Is our research being translated to serve the country? Are we engaging with our communities, our civic partners and businesses to deliver mutuality? Are we doing all within our power to drive efficiency? Are we working together where it makes sense to do so? And are we calling out small pockets of poor practice that detract from the high quality that we deliver overall? We must be accountable - ready to listen and to act – when legitimate concerns are raised. We cannot afford to be defensive.

The world we have been operating in has shifted: politically, economically, and socially, and we must now face this new reality with a willingness to evolve once again. We’ve done it before, and I’m confident that we can succeed this time round.

In responding to challenge and criticism as a sector, we’ve become highly skilled at using data to persuade; we know how to make a compelling case with statistics. Winning minds though is only part of the task. To truly connect with people, we need to win hearts too - stories inspire in a way that numbers sometimes cannot. To illustrate this point further, let’s look at the economic impact reports that we produce. All of them contain some truly impressive figures. London Economics found that in a single year, our sector returned £265 bn to the UK economy through higher salaries of graduates, direct spending, tax revenue, and improvements to business productivity. This amounts to a £14 return for every £1 of public money invested, a figure that has been widely used to evidence our worth.

But what do these massive numbers mean in practice? What could you do with £265 bn? If you’re not sure, I’ll give you a few suggestions. You could build four HS2 rail networks … we’d settle for just one in the North. You could run the entire NHS for two years. Or you could build over a million homes. When I was invited to give evidence to a recent meeting of the Education Select Committee, the point that seemed to attract attention was that my own institution contributes more GVA to the local economy than both Manchester United and Manchester City football clubs put together. Of course, the same is also true for my closest neighbour, the University of Manchester, as it will be for large universities up and down the country in cities with Premier League football teams. So we need to combine data with storytelling to make an emotional connection with people. The more that we can do this, standing shoulder to shoulder with the beneficiaries of our work, and talk about our impact with a shared voice, the better. 

When people do have negative perceptions, we find that they can sometimes be driven by anecdote – a person making a good living without a degree, comments about low contact hours, or the idea that university courses are becoming irrelevant to real-world careers. We must be ready to counter these with anecdotes of our own without dismissing or disregarding the need to act when we have failed to meet expectations.

Recent work by HEPI and Kings College London on the gaps between people’s perceptions and the reality of going to university reinforce the need for us to take action. I am struck by two points. People guessed that 40% of graduates wouldn’t go to university if they had their time over again. The actual proportion who said this was 8%. And people guessed that 49% of graduates would say that their university debt was a burden, but actually only 16% of graduates felt this way. These examples illustrate the misconceptions that we need to change.

On my first day as President, I visited Northern Ireland with Professor Lisa Roberts, our Vice-President and host for this year’s annual conference. It was a fitting start, seeing for ourselves the cutting-edge facilities, world-class research, inspiring teaching, and meeting students, at Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast. It was a powerful reminder of the extraordinary potential that our universities hold. The uplifting nature of the visit contrasts somewhat with the mood of the nation, as reported by pollsters and the commentariat.

We must recognise that across the country, there is a strong desire for change. People want to live in a society that works for them – and see improvements in their prosperity, their local area, and opportunities for them to thrive.

Still, I am encouraged that higher education continues to be seen by many as a pathway to a better life, and that universities are trusted to provide the expertise and resources needed to support national renewal. But this trust cannot be taken for granted as some question our relevance and worth. This year though, more 18-year-olds than ever before are choosing to put their future in our hands, confident that their university education and experience will help them to realise their dreams. 

Colleagues, the road ahead will not be easy. But then again, it never has been. The history of our universities is a combination of resilience, reinvention, and renewal. For years, decades, and centuries, we’ve shown that when the world changes, we change with it, and often lead the change. We will be defined by the quality of our research, the success of our graduates, and the impact of our civic mission. But we will also be defined by our ability to do these things together, with impact, and with pride.

So, my promise to you, as President, is to continue to make the case, with strong evidence, with powerful stories, and with renewed conviction, that universities are not just part of the solution, we are essential to it.

Let us leave this conference not only with a sharper sense of the challenges, but also with a renewed belief in our collective power …. when universities succeed, the country succeeds. Thank you.