The University of Greenwich and the University of Kent have announced their intention to formally collaborate.
In response, Vivienne Stern MBE, Chief Executive of Universities UK, said:
This is an important announcement. Right across the university system in the UK, leaders are thinking and working differently in response to sustained financial pressures. Income has been falling and costs going up. To adapt, we see university leaders thinking about how you can do things differently to be able to grow and thrive in the future.
This is a perfect example of that creative thinking, building on a 20 year partnership between Kent and Greenwich, which already share a campus in Medway. Universities UK has been working to help universities explore options through our Transformation Taskforce, which recently published a guide on ‘radical collaboration’. Universities are remarkably resilient organisations, partly because they are capable of change and adaptation, and have been throughout history.
Collaboration and partnership between universities – whether this approach or in other ways – will further strengthen our world-leading sector and ensure it continues to deliver for the public, and for the economy and nation as a whole.
Vivienne Stern MBE
Chief Executive of Universities UK
Notes to editors
- Universities UK’s (UUK) Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce was established in response to significant financial pressure on the university sector in all four nations of the UK. Its aim is to grip the challenges the sector faces, support individual university efforts to achieve greater efficiency, and seek opportunities for collective action to help our universities go further and faster than they can alone.
- At Universities UK, we harness the power of the UK’s universities and create the conditions for them to thrive. We are the collective voice of 141 universities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, bringing them together to pursue a common cause: thriving universities, serving society. We aim to ensure our universities can transform the lives of more individuals, drive greater growth and create flourishing places through the knowledge and skills they generate, while being globally competitive centres of research making ground-breaking discoveries. Universities UK acts on behalf of universities, represented by their heads of institution. www.universitiesuk.ac.uk