Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director
So, the dust has settled on the local and mayoral elections in England. Yorkshire now has three ‘Metro Mayors’, with a fourth, for Hull and East Yorkshire, in the offing next year, meaning that there will be full Mayoral coverage across Yorkshire by May 2025. Congratulations to Oliver Coppard and Tracy Brabin, re-elected as the Mayors of South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, respectively, and to David Skaith, the first Mayor of York and North Yorkshire. Yorkshire Universities (YU) looks forward to working with all three Mayors and their Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs), as well as the MCA transition team in Hull and East Yorkshire.
Mayors and MCAs are relatively new actors in the UK political system, and, judging by their continued efforts to secure additional functions, responsibilities, and funding, they are driving the demand for greater decentralisation from Whitehall to the regional and local level.
Ahead of the elections, Yorkshire Universities (YU) wrote an open letter urging all Mayoral candidates to work with our twelve members to widen and deepen the contribution of higher education to the region’s growth, health and well-being and prosperity. The letter outlined five key asks, which ranged from creating “a new culture of business, enterprise and entrepreneurialism” to improving students’ experiences of the region.
The relationships between YU member institutions and policymakers within and across Yorkshire, at local and MCA levels, illustrates the importance attached by universities to the regional dimension, and to civic and community engagement and participation. Devolution offers YU and its members the potential to work in partnership with local government, Mayors and MCAs, to influence and shape, for the better, the place environment in which higher education operates.
With one of the largest and most diverse regional HE eco-systems outside London, higher education contributes £8 billion per annum in output to Yorkshire’s economy, and it sustains 63,700 people in employment. YU’s members have 220,000 students enrolled. Higher education has a unique role to play in delivering the manifestos, plans and strategies of the newly elected Mayors and the MCAs. The contribution of universities to promoting Yorkshire as a region that able to attract more public and private investment, to create more sustainable, greener, and inclusive growth, and more well-paid and secure jobs, is evident. Expanding opportunities for more people to acquire new skills, through education and training, and working with business to grow and expand markets and improve productivity, as part of a new culture of enterprise and entrepreneurialism, lies at the heart of YU’s Strategy.
As YU members face ‘headwinds’ that are buffeting the higher education sector in ways not seen for decades, the functions and funding held by Mayors and MCAs, and the soft power and influence they wield, have become even more important. ‘Levelling up’, however defined, will not materialise if there is not a viable, diverse, and successful, system of higher education in regions, such as Yorkshire.
Although these are challenging times, there are also real opportunities to harness the research, talent and assets of YU members, together with the long-term programme funding and interventions in the hands of Mayors, alongside Government funding, to extend and further embed innovation, through vehicles like the Investment Zones.
YU’s mission recognises the diversity of higher education, but also the common threads that bind our members together as a collective, working for the greater good. Equally, the elected Mayors, although embedded in, and shaped by, diverse socio-economic and institutional context, have nevertheless signalled they are committed to collaboration within and across Yorkshire. That can only be beneficial for the region.
