place-based agenda Archives - Yorkshire Universities

Plan to Improve Graduate Employment and Employability in Yorkshire – YU Launches New Report

17th May 2022

A new report ‘Supporting Graduate Employment and Employability in Yorkshire’ published today (17 May) by Yorkshire Universities (YU) reveals how universities, students, employers and regional institutions can together help more graduates in Yorkshire enter the world of work or start up in business. In 2020/21, 212,000 students, from over 120 countries, were studying at Yorkshire’s universities, of which 68,000 graduated last year.

Written by a multi-stakeholder Task and Finish Group, convened by YU, the report features a series of recommendations on how to improve graduate employment and employability in the region. Amongst the proposals, include steps to: create more in-study and work experience opportunities; ensure there is more tailored careers and enterprise support; enhance the use of brokerage models to better connect graduates to job opportunities; provide clearer entry points within universities for employers; and run a coordinated campaign to promote the value of graduates to Yorkshire.

Welcoming the report, Professor Shirley Congdon, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bradford, and YU Chair, said:

The higher education sector is a major contributor to Yorkshire’s economy, culture and society. If we are to increase social mobility and ‘level up’, then our students and graduates will be central to the success of these missions. This report rightly encourages universities to work more collaboratively and with a diverse range of students and employers, to enable more people from a wide range of diverse backgrounds who graduate in the region to realise their full potential.”

Chair of the Task and Finish Group, Professor Karen Bryan OBE, Vice-Chancellor of York St John University, said:

Universities and partners in Yorkshire currently undertake significant work, and invest heavily, to support students through their studies and as they move into and beyond graduation. Our report recommends some further practical actions that universities and local partners can take to strengthen the existing support that is available to students in Yorkshire, which should help to expand and improve access to more well-paid jobs and careers for graduates.”

You can now download the Executive Summary and the Main Report (opens in new tab).

Levelling Up in Yorkshire and the Humber – A Position Statement by Yorkshire Universities and Yorkshire & Humber Councils

2nd February 2022

The government is committed to levelling up growth and opportunity, and to ensure that no region is left behind. Yorkshire and the Humber enjoys significant strengths and advantages. But the region also faces fundamental challenges. Targeted, long-term investment would deliver real improvements in productivity, education and skills, employment participation and population health.

This position statement is timed to coincide with the launch of a new partnership between Yorkshire Universities and Yorkshire & Humber Councils. The report has been prepared following a comprehensive review of research, evidence and proposals relating to the government’s plan to level up. It identifies what levelling up means to Yorkshire and the Humber, and what higher education institutions and local government can achieve together through analysis, ideas, convening power and practical delivery on the ground.

We embrace a definition of levelling up that is based on tackling long-standing local and regional inequalities and in particular addressing the challenges faced by ‘left behind’ places. Our aim is that no person or place in the region should be left behind due to structural inequalities. The report illustrates the contributions our members make as anchor institutions, and the benefits of partnership with each other and with government. Our proposals reflect the distinct nature of Yorkshire and the Humber; a shared commitment to collaboration, and to achieving real change.

Our analysis leads us to suggest that levelling up in Yorkshire and the Humber would benefit from higher education, local agencies, government and others working together to deliver a range of actions in the following areas: skills, employment and economic growth; education; climate change and environment; health and well-being; economic, social and digital infrastructure; and housing. These policies are instrumental to the creation of a more prosperous, greener, healthier and inclusive region.

Levelling up also means empowering people and local communities to participate in decision making, and to instill a renewed sense of belonging and pride. Local government and higher education are actively engaged with local communities to enhance citizen involvement in renewing social and civic capital. In addition, the devolved institutions in South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire have agreed long-term deals with government to deliver specific interventions designed to drive growth and development.

We believe that government (and its agencies) could take forward steps to support increased and more effective funding and financing in Yorkshire and the Humber. We would encourage more place-based investment underpinned by greater regional and local design, ownership, integration and strategic fit between various funding mechanisms.

The scale of the opportunity requires new and innovative thinking and action. A systems perspective would allow us to consider the impact of policies, and in cases where dual (or several) polices are implemented simultaneously it would enable us to identify interactions and outcomes. We would encourage the government to work with us to explore how a systems approach would operate within Yorkshire and the Humber. In addition, we plan to develop a Yorkshire Vitality Index to measure the impacts of the levelling up programme in the region.

Read the position paper in full here.

New YU Report: Universities and ‘Place Promotion’ in West Yorkshire

14th October 2021

Report written by James Ransom, YU Associate

This discussion paper provides an overview of some of the key issues shaping the contribution of universities and higher education institutions (HEIs) to the promotion of place, and to attracting inward investment and increased trade into Yorkshire and the Humber, and in particular West Yorkshire.

It should be read against the background of the government’s commitment to increase total research and innovation (R&I) investment to 2.4 percent of national GDP, in particular as foreign-owned businesses in the UK spend more on this activity than domestically-owned businesses.

In addition, it also provides a contribution to discussions that have taken place at various times in the region as to how universities and HEIs help to attract and embed business investment and trade within and across city/sub-regions, regions and the Northern Powerhouse. The report also seeks to inform the emergent 2021-2025 Leeds City Region Trade Strategy.

This work is intended to stimulate debate and to provide a basis for potential actions going forwards. Overall, the region’s universities are well-positioned to strengthen their strategic relationships with Combined Authorities, metro mayors, local government, LEPs, business and others, and to collectively showcase nationally and internationally the unique strengths of higher education (HE) in the region as an asset to attract investment and jobs. In particular, some practical and immediate actions could include providing a feed of relevant university-focused news reports for local inward investment web portals, promoting the local higher-level skills base, and utilising international students and alumni more strategically.

Download the full report. (Opens in new tab).

‘Place, the economy and COVID-19’

2nd April 2020

Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

As we head towards week three of ‘lock-down’, my thoughts are foremost with those people suffering from COVID-19 and on the front line in the fight against the disease. Whatever our challenges have been in adjusting to the new norm of homeworking, nothing compares to the immediate personal risks facing many in the UK and across the world.

Universities and Geography: Learning from the OECD?

19th May 202026th February 2020

Guest blog by Kevin Richardson, Research England

UKRI committed in its original Strategic Prospectus to publish a Place Strategy and work is progressing towards its publication. Meanwhile, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has opened an investigation into ‘universities and geography’. Kevin Richardson, Research England, identifies many common issues.

The value of expertise

19th May 202030th September 2019

Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

Last week, I was in Montréal speaking at an international conference on the subject of regional innovation. The event coincided with half a million people – many of them aged under 16, including the activist, Greta Thunberg – taking to the streets of the city to call for action to address the climate emergency.

Whilst in Canada, I heard of some ground-breaking studies and policies on local and regional research and innovation processes. Coupled with how science and expertise is shaping public opinion on a theme as substantive as climate change, my visit to Québec re-emphasised to me the importance we should attach to universities building and sustaining effective relationships with local communities and the wider public, as well as business and governments.

Towards a more place-sensitive approach to R&D and innovation investment

19th May 20203rd April 2019

Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

Last week saw the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee hold its final evidence session, as part of the Committee’s inquiry into the ‘balance and effectiveness of R&D expenditure’. In evidence to the Committee, Yorkshire Universities highlighted ten issues that might help government and its agencies create and sustain a more spatially-balanced approach to R&D and innovation activity and investment.

Civic universities and anchor institutions – from rhetoric to reality

19th May 202010th January 2019

Guest blog by Nicky Denison and Les Newby

The debate on the future of universities in the UK is a sculpted fog of opportunity and uncertainty. Higher education (HE) is recognised as central to economic success more than ever before; and, with the growth of universities, there is scope for more people, businesses and communities to connect to the benefits that HE offers. But equally,

YU on the front foot in thinking about future ‘growth’ funding

19th May 202023rd November 2018

Kevin Richardson, Local Academy

Yorkshire Universities (YU) are very much on the front foot, working collaboratively with important local stakeholders, well in advance of the expected consultation on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The new strategic approach of YU is certainly helping members and their partners to prepare for important decisions ahead. Delivered in association with the Local Academy, those attending a recent workshop challenged each other to identify the five biggest challenges ahead;

YU response to the UK2070 inquiry into regional inequalities

19th November 201819th November 2018

The UK2070 Commission is an independent inquiry into city and regional inequalities in the UK. Chaired by Lord Kerslake, it has been set up to conduct a review of the policy and spatial issues related to the UK’s long-term city and regional development. Read YU’s response in full here.

‘Australia’s regional universities…connecting with people and places that others cannot reach’

19th May 202022nd October 2018

Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

Last week I was on the Gold Coast, in Australia, where I was speaking, as a guest of the Australian Regional Universities Network (RUN), at a conference hosted by Southern Cross University to discuss the role of universities in transforming local and regional economies.

‘Beyond Eds and Meds’: Realising the value of place-based university-health partnerships

19th May 20208th October 2018

Dr. Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

As published in the NHS Confederation Local Growth Bulletin on 8 October 2018.

“The advent of the local industrial strategy is placing a renewed focus on ‘place’, encouraging universities and the NHS to work collaboratively to help stimulate sustainable forms of growth and public service transformation. Dr Peter O’Brien, executive director of Yorkshire Universities, explains why this partnership presents a golden opportunity.

Does Yorkshire get a fair deal from the Treasury?

19th May 20207th September 2018

Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

On Tuesday, most children, including my two daughters, went back to school following the summer holidays. The same day, I was at Westminster, where a new term had started for parliamentarians about to embark upon one of the most crucial periods in the UK’s recent history, as the county leaves the European Union at the end of March 2019.

I was in London to attend a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, which had been called to discuss the balance of public investment made by central government in Yorkshire, compared to the rest of the country, and in particular London, and whether Yorkshire receives a ‘fair deal’ from the Treasury.

The value of place-based university collaborations

19th May 202018th July 2018

Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

Yorkshire Universities is something of a unique construct. Formed in 1987, this place-based university collaborative venture has endured despite the periodic upheaval in sub-national economic development governance and planning in England.

At the recent Northern Powerhouse Business Summit, part of the Great Exhibition of the North, the Northern Powerhouse Minister, Jake Berry, launched a new pan-regional governance entity – NP11 – a grouping of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in the north of England, which will be headed initially by the Chair of the Leeds City Region LEP.